This is a fascinating discussion so I wanted to add my 2 cents.
On one hand I think it is important to support our national fraternity (Raymond) because like it or not they represent us. However on the other hand I also feel lied to about the C&C "trust fund" as I am sure many alumni will feel about it when they see they dont get one anymore (Lifesaver).
Let me express my middle road concern
CONSISTENCY and ATTENTION TO MINUTE DETAIL
Let me explain
3 years ago we got a quarterly C&C of a certain quality, that was consistently on time. Then it went to odd scheduling and the format varied widely with mostly negative response, this was to save money. Then we were told that the people that didnt "give money" or "ask for a subscription" would not receive one, and the format got upgraded again for the last two issues. Last summer I emailed Kip Zurcher to see whatever happened to the bound C&C editions as my chapter didnt have one past 2000 (Mike are you with me here- DAMN COLLECTORS!! I have like 3000 vintage comic books so I hear you when you notice out of sequence events) He informed me that the status of that was "up in the air" then it never happened~ Kip is gone so I assume that is done with forever now with no fanfare to the end of a 90 year tradition that ruled.
Then I started getting these sweet emails from IHQ called "This Week at HQ"- high graphics and detail with insider content for like 6 months, then I didnt get them ever again (dont know how I got it and got on or off the list?). Then we started getting Bill Farkas's emails which were cool this year, now I havent seen one in a month or so (is this gone too?). Then we find out here from Mike Raymond that there is a C&C website and the paper one in all formats is gone. So the C&C saga changed like 6 times in that story mixed in with some emails that came and went as well.
During all that time is when the LCA website has become almost totally irrevant due to content being impossible to find and in some cases wildly out of date. So now I am supposed to believe that ANOTHER website will be maintained with Blogs and such when the "directory chapter listing" for the entire fraternity is a year old at least and my chapter has a High Alpha listed that is 4 years out of school now? I would embrace this more if a consistent plan was being adhered to as well, but since
www.lambdachi.org is such a disappointment I fear that C&C.com will be as well. (also there are TONS of typos in the new pedagogus so I'm doubly scared by that as well)
In closing I will email all of my alumni (370 on the email group) to support the new C&C online from my chapter, and Ill even submit content-heck they put one of my pictures in the first issue that I looked at yesterday. HOWEVER my friends and brothers with the death of this as a printed material websites like this are now the new frontier of LCA print/ideas and news.
Independent Online bulletinboards= Future
I have learned more on this website about LCA than I did from any of the C&C's recently which had become slow out of date "PR pieces" anyway, unlike the glory years of Linn Lightner's incredible older issues. While Im sure some people will respond to the online items there, the love, interest and content on this very bulletinboard has become my "newspaper and editorial" on the day to day operations of real brothers and chapters that had never really been heard from before (why didnt Tom Earp have a quarterly column in the C&C, "Uncle Tom's Attic" or something? What did we do without this guy?). One of the cool things that is here that LCA cannot do is to have argument and dissent. While GammaZeta has pissed alot of you off, he makes me think, and think hard about things that we dont like to talk about. C&C really cant do that, so thanks GZ for being the dissent guy here, we need that, not alot of "yes men" and feel good stuff.
So while guys like Mike Raymond and I cant collect items anymore, we probably are getting more content on this website- so tell a brother to "come home here" if they miss their C&C.
And Ill see you here at the website tommorrow afternoon again guys like I do almost every day around this time with or without my C&C sort of like going to the house after classes to have a beer and shoot a game of pool.
zax
Lenoxxx