Chirict

Vol. III

No. 1

The Annual Dinner

There has been some comment and query in regard to the annual dinner of the Associated Societies, usually on tap for this time of the year.

Some time ago it was borne in on the Executive Committee of the Engineers' Club and the Joint Council of the Association that an election in December is bad business. The new officers, taking hold in January, are up against a hard job in getting started during the busiest time of the year, and there is much delay and confusion. It was agreed, therefore, to submit a number of proposed amendments to the constitution and bylaws, changing the time of election to May and beginning the fiscal year on June 1 instead of January 1. It happens that meeting dates have been so placed as to make submission of these amendments impracticable. They will be along in due time.

With the proposed changes in prospect, it is planned to hold the annual dinner in the merry month of May or thereabout and provision is made for the present highly efficient administration to Fold over until that time.

The Journal Resolves

For two years now we have conducted our Journal in its modified form. During that period we have endeavored to arrive at some conclusions as to what our membership really wanted in the way of a publication. We have asked, editorially, for comment. We have driven

members into corners and demanded of them, face to face, what they thought about it. Expression has been varied and interesting and many of the suggestions have been "tried on the dog".

The average of opinion seems to support a publication leaning more to the "bulletin" class than to the more dignified and highbrow "journal". Abstracting articles instead of printing them in full finds favor with many. It is considered highly desirable that the publication pay its own way. It is the popular thought that the Journal should stress items of interest to St. Louis engineers, including reference to their personal activities. A limited amount of persiflage is generally approved.

So now we have the thing pretty well crystallized. For 1924 we shall limit ourselves to sixteen pages unless there is a marked and acceptable increase in advertising. (We have averaged twenty pages for the past two years.) We shall make a strenuous effort to extract from our membership and from unprotected visitors, a sufficient number of articles to permit of filling the available space with abstracts-the fewer the longer. We shall pay particular attention to engineering matters in and about St. Louis.

To this end we solicit help. We ask the secretaries of the associated societies to place the editor on their mailing lists to receive notices of all local activities. We ask the individual members to advise us of matters of personal interest. We