Third Quarter Arrow and mailing

[NW Modeling List]

Hello All

I hope everyone is having a safe summer.

I know that not all on the list are members of N&WHS, but if you are not, you are truly missing out and should join now. Besides supporting the society and keeping us going. You can learn a lot. The next issue, No. 3 for 2020 is great (if I do say so myself!) issue of the Arrow. I just got the extra magazines from the printer about noon today. This will be the second 48 page issue this year. Now, you all may not realize it, but normally, we are only doing one 48 page issue a year, and that is all that is budgeted for.

This issue features Glenn Fisher’s look at the Radford Division, another part of Tom Salmon’s tremendous research piece on the beginnings of the Virginian. This issue was almost a 64 page issue, but after laying it out, I felt the piece on the N&W in World War II by Bud Jefferies was a stand alone issue and sent Bud’s corrections back to him last night, and so it will become Issue 4 of 2020.

As a reminder, we send out renewal notices via email, usually twice in the six weeks before your membership is due to expire, then we will send a renewal card (or letter for overseas). PLEASE note your label with the upcoming Arrow issue, if your membership expires, there is a notice there, We have a number who expired at the end of June, we are going to send the Arrow to you this last time, perhaps you missed the cards and emails, but this is the final notice. 

About the mailing itself. Since June, we have been experiencing MANY more issues with the Postal Service and we know of no solution to those issues, as we are doing our part right. We are still awaiting a package of commissary items that was shipped from Rock Hill SC on 8/10. It is last tracked to Charlotte, NC on 8/11 and no tracking since. Rock Hill can be driven to from Roanoke less than 4 hours, even with delays.

Your magazine should be going in the mail in the next day or two. We try to ship Commissary items within a week of receiving them, sometimes sooner, but most in stock items go out within a few business days. 

Another example of mailing, we received an order for an 8x10 print on 6/17, the print was ordered and shipped on 6/26. We ship almost everything with tracking numbers. On July 17, our customer emailed wondering when to expect his order. His address was suburban Richmond, VA, which should mean it goes from Roanoke to Greensboro to Richmond. 

I went and tracked the order, it showed scanned at the post office on 6/26, the next scan was at a mailing center in Texas on July 6, then two days later at another mail center in Texas. I ordered another print and had it ready to go, then tracked it one more time, it showed it was scanned in Richmond about an hour before, this was July 17th. So it showed delivered on July 18. Almost a month to go 200 miles.

We had another order go out twice, and both times was returned, with the correct address, but marked addressee unknown, fortunately, the member managed to catch it at the post office before it was returned.

The same thing has happened with our order of face masks, which arrived at the Roanoke post office on Friday, was put in the pick up locker, then on Saturday, returned to the sender with moved, no forwarding address noted. This was to our box, which we have had for many years.

So, the advice here, be prepared for postal delays, and if you have ordered an item, and it has not arrived, please get in touch with us if it is not in your hands within a month, we will track it, and let you know what is going on. 

Please be sure we have the correct US Postal Service address in our records, certain addresses do not show up in the USPS database, so please check yours on the USPS website at:

https://tools.usps.com/go/zip-code-lookup.htm

You can look up your address by Zip code and make sure it is a valid address. I had one person insist the persons address was correct, that Amazon delivered packages to them, but that is not necessarily a correct postal address, as it turns out, their address was incorrect, and US Mail did not go there. But by checking it via the USPS website, I determined that they simply did not deliver there.

We want your magazines and orders to get to you, but you have to help us out, please be sure to type your email address and mailing address correctly when you order something. The system will send you an acknowledgement of the order, if you do not get such within a day, it likely means something in your email is not correct or it may be in your junk mail.

It is not necessary to report delivery of the Arrow to the list.

Best
Ken Miller
Editor