Editorial
Tobias W. Spanner, Tizianstr. 44, 80638 München,
Germany
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You might have begun to wonder if Chamaerops had
vanished since you have not received a new issue for such a long
time; but, we are not gone . . . yet. I am very thankful to the
vast majority of our members, who have been so patient while the
EPS steers though difficult waters. We apologize for the delay,
and would like to fill you in on the current status of Chamaerops,
and, indeed, the entire European Palm Society.
For most of its more than ten year history, the
EPS was run by Martin Gibbons, who acted as editor of Chamaerops,
putting together issues four times a year almost single-handedly,
and by Tony King, who served in the much under-appreciated position
of membership organizer and treasurer. While Chamaerops always had
a tendency to be a little late (good things need time), over the
last few years more and more time has lapsed between issues. As
you can imagine after such a long stint, Martin was running out
of steam, and was just too busy with his own business. I jumped
in temporarily to act as the editor-in-chief to help get the magazine
back to a more punctual schedule. After issue 41 was out and issue
42 was halfway done, Martin felt he would be able to resume his
old position. Within a few weeks, however, some drastic changes
made it necessary for Martin to devote more time to his business
than ever before. Due to the many delays with production and printing,
issue 42 did not come out until this spring. Luckily, at this time,
member David Poole was taken aboard as the new editor, and was sent
all the material that had been gathered for issue 43. When several
months had elapsed and no issue was produced, we discovered that
David had become seriously ill and could no longer do any work for
the EPS. Now totally without an editor, and with Martin freshly
married and increasingly busy with his own business, all the materials
were sent back to me. After sorting, editing, and arranging all
the articles that had accumulated by this time, we were able to
bring out two complete issues with lots of great articles. To catch
up a little we decided to combine them into this large double issue
#43/44. How the EPS will continue after this issue, though, I do
not know.
While we have professionals to do the editing, layout
and production, and of course the printing and mailing, we really
need volunteers to help with the unthankful administrative work,
and, most of all, an editor with enough enthusiasm, ideas, spare
time, knowledge of palms, and a computer, to bring it all together
and get Chamaerops back on track. In addition, we need articles.
We need lots of articles, from all of our members, on palms, cycads,
bananas, or whatever exotic plants are your favourite at the moment.
I hope our members remember that Chamaerops is not a commercial
but a plant society magazine, and thus lives only through the participation
of its members. While were proud to have grown so large, the
number of contributors has not increased with the increase in membership.
If we cannot find enough members willing to spend some of their
spare time involved in the EPS, it will not be able to continue
in its current form.
There are other options. We could consider going
commercial, with a paid editor organizing the production and sales
of Chamaerops and fees paid to authors for professional articles,
but this would certainly raise membership fees dramatically. Another
option is to join forces with the Pacific Northwest Palm & Exotic
Plant Society in the US and Canada, who have a very similar climate
to western Europe and publish lots of articles on the same topics,
and who have already expressed interest in joining our membership
to theirs. This, of course, would change the face of the EPS, making
it more international. The last resort is to wind it all up, which,
we can all agree, would be a great shame.
In the past, decisions in the EPS were made by only
a few. In the future, we will need more input from all of you, and
I hope to receive lots of comments, suggestions, and help, in order
to give back to the EPS the vitality it used to have.

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