There is a bug in your Addressing that can ruin you.
Central Orgs are currently expected to have and use heavy duty metal plate addressing equipment.
City Offices may use silk screen stencils and automatic feed addressing machines.
There is one huge bug in the heavy duty equipment as its company has salesmen who run down the automatic feed system "as not worth while for mere 5,000 piece runs." These salesmen tell Addressograph operators in our orgs this contrary to every principle of their own company and our best interests.
It takes a couple of days of hard work for our staffs to hand feed one of these big machines 5,000 pieces. The automatic feeder does it in a few minutes.
Unknown to Org Secs and Assn Secs we are consistently knocked into a false proceeding by these salesmen. They do it to us all over the world. They tell our Address-in-Charge that the automatic feed "takes longer to set up than it does to run it all by hand." This is then told to the Org Sec or Assn Sec and the automatic feed is abandoned. Thereafter you can't get rapid addressing done and everybody fights against furnishing cards or addresses to anyone because it is too much work. Of course it is, by hand.
Our Addressograph operators must learn:
If you don't take care of this bug and keep it cared for, this whole programme will break down.
One solution is to make it mandatory that any call at the org by an Addressograph representative be reported at once to the Assoc/Org Sec so the representative can't mess us up.
Another is to junk Addressograph and get other equipment that can be fed by machine rapidly.
If I sound strong on the point, remember, I've fought this same bug on every continent and it is a primary reason for unit decline. The work of addressing is then so great, the staff (a) lessens the number of mags to be sent, and (b) retires too many names too fast from the lists.
So in getting this programme in, realize the frailty and bottle-neck character of addressing equipment and the psychosis of the largest addressing company. A smaller silk screen machine with an automatic feed will address more envelopes or cards than a large machine if a representative keeps getting your staff sour about using automatic feed. Hand fed rubber stamps would be almost as fast as a big machine which is being stopped by its own company.
One of these characters from Addressograph turned up here at Saint Hill only a few days ago. And you know what he told the Address Unit? "You shouldn't use an automatic feed. It's for 60,000 piece mailings. Feed it by hand for the small number you've got." And there went your "Auditor". I heard a ripple on the line and investigated and sure enough our equipment was about to be stopped.
So any automatic addressing equipment that has individual plates and will automatically feed swiftly is to be used. And any org with equipment which has to be hand fed one piece at a time for any reason, should get other equipment.
I've seen a trained addressing operator set up an automatic feed in three minutes and run all the addresses in the place off in one hour.
And only that kind of equipment and operation will make this project work. For this project will only break down where addressing becomes too long and too laborious for a staff to confront.
Silk screen stencils may be re-silked at a very low cost, a fact not well known. So any org starting out this project or having to re-do the whole list from invoices does not have to buy heavy plate Addressograph equipment but should seek some other make, whether plate or screen, that can do a fast, effective job.
Those orgs with huge stacks of metal plates and Addressograph equipment should do all possible to get their machines into full automatic operation and put a sign on the wall: "To the Addressograph Representative: Yes, we know small lots like ours should be hand fed. However, we use automatic feed because we're Martians."