Hello again faithful readers! Hope you’re ready for your exams, or to finish your work term, or to read this paper of course. Thank you for reading the paper, as always.
I hope this editorial is as enjoyable to read as my others, which I hope were enjoyable in some form. I heard much about my last one, which I wrote in a comatose-state on a Monday morning, which just goes to show you, you don’t have to do them super early to write something people like, which is how I’m excusing myself for writing this one late.
The Tin Soldier can be found in the back half, since we felt the 6 pages of content we had was about right enough to fit everything we wanted in, but not stretch it too far. I hope you get a few laughs out of it!
There are a few things I’ve tried doing this term to improve the paper and bring some freshness to it. The big font changes I did in one of the earlier issues was one of the design changes I felt was good to bring a consistent design to the paper. I have redone some of our templates and after I am done with this issue I will be making a transition document that will rock everyone’s socks off. Farzi will be the first test of such sock rocking.
The circulation has been a funny one, since some weeks have racks with bizarrely high popularity, which then taper off to almost nothing in future weeks. The reasons for this could be almost anything, but the paper has been making it out to racks as soon as we can get them up. While I still have a bit more to say before I get too into thanking people, I would like to thank Cody Shaw for going out to every single rack in the few days before the paper is released. His level of dedication is impressive and it has helped me a lot in getting the circulation done on time. You’ve had to do more than most circulation managers have, but you’ve done an excellent job!
The website was something I was hoping Nan and I could completely revamp this term, but having picked one of the worst academic terms to be an editor, and her being in my class sharing the pain, I resorted to my everyday duties. Much as Jon continued working on the archiving past the end of his term, I’m hoping to pick up the website as a pet project of mine that I would like to finish overhauling in Farzi’s term ideally.
We’ve had a few more columns come in this term, whcih I’m excited about having. Leafy Thoughts, from Nina Feng, 1B Environmental, has been a good start at getting some more environmentally oriented articles in the paper. From Book to Movie, from Jon Martin, 4A Civil, has been a great counterpart to our other entertainment-related articles this term. Thanks to the both of you for your initiative in starting these great columns!
I’ve also been working with Engineers Without Borders to give them a more prominent role in the paper, in exchange for them submitting regular, thoughtful content. This is one of the ways I wanted to branch out to different engineering students who may not just hold an interest in EngSoc events, as great as they are. The Longer Trail, which is a digest of the blogs from Waterloo’s current chapter Junior Fellow Jimmy Ehrman, has been a great addition to the paper. Thanks to Jimmy, and to Rob Reid, EWB’s Research Team Lead, who brought very thoughtful submissions.
Mary Bland, the wonderful business manager, for all her financial assistance this term and for helping me out with administrative tasks. You’re awesome, Mary! Thanks so much!
I’d like to move on to thanking the rest Iron Warrior family for their contributions this term. Our champion copy editors, who usually consist of Hannah Higgins, Kevin Veloso and Nancy Hui, are superb and I’m glad I could count on you to get things edited on time. Suril Shah and Nikhil Joy have been two great newcomers, Suril with his expert layout knowledge and Nikhil with his fun article submissions. The 2014 nanos on a whole have been great at getting content in, and I’m glad to have had their (typically humourous) submissions and help. Noah MacCallum, one of my classmates and an all-around cool guy if you meet him, has had these amazing out-of-left-field articles that I have heard lots of great feedback on. Thanks to all my other staff writers and our contributors who have helped out a lot this term!
I’d like to extend a special thanks to a few of my classmates and friends, who in addition to helping out in their own way have kept me sane for the most part this term. Daniel Osorio has had great submissions in his Unsung Heroes column and keeping me upbeat all term, Emily Gruber got these huge bursts of ads and made sure I got out in the evenings instead of just staying holed up working on the paper all night, Nan Huang helped me out with the social media work and was down to help all the time, and Zac Young came in a few weekends to give me some much needed help, let me bounce ideas off him and spent countless hours working on stuff with me on campus for The Iron Warrior or for school. I only have so many words to express my gratitude, but the four of you have easily deserved a great deal of it. Thanks for being some of the best support I’ve had this term! I’m so lucky to have you as some of my best friends and fellow nanos!
Every term, we give out two awards: the Iron Pen Award, which goes to the staff member who publishes the most content in the term, and the Editor’s Award, for members who show great dedication and contribution to the newspaper.
Starting with the Iron Pen Award, two writers in particular really pulled ahead with how much they could write, and right until the last couple issues it was pretty close between Jon Martin and Nancy Hui. It seems like civil engineers have lots of time to write articles in their spare time! In the end, this award went to Nancy Hui, who wrote 11,684 words this term. She also had the highest quantity of articles, submitting sixteen to the paper over the last five issues. Thanks Nancy for all your submissions!
While there are many people who helped me out greatly this term, two writers in particular stood out in such a way that I would arguably have been unable to complete my duties with such timeliness without them. The first Editor’s Award this term goes to Hannah Higgins. Even though you chuck old Imprints at me when I’m being annoying (good thing I hid the softball), you came to every production weekend and stayed well past when I was expecting. You took the Point Counterpoints I threw at you like a champ and copy edited almost all the articles we published this term. You’re only entering 2A next term and I would be here until publishing time if I didn’t have your help each weekend. Thank you so much for coming in!
The second Editor’s Award goes to Jon Martin, who was EIC for the previous fall term. While I’m sure most people would have unfriended me from Facebook, changed phone numbers and avoided campus with the number of times I needed help at the start of the term, you answered my questions helpfully and made sure I knew what I was supposed to do before I would go complete my tasks. Your help in getting the archiving done and helping me get a good start going this term was invaluable. Thanks for taking time out of your FYDP sessions to answer my last- minute questions and to act as the rational weight to some of my lofty ideas. Good luck finishing fourth-year, you’re almost done!
For the winter term, outgoing VP Inter- nal Andrew Fisher will be the new Editor-in-Chief. Andrew, I’m incredibly confident you’re going to do an amazing job. Having seen how smoothly you have managed your portfolio in EngSoc, I’m sure you will keep the paper operating in prime shape and, as always, you are welcome to ask for help, advice, or just chat out things if you need it. Best of luck!
Speaking of future editors, I’d like to thank Farzi Yusufali for being a more involved off- stream editor this term and keeping me on task. I hope your fall term goes well; I’ll be sure to pester you as much as you have, for your sake of course.
As a final note, thanks to everyone who helped me out in any other way this term! Especially my mom, who would point out spelling mistakes in my already published is- sues and tell me the paper had been offline for a week and a half. I’m glad you and the rest of my family read the articles we publish and give me kind words of encouragement, and understand why I haven’t been home this term.
I hope everyone who has been reading this term found our articles insightful, interesting, funny, and/or thought-provoking. 111,000 words on 96 pages from 57 contributors over the last 4 months, put into a total of 10000 copies distributed to 30 racks. The Iron Warrior may feel small at the meetings, but there are may who play a part in putting it together. It has been a tough, yet great, term as Editor-in-Chief, and I’m incredibly thankful for the opportunity to get this experience. If you have any questions or comments, or just want to chat, send me an email at iwarrior@engmail.uwaterloo.ca, or send a message to our Twitter at @TheIronWarrior, or to our Facebook at facebook.com/TheIronWarrior. I love hearing from you 😀
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