Letter From the Editor

With this being the last issue of the term I’d like to say a big thanks to everyone who helped out make The Iron Warrior possible this term. Without all the help and dedication we got, we never would have been able to make it. Thanks! Check out my IW Staff Appreciation article below this one for more details.
Since taking over the helm of The Iron Warrior, I’ve discovered that there are a lot of common misconceptions about how we operate, and what we actually do. I figured I’d take the chance to try and clear some of them up before everyone heads off on to work term.
We Receive Student FundingThis is probably the biggest misconception of all. Imprint receives $3.30 from every student on campus (which is refundable). MathNEWS receives $5.50 from every math student (which I believe is refundable). The Iron Warrior receives nada. That’s right- we’re actually free! Because of this fact, you cannot get your Iron Warrior fee refunded at the beginning of term, no matter how hard you try. PLEASE STOP COMING TO OUR DOOR AND ASKING!
The Iron Warrior operates primarily on funding we receive through advertising, unlike the other student media outlets on campus. In all honesty, it’s a crappy model to survive on since we become extremely strained during economic downturns, such as this past term where we lost a large number of co-op advertisements. In addition, past advertisers, such as Campus Housing, cut back significantly on the size and number of ads they ran. Since we’re not the primary newspaper on campus (damn you Imprint!), we often lose a large number of off-campus advertisers to them since they’ve got the larger distribution area.
Even though we get most of our operating expenses through advertising, we are also extremely reliant on the Waterloo Engineering Endowment Fund (WEEF) to fund our capital expenses. If you ever question the value of WEEF, just realize that The Iron Warrior as it exists today wouldn’t be here without them. WEEF stickers are on everything in our office, from our computers and monitors to our camera and voice recorder. Without the existence of WEEF, and students’ continued support, there’d be no way for us to have adapted to the digital age way back when.
The Editor-in-Chief/Staff Get PaidHA! We wish! If you do want to thank us for our hard work this term, I think we’d all be more than willing to go out for a beer on you! 🙂
We Make Up Terms for People on Co-opWhile most of you are probably use to the XN & XT designations now, I have to realize that a large number of people on campus are not familiar with the designations we use. Basically, the way it works is that the co-op term AFTER your #A term is your #N term, while the coop term after your #B term is your #T term. So for example:
2A (school), 2N (coop), 2B (school), 2T (coop), 3A (school). Make sense?
Why do we use N & T? I have no idea but it’s just the convention from years past and like every random sign convention in PHYS 115 & 125, we just stick to it.
You Need Experience to VolunteerWhile experience is an asset, we’re more than willing to provide enough training for you to take on a role. While we primarily need writers, we also are in need of photographers, copyeditors, webmasters and layout people. We were fortunate enough to have had a large number of frosh fill these roles this past term but since most are 8-Stream and switching over to A-Soc, a lot of the talent and dedication will be departing. That means more roles to fill!
If you are interested in volunteering, send us an e-mail at the beginning of Spring term and we can give you more details, or just stop by the office anytime.
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With my final bit of column space left I’d like to take a chance to reflect back over these past five issues and the journey roller coaster ride that it has been.
I think the biggest challenge I’ve faced this term is the rising cost of publishing. The costs have jumped 10% to 50% depending on the issue size which meant more costs to cover. Thanks to additional advertising from the Engineering Society and the Dean’s Office we’ve been able to cover most of these unexpected costs but money has always been a major concern of mine. I wasn’t able to follow through on a large number of layout changes I had planned for this term which is unfortunate, but I’ll try to incorporate these changes in future terms when we’re in a better position.
I think Frosh Recruitment was something that went very well this term. Like Engineering Society itself, we had a HUGE number of extremely dedicated and involved frosh come out to our meetings, submit articles, and help with production. I hope that this will help to establish a strong foundation of the future EIC’s who will be able to come to the table with awesome ideas for revamping us and directing us in the right direction.
One other thing I think we did well was getting a diverse range of content. A major constraint on this though had to be the financial situation. There were times when we should have increased our issue another four pages, but due to the fact that another four pages means an extra $300, we just couldn’t justify it. As a result, a large amount of content did end up getting pushed back an issue, or worst of all, getting cut entirely. This is also a biggest regret of mine since I believe that if people can take the time to write an article that’s at the university level then it deserves to get published. My motto this term was “We publish (almost) anything”, and while I tried to live by it, I ultimately was faced by real world constraints that limited this.
Overall, I hope that you enjoyed The Iron Warrior this past time. I’d just like to thank everyone again who helped out this term. I’ve had a fun, albeit stressful, time being your EIC these past three months. I’m sure that Amrita Yasin will do a fabulous job of keeping everyone informed this upcoming winter term.
This isn’t goodbye, just see you later…