Round Robins - are they still going/who organised them last?

[Chris L]

Does anyone know if the Round Robin's are still functioning.....

and/or

....who was the last person to be in charge of organising them?

Info gratefully received, please, if known.

Thanks.

[Tina]

no they aren't.
was it James gold ?.

[el48tel]

What did these do?
And would we benefit from their resurrection?

[Rob]

I think our very own MikeT could have been the last overseer of the Robins.

[Phil_SK]

From the BoT minutes, Feb 2020:
5.4 Robins
• as there were no Robins currently active and little prospect of any being revived GEV proposed terminating them Decision: agreed AP 20/13: GEV to write to Mike Thewles confirming termination of the Robins and thanking him for his contribution

[MikeT]

I think our very own MikeT could have been the last overseer of the Robins.

Correct, Rob

From the BoT minutes, Feb 2020:
5.4 Robins
• as there were no Robins currently active and little prospect of any being revived GEV proposed terminating them Decision: agreed AP 20/13: GEV to write to Mike Thewles confirming termination of the Robins and thanking him for his contribution

Indeed, the December 2020 CactusWorld contained the folowing:

I think the words "into the ground" might be missing between "these" and "over"

[Chris L]

Thanks for the info every one.

MikeT I've sent a PM.

[Chris L]

What did these do?
And would we benefit from their resurrection?

They were letters written between a group of people and they went round each in turn. You put a letter in and took out the one you wrote last time and everyone got to see everyone else's letters.

It was OK when postage was fairly cheap for a big envelope, but now it would cost a bomb when it could be sent for free via emails/PDFs or file sharing.

There must have been a dozen or more going in their heyday - various topics specific cacti/succulent genera, seed raising, hardy plants etc.

[el48tel]

Thanks Chris
I see that the various guises of the different varieties of social media including this forum have probably taken over its role.
But with real names and real addresses exposed, you would not get the abuse and pointless contributions we sometimes see here.

[Davey246]

They MUST have come and gone more than once.
I contributed/was a member of at least 3 from their very beginning (run by a lady from around Camberley?????? Pemberton????) and they basically just stopped appearing in the post here while I was still a member - those must have stopped 15 years ago as a minimum. A major reason for them disappearing was people dropping out when they had the file with them and not passing on any or all of the contributions.

I'd bet that postage then was actually more expensive then than now, allowing for inflation.

I am astonished that they made it to 2020 - round robins were a common enough form of communication until the www and forums, but since............................