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Dear Fellow Shipwrights,

 

In the next few days most if not all of you will receive word that ( SIBAA ), The Ships In Bottles Association of America

due to a downturn in receiving membership content for our journal The Bottle Shipwright, unpaid membership dues and the ever increasing costs of doing business had no viable alternative after thirty five years but to end publication. The last and only ship in bottle association here in The United States.

 

To those of you who were members..... Thank You !!

 

 

David Lavoie President / Membership Chairman SIBAA

Edited by Bottleneck Treasures
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Hi David,  

 

This is sad news for sure.  The association was my first real contact with other ships in bottles builders way back in the 80's.  It was a valuable resource to many. Thanks go to you, to Terry Butler, to Don Hubbard, and the many who worked to keep the association an avenue of information about our craft.    

 

Gwyl

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Sad news, indeed.

 

What will become of the web site and its contents?  And the BSB archive of past editions.  It would even more sad if they were to be lost (poof!) forever.  The DVDs afford one route to preservation.  Anyone know of a 'white knight' preservationist - person, group, agency, firm, etc. - who could/would undertake preservation works?

 

Mike Graff

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I concur very sad news   :( however there is an alternative. Years ago when I contributed to writing regularly to the Lone Warrior journal we started running into the same issue with the cost of printing journals and mailing them out. The latter BTW was a ton of work and I echo Gwyl's comment "hats off to yourself David, Terry Butler, Don Hubbard, and the many who worked to keep the association an avenue of information about our craft."

 

We decided to go digital for the Lone Warrior Journal. We decided it was best to just send it out in a email PDF format with a greatly reduced cost to the membership.  How ever you decide to move forward I wholly support your decision one way or the other. Do you know if there will be at least one more hard-copy edition going out?

 

I think Mike has a great idea about preserving all of the journals. Q.. could we keep the SIBAA website going and link it here to the bottled ship builder site to keep the craft alive.

Thoughts?

 

Jeff

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I concur very sad news   :( however there is an alternative. Years ago when I contributed to writing regularly to the Lone Warrior journal we started running into the same issue with the cost of printing journals and mailing them out. The latter BTW was a ton of work and I echo Gwyl's comment "hats off to yourself David, Terry Butler, Don Hubbard, and the many who worked to keep the association an avenue of information about our craft."

 

We decided to go digital for the Lone Warrior Journal. We decided it was best to just send it out in a email PDF format with a greatly reduced cost to the membership.  How ever you decide to move forward I wholly support your decision one way or the other. Do you know if there will be at least one more hard-copy edition going out?

 

I think Mike has a great idea about preserving all of the journals. Q.. could we keep the SIBAA website going and link it here to the bottled ship builder site to keep the craft alive.

Thoughts?

 

Jeff

Jeff,

 

Unfortunately no other issues of The Bottle Shipwright will be published. In fact it was becoming a struggle for our Editor Terry Butler to format

an issue as we saw a decline in members wanting to share their ship in bottle projects. Whether this was due to the aging of our membership or

shipwrights not yet ready to share their work as I stated in previous issues The Bottle Shipwright was " their " journal and without content to

publish we see what happens. Of course other factors played a role too. The increase in costs and the decline in members paying their dues

some of which went three to six months delinquent. 

Publicly stating the demise of SIBAA just a couple of days ago has generated much interest in shipwrights inquiring about the journal on CD. 

It's unfortunate that the inquiries are being received now instead of when SIBAA was active.

 

It's no easy feat to operate a non profit and publish a quarterly journal. All the officers were dedicated volunteers spread out over six states,

committed to offering their time and energy for an organization they truly cherished. I will take a moment here to thank each and every one

of them again for all their hard work.

Over the years I have received many comments about the quality of the journal, it received high praise and many positive comments. All due in part mostly to Terry Butler who on occasion struggled for content but always managed to raise the bar and surprise us all. I really don't think people

realized how much time she committed to each issue and the sacrifices she made.

 

I do however want to give a huge THANK YOU to those members who sent in donations along with their yearly membership dues. Those folks

truly understood the undertaking and dedication it takes to publish a quarterly journal. Thank you for believing in us. Your short enclosed notes

and donations made it so worth while.

 

It is sad when any publication ends but even further when it's the only publication here in The United States dedicated to the rare art

of building ships in bottles.

 

David Lavoie

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It is very sad and I will miss the journal a lot. I do think though that we can start a pdf version to be emailed out. Membership can be free and would consist of who ever wanted to receive the email. The emailed pdf may not be as extensive as the journal was but I think there is just enough interest to keep it going. I think Terry is burned out with it. She has put in alot of work in the past years and she deserves our gratitude. I think some one can step up though to take over the journal in its new pdf format. Usually it's the one with the idea and if that's me then OK. I've done my own blog for sometime and I'm familiar with formating, editing and what have you. If its favorable to the association I propose we email out a pdf of a smaller but still interesting pdf newsletter. Members can still contribute and we would have no dues. We've stuck it out for 34 years and I do think there's an up and coming generation of ship in bottle builders how ever small it would be a shame to stop now.

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It is very sad and I will miss the journal a lot. I do think though that we can start a pdf version to be emailed out. Membership can be free and would consist of who ever wanted to receive the email. The emailed pdf may not be as extensive as the journal was but I think there is just enough interest to keep it going. I think Terry is burned out with it. She has put in alot of work in the past years and she deserves our gratitude. I think some one can step up though to take over the journal in its new pdf format. Usually it's the one with the idea and if that's me then OK. I've done my own blog for sometime and I'm familiar with formating, editing and what have you. If its favorable to the association I propose we email out a pdf of a smaller but still interesting pdf newsletter. Members can still contribute and we would have no dues. We've stuck it out for 34 years and I do think there's an up and coming generation of ship in bottle builders how ever small it would be a shame to stop now.

 

Daniel,  you would definitely have a platform here to publish and keep archive at.

 

Gwyl

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I gave it a lot of thought and talked it over with my wife.  Honestly... it's time to let it go.  The future of the ship in bottle building community is this website.  If I'm going to put an effort into promoting the ship in bottle community it should be here. I really hate to see SIBAA go it's meant a lot to me.  They helped me get into and learn almost everything I know now about ship in bottle building.  This very website is an extension of the yahoo forum that SIBAA members started.  I've gotten complacent and haven't moved those conversations here like I said I would.  I need to fix that.  So any way thank you David and all the leaders of SIBAA for the time and effort you put it.  It was a great organization.  I personally plan to keep what traditions we had going.  For me it will always be called a Hinkley hinge after Jack Hinkley co founder of SIBAA and on October 4th I will be wishing all of you a happy ship in bottle day.  

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There is a way it can be done with very little stress or expense!  

Some time ago, I registered with http://www.payhip.com/  Registration is free of charge!       You can put downloads on it, and are supplied with a download link that you can put on blogs or forums etc.      Anyone clicking on the download link can read the synopsis of the article without any obligation to pay.    If they decided to go ahead with the article, a Paypal button is provided.    As soon as payment is made, the customer receives an automatic download link to obtain the article that can be short or long as up to 5gb space is allowed!       Payhip takes 5% commission, and the rest goes automatically into your Paypal account.

I have been using this system for some time now, and it works very well.

You can put whatever price you want on your downloads, or even offer them free of charge!

For example, here is a link for one of my FREE downloads, the building of the barque East African, to let you test the system fully at no cost!

http://payhip.com/b/aFVM

The complete 13-page build log of the East African is contained in it, and it is a FREE download!     Most of the content, I have already posted here on Bottled Ships in the Build Logs section.     So far, the synopsis has been viewed 177 times, but only 53 downloads have been requested, which shows how interest in anything like this is declining!        I have included download links in it to my other articles and e-books on the subject of miniature shipmodelling for nominal costs of between £1.49 and £8 each.        I believe this would be a profitable and simple way forward for your journal.

Bob

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Bob's idea is pretty good. I tried the payhip.com link and I had his article in about 25 seconds. A slick system to say the least. I think we should all take a big breath and do some thinking and praying about all that has transpired. I agree it would be a shame to see SIBAA dissolve totally. If the executive is in agreement maybe everything slowly migrates over here and we fly the SIBAA banner on this site. I also think someone should write a tribute article about Mr. Hubbard and all that has been accomplished.

 

It would be really great if all of the journals could be archived on this site as well. The payhip process could generate some revenue to help with the upkeep here.

Thoughts?

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Yes Jeff,

It is a fantastic system.     The beauty of it is that it doesn't take long to put the download on, five or ten minutes.   Then you can forget about it.    When a download goes, you receive an e-mail advice from Payhip.    Being fully automatic, it doesn't burden you with any extra work.      For a journal such as mentioned above, it is ideal because there is no need to post anything, or send e-mails and, if the customer doesn't want it after reading the free synopsis, they just walk away and no-one's time is wasted.    As you say, it would also fetch in a revenue for the person doing it!     The 5% commission to Payhip is very reasonable as well!

Bob    

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Sad news indeed. As I have mentioned before, I am the archivist for The European Association of Ships In Bottles (http://www.shipinabottle.talktalk.net) or EASIB. 

We have had links with SIBAA over the years and see them as our sister organisation, and I can sympathise with the organisers.

 

I don't think anyone who has not been involved in the production of a club magazine, or looking after membership, fees, etc really understands how much work it takes, and I personally take my hat off to those who devote their time to this (I'm not involved in this part of EASIB).

 

Due to the hard work of a few in EASIB, our quarterly magazine Bottleship, is still published, (e-copy for those who want it), and we have a bi- annual convention. There are some back copies of Bottleship available, and I am currently slowly scanning all we have into PDF so that it can be made available to the wider audience. There is a wealth of history and 'how to's' in it. I'll post details when done.

 

Best to all

 

Alan

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  • Gwyl Blaser unpinned this topic
  • 3 years later...
On 5/3/2016 at 11:28 PM, Shipbuilder said:

There is a way it can be done with very little stress or expense!  

Some time ago, I registered with http://www.payhip.com/  Registration is free of charge!       You can put downloads on it, and are supplied with a download link that you can put on blogs or forums etc.      Anyone clicking on the download link can read the synopsis of the article without any obligation to pay.    If they decided to go ahead with the article, a Paypal button is provided.    As soon as payment is made, the customer receives an automatic download link to obtain the article that can be short or long as up to 5gb space is allowed!       Payhip takes 5% commission, and the rest goes automatically into your Paypal account.

I have been using this system for some time now, and it works very well.

You can put whatever price you want on your downloads, or even offer them free of charge!

For example, here is a link for one of my FREE downloads, the building of the barque East African, to let you test the system fully at no cost!

http://payhip.com/b/aFVM

The complete 13-page build log of the East African is contained in it, and it is a FREE download!     Most of the content, I have already posted here on Bottled Ships in the Build Logs section.     So far, the synopsis has been viewed 177 times, but only 53 downloads have been requested, which shows how interest in anything like this is declining!        I have included download links in it to my other articles and e-books on the subject of miniature shipmodelling for nominal costs of between £1.49 and £8 each.        I believe this would be a profitable and simple way forward for your journal.

Bob

I click on the link and only sends me to my account page. I don't see anything that leads me to downloads. I would be purchasing some but my brain hurts.

I need help

 

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