bout de papier, Vol. 7, No. 3 (1990), p. 2
bout has come a long way since it first emerged as a gestetnered information bulletin back in 1973. bout is continuing to evolve in an effort to continue to meet the changing interests of the PAFSO membership — both our internal concerns, but also our interest in projecting an honest image of the professional life of the foreign service to the public beyond External Affairs.
There is a substantial constituency in Canada which is interested in foreign policy and foreign service — witness the amount of press, both good and bad, devoted to the Department’s response to current foreign events, political appointments to the foreign service and foreign policy in general. The bout Editorial Board has been making efforts to tap this constituency to generate a better understanding of and support for the foreign service. Our circulation outside the ranks of the foreign service has steadily increased over recent years, and some of you have no doubt noticed that bout is now available on select newsstands — across Canada and including in Mirabel Airport.
At a recent evening “think-in”. ’, the Editorial Board took a break from our usual harried production schedule to consider the longterm future of bout and to consider changes to the current editorial policy and format. Our first “think-in” was only the beginning of looking at ways to make bout more responsive to the interests of PAFSO members, to reduce our costs to PAFSO, to increase our circulation, to improve our advertising, to attract more french articles etc. You will notice in this issue that there have already been some changes — the format of our contents page has changed and Good and Faithful Servants has been transformed into an In Memoriam column. And, in this issue only, I have given up some of my usual space in order to allow Margaret Huber to report on the very successful Professional Committee Seminar. Watch in future issues for a new humour column.
It is said that a good poem is never finished, it is merely abandoned. I would like to think that we will never finish bout, and that we will never abandon it. We will continue to work to make it ever better. But in order to keep bout responsive to the PAFSO membership, we need to know what you think. Please write to tell us what would you like and what should be changed, deleted or added.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 7, No. 3 (1990), p. 2. Read the rest of this issue →
