Cindy Livingston

Bernie. That is a marvelous post!

lancemb - That would be fantastic! I appreciate anything you can send.

That's so interesting FlatTop! What year did you join the BCA? If you (or if anyone else) finds or remembers anything of interest from the very early BCA days, please contact me at cwldesigns@gmail.com. If all you do is send me an email with a story or memory in it, that's fine. I'd love to keep a log of these memories from members who have been part of the club since the '60s and even early 70s. I have no idea if I'll get the time to do anything with it, but I think it is interesting and worthwhile to somehow have a record of memories from long-time BCA members. Especially with the 50th anniversary coming up, I think this might be of interest to others in the club. Thanks!

Thanks Keith. I know the newsletters are not BCA newsletters, but since that BCCA club is the predecessor of the BCA, the newsletters might be interesting to some of our members and also somewhat historically significant. If they are posted to the website, we'll make sure that it's clear the newsletters are not early BCA newsletters. By the way, for anyone who is interested, Pete wrote an excellent article in the May 2014 issue of the Bugle titled "The Early BCA and It's Predecessor Organization (BCCA)".

Fireball - I'm so excited. I will send the photo to you in email at a higher resolution so it will be easier to see. I'm positive that is Greg and am pretty sure I know the fellow on the left, but not the others.

I would love to scan those newsletters and get them uploaded to the BCA website. If one of you guys would ship me the newsletters, I'll reimburse you for the cost of shipping and I'll be sure to take good care of the newsletters and then send them back to you ASAP. If you are willing, please email me at cwldesigns@gmail.com. Also, I have a photo of some of the very early members - 6 men and two women. I met one of the men last summer in Portland, but having trouble identifying the others. If I can figure out how to upload a photo to this forum site, maybe some of you early members can identify the people in the photo? Thanks, Cindy

195567man - I am Cindy Livingston, the art director of the Bugle. I sent you email, but not sure if you received it. Please contact me at cwldesigns@gmail.com. Thanks, CWL

I have no idea what, if anything, old Bugles are worth. But I'm trying to get high-resolution (300 dpi/full size) scans of the covers of every Bugle since the club started. Any chance I could pay you to scan the covers from the issues of 1970 through 1984 before you sell the magazines? If you are interested, please send me private email at cwldesigns@gmail.com. Thanks, Cindy

Alain, I just now found this thread and have read every post since your very first one. It's so interesting and your car and photos are beautiful. Are you a member of the Buick Club of America? If not, PLEASE join. The main reason I want you to join is so you can share your story and marvelous photos in the club magazine, The Buick Bugle. We need to publish your story so that the rest of the members can read about and see your car. Happy to have you posting here, but I think this is something all of the members would like to read about, including the ones who don't frequent internet forums. You can write about how you obtained the car, what you have done to fix it, where all you have driven it, what future plans you have for your car trips. PLUS - think about coming to the United States in 2016 for the BCA 50th Anniversary Celebration which will be held in Allentown, PA at Nicola Bulgari's wonderful car compound. BCA members will love to meet you! Thanks for all your posts and photos. Your enthusiasm is very infectious! -Cindy Livingston

I know this group is a very small fraction of BCA membership, but many of you are active members and know a lot about Buicks, so I value your feedback. I wasn’t looking for kudos or compliments, though I appreciate them, of course. I was more interested in the specific question about special things done in the Bugle, like the occasional fold-out. I wanted to know if the forum members enjoy them or if they consider them unnecessary “frills”. There will never be more than a few issues a year (and sometimes none) with a special centerfold because there has to be a really good reason to go to the extra expense and trouble involved in producing a fold-out. As Bill Stoneberg wrote, the BCA won’t allow the cost to go too “hoopie” (my new favorite expression!), so just think of a fold-out as something special and unusual – a little “langniappe” for Bugle readers. Terry’s large 1914 posters are a good example. Terry contacted Pete and me many months ago about his posters. Due to their large size they had to be professionally scanned. Pete and I held off using them until the November Bugle issue because we wanted to match the artwork (autumn leaves, etc.) to the correct season of the year. Having access to the high-quality professional scans gave us the option to present the posters in the extra large format of a fold-out centerfold, where the artwork can be best appreciated and is close to the original size. I love vintage car advertising that uses colorful original artwork. You’ll notice that after the mid-1960s, original artwork in advertising pretty much stopped when less expensive photography became the dominant advertising tool. Buick ads that feature original artwork (and are still in good condition) are becoming hard to find. Terry’s 1914 posters and Lamar Brown’s 1954 calendar illustration on the cover of the June Bugle are two great examples of wonderful original artwork used in advertising. I’d love to show more of it in the Bugle, so if any of you have advertising artwork for a specific Buick year or model that Pete and I might “borrow” for the Bugle, please get in touch with us. Showing these ads on future Bugle pages might be the only place the artwork can be shared and viewed by a larger audience — and there can surely be no better audience to appreciate this outstanding original Buick artwork than your fellow BCA readers! Thanks for the feedback, Cindy

We have received a lot of positive feedback about the November issue in the form of emails and phone calls, but there hasn't been much feedback on the forum. I know the forum draws from a small sampling, but it also focuses on devoted Buick fans, so I pose a serious question that might effect what we do in the future: There was a 4-page fold-out in the October issue showing a variety of photos from the National Meet and we did a second fold-out in the November issue celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 1914 Buick showing vintage sales posters. Do you enjoy the fold-out centerfolds? Are they worth extra bucks to occasionally add them to the magazine? Thanks for the feedback, Cindy

MrEarl – I didn’t take offense at all. These are good discussions. I just want to let members know that the posting of the eBugle isn’t lightly done – it’s not just some kind of “when we get time” decision. In reality, I can make the digital file as soon as I’ve finished Modern Litho revisions, which is weeks earlier than the magazine is mailed out. I’ve never heard anything about the 10th of the month date as the time for the eBugle postings, so it’s good we are having this discussion. Hopefully we can get some clarification about it and decide when is the best and fair time to post the eBugle online. Now that more members come to the internet, we probably need to rethink the timing of the postings anyway. I'll look into this as soon as I bring my husband home from the hospital today with his BRAND NEW RIGHT KNEE! But meanwhile, how about the rest of us think of a way to punish MrEarl BIG TIME for refusing to let that 1954 Buick Highway man scan the mags. Grrrrrr.... . I understand that a project to get all of the Bugles scanned is probably unthinkably big, and lots of the magazine issues have incorrect and/or useless information in them, but even the oldest Bugles—the very short black and white mimeographed newsletters without photos—have some historical significance I think. Plus it’s fun to read the classifieds to see how CHEAP everything was back then. Again… getting them all scanned is just a wild idea and I threw it out there to see if there is enough support for it. CWL, Bugle Art Director

(Oh good - maybe JohnD took the bait). Jpeg or Pdf - high resolution, 300 dpi, 100% size is preferred. Good labeling with the year, month, page #. And each page would need to be lined up real straight on the scanner. And I'd LOVE to have someone in charge of this - not a lot of work, but just someone who can organize who scans which issue so that we don't duplicate issues. And of course, we have to have the magazines too! I only have them for the years I've done the Bugle (2006-present) and I'm even missing a few of those. CWL

(Oh good - maybe JohnD took the bait). Jpeg or Pdf - high resolution, 300 dpi, 100% size is preferred. Good labeling with the year, month, page #. And each page would need to be lined up real straight on the scanner. And I'd LOVE to have someone in charge of this - not a lot of work, but just someone who can organize who scans which issue so that we don't duplicate issues. And of course, we have to have the magazines too! I only have them for the years I've done the Bugle (2006-present) and I'm even missing a few of those. CWL

Although I’m not really the person who can adequately address the possibility of offering the eBugle-only as an option for BCA members, I do know a little about the printing business. There are huge discounts offered by publishing houses based on the amount of copies printed. The BCA receives those discounts because we print over 7,000 copies of the Bugle each month. The less copies we print, the less discount we receive. At some point, if the club prints only a few thousand copies of the magazine, it becomes prohibitively expensive and the print copy will no longer be an option. I’m not sure the current membership is ready for that since the majority seem to enjoy receiving the print version. Of course, we all know that print journalism is dying a pretty steady death and at some point in the future, the Bugle may become only a digital magazine. But that might be 10-15 years away and my brain just can’t think that far ahead—except that I know in 15 years someone else will be designing the Bugle, because I’ll be too old to fight the learning curve of keeping up with new software every year! The suggestion of converting past Bugles into digital files to be archived online is a good one. I’ve been interested in doing this for several years. There are some complications though – the two main ones are time and money. Since none of the older issues are digital files, (BC = “before computers”) we would need to scan each page of every issue and then convert those scans into a digital magazine. This is hugely time-consuming. Even converting only one magazine issue (from scans) can take hours. I wish I had the time to do it, but I just don’t. Any chance we could get about 40-45 volunteers to each scan the pages of only ONE issue each? Or 20 members to scan 2 issues each??? They could send me those scans and I’d be willing to put the issue together as a digital magazine file. It could be a long-term project with the goal being to finish all of the issues for the 2016 Meet. If anyone has any other ideas, please speak up. It would be really great to have a copy of each issue online — and I think also an incentive to involve more of the current membership with the website/forum — and possibly even something that would attract younger members. It’s just a thought…. Cindy Livingston Bugle Art Director

Although I’m not really the person who can adequately address the possibility of offering the eBugle-only as an option for BCA members, I do know a little about the printing business. There are huge discounts offered by publishing houses based on the amount of copies printed. The BCA receives those discounts because we print over 7,000 copies of the Bugle each month. The less copies we print, the less discount we receive. At some point, if the club prints only a few thousand copies of the magazine, it becomes prohibitively expensive and the print copy will no longer be an option. I’m not sure the current membership is ready for that since the majority seem to enjoy receiving the print version. Of course, we all know that print journalism is dying a pretty steady death and at some point in the future, the Bugle may become only a digital magazine. But that might be 10-15 years away and my brain just can’t think that far ahead—except that I know in 15 years someone else will be designing the Bugle, because I’ll be too old to fight the learning curve of keeping up with new software every year! The suggestion of converting past Bugles into digital files to be archived online is a good one. I’ve been interested in doing this for several years. There are some complications though – the two main ones are time and money. Since none of the older issues are digital files, (BC = “before computers”) we would need to scan each page of every issue and then convert those scans into a digital magazine. This is hugely time-consuming. Even converting only one magazine issue (from scans) can take hours. I wish I had the time to do it, but I just don’t. Any chance we could get about 40-45 volunteers to each scan the pages of only ONE issue each? Or 20 members to scan 2 issues each??? They could send me those scans and I’d be willing to put the issue together as a digital magazine file. It could be a long-term project with the goal being to finish all of the issues for the 2016 Meet. If anyone has any other ideas, please speak up. It would be really great to have a copy of each issue online — and I think also an incentive to involve more of the current membership with the website/forum — and possibly even something that would attract younger members. It’s just a thought…. Cindy Livingston Bugle Art Director

Each month I voluntarily convert the finished magazine into a digital file which is then converted to a Flip Book for the website. In the past, Bill Stoneberg generously volunteered to do this job. Starting this month, the BCA has a new webmaster, Peter Gariepy, who will now be posting the eBugle each month. The assumption that this month’s eBugle isn’t yet posted due to indifference or procrastination on the part of the paid staff is an uninformed and incorrect assumption. The timing of the eBugle posting is to make sure that the digital magazine isn’t posted before the first-class hard copies are shipped by Modern Litho Press. I am one of the people who receives an early copy. I received my October Bugle on Friday. This is Sunday. In all fairness, even paid staff shouldn't be expected to work on weekends. The eBugle will be posted very soon. Cindy Livingston Bugle Art Director

I have been trying to find high resolution graphics of some of the Buick signs, such as the round red and blue Authorized Buick Service sign. I find plenty in low-resolution, but none in high-resolution. If anyone has high rez digitals of Buick signs that they don't mind sharing, please send directly to me: cwldesigns@gmail.com. Thanks, Cindy Livingston

Now you're talkin'! Count me in!

My husband (Steve) and I are coming to our first-ever BCA National and hope it is okay for us to attend the Forum breakfast on Friday morning. Sounds like fun! See you in Portland. —Cindy Livingston (art director of the Buick Bugle)

Bill is aware of the wacky font problem in this April issue. For some reason they (the fonts) went crazy when a different server/format was used to convert the magazine into the online eBugle. The fonts used in the print version were replaced with some other font that is causing problems with headlines, text and advertising on most of the online pages. Stay tuned for a better version down the road, and hopefully your print version will arrive soon, if it's not already there! Thanks, Cindy Livingston

This post illustrates perfectly why it would be helpful to take a moment with each new monthly issue of the Bugle to see which themes are planned for the future. The themes are posted every month on page 4. If you have knowledge about a specific car model, be generous with your time and offer help on that particular issue. Contributions BEFORE articles are written are much more useful to fellow club members than criticism AFTER the magazine is delivered. Not fair to eat the bread if you wont help bake it, said the Little Red Hen.