An important message for DWIN members

An important message for DWIN members

2013 is the 30th year of publication for Enlightenment, a fanzine dedicated to the celebration of Doctor Who in North America. Over the past three decades there have been many changes, both with the zine itself and of course in the world around us. There will be another change as we enter our 31st year of publishing: starting with Issue 172, Enlightenment will be distributed in electronic format only, as a PDF downloadable from the DWIN website.

There are several reasons for this change. Although the popularity of Doctor Who has increased, so have the costs of printing and mailing out issues (in fact, over the past several years, they have gone up by 300%). At the same time, we’ve been receiving more and more interest in an electronic version of the zine, while in this day and age there is less interest in a print version; most people are doing their “fan discussion” reading online and the newer fans in particular are much more accustomed to that.

In the past we have raised the price of membership in order to cover the rising costs of publication, but there’s a limit to which we feel we can and should do this. With the rising costs of print and the rising interest in an e-version, we felt that the better decision for all involved is to publish Enlightenment in electronic format only. Issue 171 will be the final issue to be published in print.

DWIN of course will continue to publish Enlightenment, to hold occasional events with guests from the TV show, and to run a website, blog and podcast, all of which continue to attain the goal of connecting Doctor Who fans in Canada and providing them with the best information about Doctor Who that we, as fans, can.

However, the elimination of Enlightenment’s print version means that there is no reason to charge people an annual membership fee (as the vast majority of that money went into the printing and mailing costs for Enlightenment), so this does also mean the end of an annual DWIN membership fee after over 30 years. We will still have some costs to cover with respect to funding the website, blog and podcast sites, but we hope to fund these costs through the generosity of donations from members.

Any renewals or new memberships taken after Issue 170 of Enlightenment will be completely refunded. For those of you who have between one (1) to three (3) issues remaining in your membership, DWIN will be providing you with two options to choose from:

1) You can consider the rest of your membership fee as a donation for the purposes of helping us to fund our continued services; or

2) Your choice to pick from the available stock of back issues, which will be mailed to you in lieu of the number of new printed issues you would have received with your membership.

For those of you who have four or more issues remaining, and for whom options 1 and 2 do not appeal, we will process a refund.

We will send you a written notice with the final print issue, explaining these options and offering a method to select your preference.

In the meantime, we have one more print issue to go, expected to publish in late September 2013, and it is going to be a beauty! We hope that you all look forward to this final print issue of Enlightenment as well as to future issues of the zine in its new electronic era, just in time for the start of the show’s second half-century!

Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns.

Yours sincerely,
The Executive of the Doctor Who Information Network
Graeme Burk, Cameron Dixon, Gian-Luca di Rocco, Geoffrey Toop, Rod Mammitzsch, Eric Briggs, Lisa Truant-Tan

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Issue 172

In our final issue : Enlightenment reviews the anniversary celebrations! Plus…

  • Michael Wisher and Philip Hinchcliffe interviewed
  • The recovered Troughton episodes
  • News and reviews

Download this issue

Issue 171

Their Secrets Revealed : The final reviews for Season 2013! Plus, in this last print issue of Enlightenment before the all-digital era begins…

  • Re-evaluating recovered episodes—you know, hypothetically…
  • The Gazetteer of Doom
  • News and reviews

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Issue 170

Clara Who? : The 2013 season reviews begin! Plus…

  • Why the classic companions rock just as much as today’s
  • An interview with Stuart Douglas of Obverse Books
  • News and reviews

Issue 169

The Snowmen Cometh (Christmas Special Reviewed!) : The 2012 Christmas special gets a look-over! Plus…

  • Can good Doctor Who be bad television, and vice versa?
  • Robots with human souls
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©Doctor Who Information Network (DWIN) 2009