Welcome to our Second Anniversary issue of Eat the State! We're two years old now (102 issues!) and, like most two-year-olds, we've grown a lot in the past year, expanded our abilities ... and realized that we can't do everything--at least without some help from our readers.

Some of the positive changes we made include a shift to printing on 50% recycled newsprint (last week's issue was printed on 20% white recycled paper, because the printer ran out of our usual stock), using soy-based ink. The switch from a photocopied 'zine to the tabloid newspaper format has allowed us to increase our print-run to 3,000 copies with only a small increase in our printing costs, while almost doubling the space for text. However, to help pay for the increase in costs, we also decided to take advertising.

The advertising has been a mixed bag. We greatly appreciate the businesses and individuals who've supported us over the past couple months with their ads, and we knew it would be slow starting in summer. But we're still a long way from getting the number of regular advertisers we need to help us cover our costs. In addition, we're losing our current advertising coordinator, and we'll need to replace her soon.

Our shift to bulk mail has also been problematic. When we were mailing first class, our subscribers received their weekly issue of ETS! within two to three days of our publication date. With the use of bulk mail, we've been able to decrease mailing costs, but subscribers are now receiving their copies from two days up to a week after the publication date. In response, we've extended our Activist Calendar to cover events scheduled ten days to two weeks in the future, but this is small recompense for our local subscribers, who can often pick up a copy for free at a local coffee house, or get ETS! delivered via e-mail.

While we encourage people to read ETS! on-line to save paper, we lose revenue when we lose subscribers, because each subscription pays 100% of the costs of printing and mailing one copy of ETS!. For those of you who can't wait a week for your issue and have regretfully given up your paid subscription to go on-line or pick it up for free, we'd like to urge you to make a donation to help keep ETS! going. We're still operating at a loss, paying for weekly shortfalls out of the pockets of three or four volunteer staffpeople. If ETS! is something you enjoy, if it gives you valuable information and analysis in an entertaining way, then please help us out and give what you can.

Aside from financial assistance, ETS! needs more volunteers to help out with the following:

Advertising Coordinator. Valerie Jean, also affectionately known as our "Ad Czarina," is moving on to other commitments. We'll soon need someone who can reliably track ad sales, handle ad revenue, follow up on rate and ad requests, and who can coordinate efforts with other ad salespeople.

Ad Salespeople. Help ETS! move one step closer to self-sufficiency, while simultaneously promoting progressive local businesses. (It's easier than you think--plus, we pay a commission!) We're also looking for an Event/Ad Coordinator to approach groups organizing special local events to ask them to place ads in ETS! Sound like fun? Call us now!

Writers. Yes, we know you all enjoy reading Geov rant about local politics or Maria go off about economic issues. But many of you have interesting things to say, too--as we've seen from your letters. We need more writers willing to produce occasional articles on current local, national or international topics. We need people to send us one or two-paragraph items for our Eat These Shorts! and One Planet sections, and we're still looking for regular contributors for the labor column, history column, Stump Talk, and our Media Watch sections. If you've always wanted to sharpen your writing skills, do a little reading and research, then sound off on a topic, here's your chance.

Fundraising Coordinator. At our monthly business meetings, we've come up with a lot of good ideas for fundraising events. But we need someone to help us follow through on them. Do you like to organize film showings, benefits, concerts, or just throw really great parties? We could use someone like you.

Speaking of fundraisers, our editors will be doing a reading at Recollection Books on October 1st. We'll have more details in upcoming issues of ETS!

And finally, we'd like to announce the beginning of our weekly ETS! discussion group. If you want to hang out and talk about current issues with the ETS! staff, gossip, help insert flyers in the newspaper, suggest ideas for ETS! articles, or volunteer for any of the above positions, we'd like to see you at our Tuesday evening discussion group. It starts at 7:00 PM on the third floor of the University Baptist Church, 4554 12th Avenue NE in the University District.