To our loyal readers,

First, allow me to begin this note with an apology for the email that went out from The Mineshaft’s Gmail account earlier this week. That message was not sent by our staff, but was sent by someone who was able to successfully hack into our account and take it over. We do not currently have any idea who sent that message, but we are investigating the IP address of the computer that sent it. While this is a bit beyond our understanding with respect to computers, we have been requesting help in identifying the origin of the message.

With that being said, allow me to get to the real point of this notice. To be as direct as possible I will simply come out and say it. Effective immediately both Mr. Williams and I have, of our own design, chosen to step down from our positions of Editor-in-Chief for the Mineshaft. The reason for these resignations is simply that Mr. Williams and I both believe that our current positions create a conflict of interest for the UMR student body if we continue to report and run a student newspaper. With respect to Mr. Williams, he believes that he should not be working in that capacity nor writing stories for the Mineshaft until the conclusion of this semester’s SAFB meetings. As you all know, there has been great controversy created from last year’s SAFB meetings, and Mr. Williams wants the decisions this year to not become tainted because of his dealings with The Mineshaft. As for me, I do not wish to compromise the integrity of the position of Vice-President of External Affairs. I have already found that it could be hazardous to my effectiveness if people are always worried that I am a reporter first and a student advocate second. As such, I will no longer take any leadership positions in The Mineshaft and will only ever write stories on national issues or politics unrelated to UMR.

For those who do enjoy the Mineshaft, do not dismay. The Mineshaft is not dissolving. The Mineshaft will continue under the leadership of the new Editor-in-Chief: Kate Oliver. She has chosen to take the reigns, and we both expect her to succeed in her newly assumed role.
There is also news with respect to the Mineshaft that I will take this time to announce. We have progressed through the RSO process and the student affairs committee has approved our constitution. This is a great step towards legitimacy for the Mineshaft. We have also decided that we will no longer use pseudonyms in our publications, unless real names are also provided. Lastly, and most importantly, we are currently unable to print copies of the Mineshaft and as such will suspend publication until we are able to complete our funds request. We are currently in the process of putting together a request from the equipment contingency fund (a fund within the SAFB) to purchase printing supplies so that we can continue to produce hardcopies without a fee to the students. As soon as this process completes and we are able to produce copies again, we will begin producing our publication once again. We currently project that we should be complete with this process by mid-November.

With that said, let me take this time to make a final assertion on behalf of Mr. Williams and myself. We would like to take this time to say that we are proud of last year’s staff for the Mineshaft and very thankful to all those that have helped us along the way. Further, we would like to say that our little experiment succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. The Mineshaft produced 17 issues last year alone. We were approached by numerous organizations who requested to purchase our content; in addition, students and administrators praised us for our efforts to report accurate (and sometimes hilarious) news. Most importantly, we did it all without paying a single writer, proofreader, or editor-in-chief a single penny. We proved that a large number of students would write and dedicate their time to something they believe in without compensation (much like other universities). We are happy to know that the students at UMR are not as disinterested in journalism as has been asserted repeatedly in the past. With that, we are happy to say that the Mineshaft, when able to produce again, will continue this tradition and the tradition of offering very affordable (or free) advertising to student organizations.
If you have any questions regarding this email, please contact either Ben Williams (bjwd3b@umr.edu) or myself (alex.dempsey@umr.edu). If you have questions about the Mineshaft, please contact Kate Oliver (kjocpf@umr.edu). Thank you for reading this message and for allowing Ben and I to serve the students with respect to our work with the Mineshaft. I will greatly miss being able to lead the organization and help provide UMR students with a publication of a quality that they deserve. Thank you and have an outstanding rest of the week and Labor Day weekend.

Forever your servants,

Alex “Nathaniel d’Artagnan” Dempsey & Ben “Milford Cubicle” Williams

So there's no way that you could be a publication distributed by email only until your funds get in? Because I'd rather read the Mineshaft than the Miner.

agreed

Why do I keep clicking on this thread?

In the hopes that someone will say something new and original instead of just quote pyramiding what I said.

But seriously, you all at the Mineshaft should look into doing that thing I said so we have a paper that is of better quality that what is currently available.

I personally would love to, once SAFB dealings are done with.

First paper of the year, and I found enough errors to make me want to puke. At least the Sudoku (Number Square, or whatever they called it) wasn't screwed up again.