Goldwingnut, the paper version has the ability to reach MUCH more than 100%, and that is exactly the problem with it. How many of these inserts are actually read, every week, by the entire 100% of possible people it is able to reach?
How many of these inserts are read by 100% of the number of issues printed?
What is the numeric difference, the math, between the number of issues printed and the number of readers who read it, every week?
How many people not only don't read it, but just dump it in the trash? How much paper, ink, energy, electricity, effort, man-hours, machine maintenance cost, is wasted by all that excess, every year?
And there are people who do NOT live all year round in the Villages, but would like to keep up with the goings-on in the rec centers where they live. Maybe they're members of multiple clubs and don't want to have to go to each club's individual website every week just to find out IF there's news. And some clubs don't HAVE websites of their own, making it even more important for snowbirds and people who just aren't there for a month, to maintain a connection to those clubs and activities.
They don't need to subscribe to the entire Daily Sun just so they can find out about a handful of clubs in their own rec center.
So the online edition, as a separate entity not directly connected to the Daily Sun, seems pretty important. Especially since you have to pay extra for the paper version of Daily Sun, and as you said - rec center news is an amenity that comes out of your amenity fee.
Paper copies should be made available but it stands to reason, if you are interested in rec center activities, it's because you actually go to them once in awhile. So there should be no hardship in going to a rec center to get a paper copy, if you don't have internet access or a printer to print your own out.
Agreed that there is absolutely an expense involved in having a dedicated webpage, but even that could be attached to TheVillages.com main website, available to the public. And the expense would be less. Even if it's only $5000 less per year, that's $5000 less PLUS how much paper that gets wasted. I get that a lot of folks don't seem to give a hoot about waste. Throwing things away, who cares, trees will grow, not my problem. But some people DO care, and this would satisfy people who care and want to do their part to conserve when practical. It is a practical solution to eliminate automatic weekly delivery of the weekly rec news, and implement any of a myriad of alternatives.
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