STEPHANIE VAN DER PLANK
There was no RAG Diary available for 2013. Perdeby interviewed Dr Rina Wilken, UP’s coordinator of special programmes, to find out why there was no diary this year.
Dr Wilken said that she wanted diaries to be available before the end of last year. However, the final version of the 2013 diary was only submitted in the middle of December once the holidays had begun. Dr Wilken commented that the final product was good but was “too little too late”. The committee suffered setbacks when they failed to meet the yearly deadlines.
Dr Wilken said she could tell in November that a diary would not be available for this year. Money from advertisers is used to cover the costs of the diary production. Last year, the committee struggled to find interested advertisers, despite Dr Wilken encouraging the members to approach different companies. She said that the fact that the committee did not concentrate on marketing the product was detrimental to its success.
Dr Wilken told Perdeby that she was very sad that there would be no diary this year. She said it was an even greater pity because there appears to be a movement away from physical diaries to electronic alternatives. She fears that in two or three years RAG diaries will have become obsolete. Dr Wilken also said that everyone on the RAG committee was very disappointed as they had put a lot of effort into creating the 2013 diary. Because of the quality of the product that was created, hardly any changes would have to be made to create next year’s diary.
Dr Wilken hopes to have the 2014 diary on shelves by the end of October this year.
RAG failed to comment.
Image: Brad Donald