An End and a Beginning
From where I sit EDITORIAL COMMENT
With this issue MIND and mental health comes to an end after being published in a variety of forms and styles for 25 years. Many people will mourn its passing, and have written and telephoned to say so since receiving notice of its closure. Obviously, there will be more than a twinge of regret within the National Association for Mental Health too - the magazine has played quite a prominent part in the evolution of the Association but its end also represents a beginning.
Over the past five years the magazine has been refined and modified to make it as attractive and as readable as possible for the general public. The intention was to develop the magazine to the point at which it would be accepted by major distributors for bookstall sale. This intention has been frustrated and there is no possibility of ‘going public’ for at least five years.
With the road to a wide public readership turning into a cul-de-sac, and in the knowledge that the magazine in its current form is largely preaching to the ‘converted’, it was decided to cease publication of the heavily subsidised magazine in favour of producing a less ambitious, newspaper-format publication which would reach out to a wide general readership and help to further mental health on a broad front. The first issue of this new publication is due to appear in April.
Spreading information about mental health and voluntary involvement in mental health projects at a community level - and, hopefully, changing public attitudes in the process - is a complex business which has to be carried out in the teeth of pretty determined resistance from the man in the street. It seems that there has to be the germ of personal interest or involvement before anyone will pick up and read a newspaper or magazine on the subject.
If public attitudes towards mental ill-health are to be changed for the better then MIND/NAMH has to reach out to what is, at the moment, a ‘reluctant readership’. The uninformed and largely apathetic majority has to be contacted and made receptive if not actually involved.
The route to these, so far ununcommitted, readers is through people who are already concerned either in a professional or voluntary capacity - about the mental health of the community.
Distributors wanted The ‘newspaper’ is intended for wide distribution to groups of people on the fringes of voluntary community action who may benefit from information about the mental health movement presented in a lively and stimulating style, and who may be encouraged to become involved in the work. It will be free, and distribution will be in batches of 50 or 100 to secondary points of distribution from which small quantities can be fed to groups and individuals who would appreciate the information.
Obviously, we are most anxious that the batches of 50 or 100 should not end up as door-stops or forgotten dust collectors in some far corner of a room - it is important that the paper should reach people who will be able to make some constructive use of it.
If readers of this final magazine think that they could take on the task of secondary distribution (particularly those readers working in schools, colleges, departments of social service, hospitals, or involved with voluntary groups), and are prepared to do so on a regular basis (4 or 5 times a year) they should write to: The Distribution Organiser, Public Information Department, MIND / NAMH, 39 Queen Anne Street, London W1M OAJ. Please indicate whether you would want to handle 50 or 100 copies (or more!) and please give a rough idea of the method of distribution you have in mind and the likely groups to which you would be distributing.
The value of this new publishing venture depends almost entirely on the distribution chain and the way in which links in that chain make use of copies. Public education and the dissemination of information about mental disorders and community action is fundamental to the improvement of the mental health services and a better future for the mentally ill and handicapped - it is, in short, the reason for the existence of MIND / National Association for Mental Health.
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