The new Staroba magazine

There is already much talk about the Batch '86’s bid to take over the production of the Staroba magazine /newsletter. Some heard about it for the first time when the Staroba President, Datuk Dr. Awang Adek announced this at this year’s AGM. Sorry for putting everybody collectively in hot soup.

You may already have received a copy of the one and only issue of the Berita Staroba published sometime in the middle of this year. The original plan was to publish 4 issues per year but as was reported in the Staroba annual report, this could not be achieved due to lack of funds. Nevertheless, many thanks to Fakhrul Annuar of batch 1990 for a remarkable solo effort in getting that single issue published.

Enter Batch '86 or actually the trio of Mansor, Zahir and Atan. Being the consummate entrepreneur that he is, Mansor broached the idea by saying that taking over the magazine would be a good enterprise. Combine the fact that we have a captive middle to high income audience with the fervor for writing that some of our batch members have, we do have a good thing going. At one point, we even considered the income of the new magazine as the major source of funding for OBW2006. But some other members politely pointed out that we should not get ahead of ourselves and just aim for the magazine to be self-sustaining.

Anyway, the President got wind of our intentions and one day summoned the trio to his office in Putrajaya. We explained the concept and he was fully supportive of the idea. The long and short of it was this venture is a win-win situation. Staroba gets a no-cost magazine, Batch 1986 can add one more feather in its cap and Starians have something decent to read on the crapper.

So here’s a summary of the project (expanded from a brief received from Zahir):

Mission

An attractive Staroba Magazine that Old Boys can be proud of.

Objectives

• To be self-sustaining in its production. No funding from Staroba. No RM50K advance from the President. No sympathy handouts from Old Boys. Just pure commercially driven sponsorship from businesses who regard the magazine as an effective advertising medium.
• To be a medium for disseminating news about events and issues concerning STAR and Staroba. This is a given. The usual reports on sports and other events will be retained.
  
• To add value to the Staroba and STAR brand. Other people need to know that Starians are successful, hard-working, intelligent, professional and good-looking. All these should be projected through the content of the magazine (and careful editing of the photos).
• To generate hype for OBW2006 and the golden jubilee celebrations. The attractiveness of an upcoming event is only as good as its hype. Of course we will have a blast for OBW2006 but we should also publicise this fact beforehand.
• To add value for sponsors of OBW2006. The sponsors want to get a good Return on Investment on their advertising ringgits. They will get ads in the magazine thrown in as part of the sponsorship package and this will reach a bigger audience than the actual attendees of OBW2006.

Content

So far in the mock issue (yes, there is one already) sections featured are:

• Articles related to Star, Starians and/or boarding school
• Personal experience articles written by Old Boys
• Interviews and insights of prominent Starians
• Staroba activities
• Sports results
• Updates of Old Boys
• Classified advertisements
• Miscellaneous departments of interesting nature

Method

• Batch ’86 will set up an independent division to concentrate of the production of the magazine.
  
• Staffing will initially start with batch ’86, but will slowly grow with staff and input from other batches and independent parties.
  
• Source of revenue will be from advertising, media and mailing related activities.
• The magazine will be used also to get support for the OBW’06 and Jubli Emas 2007.

Team

So far, volunteer writers are:

• Don
• Atan
• Zahir
• Azlan
• Jo
• Ma’e
• Kalut

If you find your name in the list without prior consent, just shut up and regard that as a compliment.

Frequency of publication

The magazine is planned to be issued every quarter. The first issue is targeted for January 2006.

OK guys, let’s get cracking – we’ve got a magazine to publish. Oh yes, the working title of the magazine is “School Ties”. We might even keep it.