A huge change for CJS.

Today's edition of CJS Weekly is the first in our 21 year history to be posted second class.
Second class post but still a first class service from CJS. 

When this week's rises in the cost of postage were announced we looked at the options available to us. Unfortunately CJS can't absorb any further increases in the cost of producing CJS Weekly paper copies, the last subscription rate rise was in 2012. Which left us with two possible options either to increase subscription rates to cover the additional costs incurred or to change from first class post to second class and no subscription increase.  Most people agree there is very little difference in delivery speeds for first and second class mail, particularly for items posted on Saturday (like CJS Weekly); our own completely unscientific tests of sending out items first and second and seeing which got there first seem to show that sending by second class on Saturday doesn't make a difference, and if anything it speeds things up, a few second class items got there before first class ones!!
Therefore, we proposed a switch from first to second class from the first edition in April.  We hope that this should be sufficient to allow us keep postal subscriptions at the same rate for a few more years.  We've given postal subscribers a month's notice of the proposed change giving them the option to let us know if they didn't want us to change.   Only 6% of subscribers contacted us to say they would be happy to pay an increased subscription to continue to receive their copies by first class post.

We will monitor delivery and ask postal subscribers to let us know if their copies are arriving even later than usual.  If this happens we will look again at the options.

Reminder, Monday is a bank holiday and the CJS office will be closed, open on Tuesday as usual.