Throughout its history, the AAPA has conducted all of its official business through the mail. Once a sufficient proportion of members have e-mail addresses, it's easy to see how current processes could be sped up. Of course, until every member has access to an e-mail address, the AAPA would have to run a dual system of both regular and e-mail.
Any number of topics could be run simultaneously. For example, there could be discussions of letterpress tricks, writing techniques, or how to use desktop publishing programs. There could be a new member mailing list to answer "newbie" questions. I might want to set up a mailing list for discussion of the Telecom project. Fred Liddle could set up a groaner list. Les Boyer could discuss outhouses or lawyer jokes.
Another type of mailing list would be for "official" groups. These would not be open for anyone to join, but limited to those people who are members of the group. Examples: all AAPA officers; the Laureate Board; or the Board of Directors.
It would also be nice to have an e-mail list of all members that is kept up-to-date. (Perhaps also a list of those whose memberships have recently expired so that follow-ups will be easily done.)
To keep non-members from sending advertising messages to AAPA mailing lists, it might be a requirement that anyone who wants to send a message must be on the members' e-mail list.
There would have to be a way to verify that only members vote, and that a member votes only once. It should be possible to process the electronic ballots in such a way that nobody would know how any individual voted.
The Secretary-Treasurer could have a program that reviews the previous month's membership and financial activity and produces a summary report that is e-mailed to the President, Second Vice President, Mailer, and Official Editor. If sufficient safeguards can be put in place to keep out non-members, the report could also be published on the AAPA Web site.
The Second Vice President could send a welcome to new members and collect back biographical information via e-mail. The summary of new member introductions would be e-mailed to the Official Editor.
E-mail should make the deliberations of the Board of Directors and the Laureate Board go more quickly.