In addition to being the first online issue AND the first issue of the new editorial staff, we are also at the beginning of the 25th volume of the American Morris Newsletter. Throughout the year, we will be  celebrating this auspicious occasion with a series of articles and photographs commemorating  Morris in America. Please contribute your thoughts, articles, artwork, photographs, and letters.

This issue has a number of wonderful articles. Tony Barrand has contributed an article describing his exciting new online collection of his vast Morris film archive. In commemoration of our silver anniversary, he is also written a three part article about the origins of the Marlboro Morris Ale and American Morris in general. Kem Stewart has contributed a lovely article on childrens' Morris in the Boston area.

Before he passed away in 2003, Gordon Ashman submitted to the AMN a transcript of his talk on the origins and revival of Border Morris. Unfortunately, the disk he submitted the paper on was corrupted, and his fine presentation was lost. We have spent some time recovering the data from the disk and are very proud indeed to publish what is perhaps the last piece written by this fine Morris scholar. 

In addition to all of this (and who could want more?), we have a letters section, a new section of short articles called Varia Atque Brevia, a photo gallery of reader-submitted photographs, a new Classifieds section, and correspondence from our brothers and sisters in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and other places entitled News from the Rest of the Empire. Hopefully, these new sections will grow!

Our future looks very bright, if not downright exhausting. We are currently in the process of putting all of the back issues of the AMN online in Adobe Acrobat format. We are assembling a subject and author guide (two of your editors are librarians by trade). We are working on putting the team directory online, with the capability of the teams themselves maintaining their own information. Tom is setting up a news service using the Movable Type blogging software replete with an RSS feed; you and your team can now announce to the world what's going on. We've batted around the possibility of creating a federated search for all of the online Morris sites, which means that we can create a Morris Google (for want of a better analogy). We've also talked about creating a Morris wiki. Heady times, indeed!

Possessed by a sudden attack of whimsy, I have decreed that all issues in this, our 25th volume, will contain at least one image of Dave Stryker of Newtowne Morris. This issue contains one photo in Kem Stewart's fine article. Tony Barrand's DVRA database contains another, with a film of Mr. S. prominently leading a Bonny Green Garters. I will leave it up to you to find the film. In fact, my challenge to you, dear reader, in this and other issues, is to play "Where's Stryker?" First correct answer to win a prize...

Enjoy! And most of all, Participate! This is your magazine, O fellow Morris dancer. Write an article, send a letter, give us a photo, or send us a comment. Simply use the comments link that can be found on all of the pages in each issue.