The Onsight Chronicles

The fair dinkum Aussie climbing rag CRUX Magazine has folded — at least for now.

I’ve always thought that an inspirational mag that reflected the creativity, passion and irreverence of the scene, was something that was sorely needed here in Oz. So it’s a sad day but hopefully CRUX can be reborn in some form or other in the not too distant future. I did my bit to help out — of course with photos — but I also took on the job of handling distribution. Some issues are still available from our online shop. We guarantee that all subscribers will be refunded in full for all amounts owed for issues that now aren’t planned to be published. We will start work on paying the refunds in a few weeks and we’ll get in touch with subscribers directly then.

Many thanks to everyone who has supported the magazine. Below is the editors announcement and reasons behind this. I’d just like to stress that the shortage of income that is mentioned has nothing to do with my own business, Onsight Photography: the two business have always been entirely separate entities. Onsight Photography is going as well as ever and personally keeping me as busy as ever.

Dear CRUX Readers,

It is with great sadness I announce that CRUX will not be bringing out further issues in the current glossy form. After a lot on consideration and consultation the team behind CRUX have decided we can no longer afford to publish issue #8 due to a serious shortage of income.

It was an incredibly tough decision as you can imagine, but one based on the reality of never breaking even after several years of work. As the editor I have worked on the mag for three years in a volunteer role. It has always been a labour of love, but one that has begun to cost us financially. The magazine was always run free by members of the climbing community who thanklessly put in their own time to see the magazine succeed – unfortunately the one thing we can’t get for free is paper, ink and postage.

All hope is not lost however. I am optimistic that the magazine can be reinvented in the future in some form that can be more financially viable. We have plenty of content ready to roll but at this moment not enough cash to hit the print button. If anyone has some ideas to help make the mag work then please get in contact with me. I still have the energy and enthusiasm to publish if someone can help solve the financial problems!

When I put all seven of the magazines together in one pile I realize we have published a huge amount of work. We would like to massively thank our numerous hard working contributors. Without your creativity and passion our magazine would have never been as good as it is. It was their work that kept CRUX alive. The most obvious people to thank are our readers and subscribers – people who invested in our mag with their own hard earned dollars. Our advertisers and retailers have also been incredibly generous in their support. Have a flip through the mag and offer your support to the businesses that helped to support us. These businesses are key to getting us back on our feet again in the future.

I’d also like to thank the tireless CRUX workers behind the scenes. Simon Carter at Onsight Photography especially for his enthusiasm and professionalism that he brought to the project from day one. Simon Murry, our first designer and co-founder who gave the magazine the real edge and flavour. Dan Johnston for the recent design revolution. Josh Caple for his random moments of brilliance. Monique Forestier for her advertising excellence. Anita Sharma, James Pfrunder and Kathy Dicker for the tedium of accounting. Adam Bramwell and Michael Boniwell for the IT guru knowledge.

Currently we are collecting all outstanding money from retailers and advertisers (there is a lot of it!) so we can pay back outstanding subscriptions and advertisements. This may take some time so please bare with us during this period. We guarantee to repay every outstanding subscription. Chances are you are one of my mates, so I won’t be able to go cragging until we fix you back up again! We will be in contact with you regularly to give updates on when you can expect reimbursement.

Contributors who have supplied articles and photos for future issues should get in contact with me if they want their work published in other magazines. Optimistically I’d like to hang onto the articles and photos to publish in the rebirth of CRUX – once this crisis has been resolved.

Sorry again for any disappointment and thanks again for your tremendous support.

Sincerely,

Neil Monteith