A FOND FAREWELL

This month’s paper Broadsheet is the last one to be issued by the ‘Old Gang’, as several of the original team are bowing out after many years dedicated to keeping Bloxham’s news and views circulating.

Of the old originals, Doreen Spring was the founder and galvanised her friends into joining her to make her idea work, and it was hard work – putting together a publication before the age of computers required a lot of handwork:  typing, cutting, measuring, pasting, going into the depths of the school’s basement to operate a sometimes temperamental Xerox machine, finding people to deliver the paper, and persuading people to advertise.

All these things required considerable effort and dedication.     Another ‘first founder’ was Jean Phillips and she, together with Nerys Jones has done a fantastic job in making sure the magazine was safely bagged, collected by the various ‘paper boys’, and delivered to every home in the village.     It would be interesting to work out how many thousands of the Broadsheet have come onto Nerys’ table in boxes and gone out again carefully bagged, and labelled, and how many phone calls Jean had to make to ensure everyone knew when and where they could be collected.

Finance was looked after by John Phillips, and his careful management has meant that with income from advertisements the Broadsheet has been able to contribute to local charities over the years, though in its early days the team were very grateful to receive a subsidy from the Parish Council to keep the venture afloat.

Production of the magazine became more streamlined and efficient when Brenda Kirkham came on board to put the Broadsheet on computer, using the Publisher programme.    This meant it could go straight to the printers, Banbury Litho, who make a very fine production for us, though there are occasional panics when their machines break down and we wait, chewing our fingernails, to hear when we might get a date to collect.   As the village expands in size, so the number of boxes increase, so that Brenda’s car now sinks under the weight, as she transports them to ‘bagging’.  Bagging is a nice sociable occasion for the team,  followed by tea and biscuits and a chance for gossip.

Now that Doreen, Brenda, Jean and Nerys are looking forward to putting their feet up, an SOS went out for others to come forward and take over their functions, and we have been fortunate that Sarah Bradford has volunteered to take over the challenging job of putting everything on the computer to be printer-ready, and Gill Battle and Bobbie Howard have taken over the task of distribution.    John Phillips is handing the finance reins to Carole Vincent, who will also continue to deal with advertisers.

As someone who was there at the beginning and came back to the Broadsheet team after a long period abroad to write the occasional article and proof-read the production before it goes to the printer, I am aware of what a tremendous job Brenda has done to follow in the footprints of the original editor, Doreen Spring, both in putting each issue together so skilfully, and in finding just the right cover each time, along with quotations and rhymes to match.   We shall hope to be able to still pick her brains from time to time, while looking forward eagerly to the new look we shall doubtless get from Sarah.

A big thankyou to all our ‘leavers’ and every good wish to the ‘newcomers’.

 CMG