Page 2 - PBCOctober2013

2 Pickwick Bicycle Club Magazine. Volume 10 No.3 October 2013
Editorial

Those members who managed to avoid the temptation of “The
Pillars” in preference for the AGM last December may remember
that the subject of this journal and my position as Editor was
mentioned.
I felt that, having produced three issues each year for the past 9+
st
years, and, approaching my 81 . birthday a few days later, it was
time to pass the work to another. Age and health problems have
taken their toll. It has been great fun and I have endeavoured to maintain a sense of
Pickwickian ‘good humour and good fellowship,’ which I have thoroughly enjoyed, but, in
fairness to the club, I needed to find a new editor. I wanted to complete 10 years – and with this
issue I have so done.

Ten years ago I had volunteered to produce a Newsletter on a regular basis, for there was
nothing other than an occasional news sheet . What was frequently referred to as the ‘The
Newsletter’ I produced were of the A4 size and contained a mix of items many of which carried
an additional set of scanned pages from the club history, published in 1904.

In addition to writing and editing I was able to print the desired copies, a little in excess of 200,
for each of the three issues annually.. Printing on my own ink-jet printer (a slow process),
collating, stapling, stuffing envelopes, usually printing the address labels, and attaching the
stamps were all done in my study and on the kitchen table. Our friendly village postman
collected the two trays for posting.

Gradually I developed the product on the lines of a magazine, reducing the size to A5, in
booklet form thus saving paper, envelope and stamp costs, but continuing to collate, etc.
myself. As time progressed it became apparent that we needed to get a colour laser printer and
this was agreed. It sits here in my study, a reasonable sized machine, but very heavy! With the
increasing number of pages and colour content, and often with separate flyers and booking
forms for club events (Golf Day, Hampton Ct., etc.) the printed ran into occasional problems,
such as paper jams. Although these were resolved each time, it became apparent that it should
be confined to printing short runs of docs. and so the printing, collating and stapling to produce
the finished booklet was placed with a very competitively priced printer well known to me.
Serjeant Buzfuz supplied the address labels eventually and I completed the assembly and
posting.

The magazine runs along a base of standard event reports over the three issues with Letters,
Victorian (mainly) Recipes, Sobriquet histories, and so on, in each issue. Always the Secretary’s
Report and the Captains Word. Sometimes the President coughs up a few words (!) and
something from the archives. Joseph Smiggers, Mr.Brooks, Baillie Mac Something and the
Captain, in particular, together with the Secretary have been most supportive and I am deeply
grateful to them for their support and input.
The “Welps Interview” has been a little spasmodic, but maybe that can be revived.
Continued...