It has been quite an experience to see the growth in the Bulletin over the past 25 years.
Back in the “old days”, all the material for the News Bulletin was shipped via bus to Ladysmith because there were no production facilities in Nanaimo for the community paper.
Ladysmith was home to the company’s up-Island press facilities as well as the production department for the Ladysmith Chronicle and a couple of other Island papers. It seemed to make sense to have the work for the “new kid” done there as well. There was still some doubt whether the paper would succeed.
Having all the material sent by bus proved to be a challenge in itself. Many times Ladysmith had to call up and ask if the parcel had been shipped… and this usually happened close to deadline.
Having found that it was shipped, the panic was on to find out where the parcel had gone. Many times we had to drive to Duncan – even once in awhile to Victoria – to retrieve the box as the driver had forgotten to leave it at the stop in Ladysmith.
This procedure was often repeated when it was time to send proofs back to the small Nanaimo office for customer approval of the ads. There were often many late nights as it got to deadline time and we still had to get the “lost ads” finished and the rest of the paper to the press.
In the summer of 1990 it was decided to set up a production department in Nanaimo as the Bulletin was becoming more and more the accepted paper in the city.
Two “wannabe Macs” were set up and myself and Teresa Laird were to be the production department with Jeff Hamilton coming up from Ladysmith to do the camera work part time and Darrell Summerfelt joining the team soon after.
This was a lot more convenient and effective. The sales staff (all two of them at the time) actually had a ‘hands on’ opportunity to create much more effective ads for their clients.
In very cramped quarters we managed to produce the paper locally. It became quite clear, early in this period though, that we would require another production person. The Bulletin was getting bigger and expanding to twice a week.
There have been many changes in how the Bulletin has been put together over the years but all of it has been positive.
Today’s Bulletin has a production department of six people including Tamie McCluskie and Laurie Schley, and we have the most up to date Mac computers and the newest graphics and design programs to produce quality ads for our hundreds of clients.
The Bulletin’s combined production staff has more than 125 years of experience producing newspapers and I believe it shows in the quality product that is published three times a week for the Nanaimo and area community.
Duck Paterson
Production Manager
Nanaimo News Bulletin