On a sunny day at the end of January, five members of the Chipperfield News team drove to Wembley to visit Print Run, the firm that prints Chipperfield News every month. Richard drove us with plenty of helpful advice from four backseat drivers on the best route to take, and his ability to read road signs.
We were greeted by Chrissy in reception and then taken upstairs to the office where we were given welcome cups of coffee. We were shown how the copy arrives at the printers by e-mail from our editors and is then collated and prepared for the printing process. Rachel and Jo explained how they slot advertisements into the spaces left for them by our editors. Mike then took us into the section where a clever machine transfers the printed image received from Rachels computer on to large sheets of film, using a separate sheet for each colour to be printed (but not in the case of Chipperfield News as we are just black and white).
We scurried downstairs into a noisy workshop to watch the prepared film transfer its image on to metal sheets and these in turn were fastened on to rollers and fitted into the printing machine. We were shown the machine that prints Chipperfield News and the one that folds it, which on that day was not working properly, hence the delay in the delivery of the News to us that month.
We watched the powerful guillotine slice through card and I was given an exciting boxful of cut-offs and an armful of glossy misprint paper to take back to use with the disabled children I work with.
The staff at Print Run are like a large happy family and some of them have been employed there for 20 years or more. They made us feel so welcome and we all admired their enthusiasm. The whole experience was topped by the fact that later that evening at 7pm I heard a knock on my door and there was Matt with the boxes of a belated Chipperfield News.
Many thanks to all at Print Run.
Popsi Stokes, Distribution Manager