Rivertown United Reformed Church

Spark History

Reading Linsey’s detailed “behind the scenes” account about preparing the church magazine (or newsletter as some prefer to call it), has nudged me into writing something about the history of the magazine.

There should be a “fade-out” with strings playing here, as we delve into the past! During the latter part of his time with us, Gary McGowan suggested Rivertown had its own magazine as a means of keeping contact with housebound members. This would include letters, news of members and friends, poems, etc. Children were encouraged to contribute. Roy & I volunteered to take this on. Roy had a Gestetner duplicator – I supplied the typing. Everything had to be copied onto stencils (or skins). That wasn’t easy as they had to be typed “sideways” (not the typist, although it felt like it sometimes!!) to get two pages for copying – the top end (which fitted onto the Gestetner) had to be folded over. The stencils were then checked for errors. What fun that was! – we had a foul smelling pink liquid which enabled the mistake to be corrected! The stencil was then carefully fitted onto the Gestetner, making sure it was perfectly smooth, or there’d be strange malformation of some words! When the dreaded Gestetner ran out of ink, it was a force to be reckoned with. A tube of gooey black ink had to be squeezed into the appropriate “well.” Sometimes we’d end up with more black goo on us than in its rightful place!!

After copying, the pages had to be assembled and stapled – a treat after all that had gone before. Completed, the magazine was then placed on the porch table for the first Sunday in the month.

From 1984 until the beginning of 1988, the “Church Magazine” as it was called, was produced every two months and also contained news and items from Garden City. It then became “News from the Pews” In 1985 Douglas Farquhar became our Minister and he encouraged us to start a monthly magazine. Latterly Douglas had his own computer and urged me to use this for typing the magazine.. I was a little apprehensive about this, having only recently then learnt the vagaries of an electric typewriter!! Douglas was extremely patient with me as I tried to master this new technique and gradually came to terms with it. My redeeming feature was my ability to type, which stood me in good stead. There was one occasion when Douglas had to attend a meeting and left me to it in the manse. Great – until I accidentally swiped all my typing and lost it! My concern was that I’d also got rid of all Douglas’s work, but fortunately he’d saved it, and it didn’t take me too long to re-type the items I’d lost. . .
From then on, technology has been used to produce our magazine. We’ve had a copier in church – that’s another story I could tell about how it used to pack up when we were half way though copying. Lucy Edwards and I could have kicked it many a time, but with the help of Simon who specialised in copiers and who would come very promptly to help us, we managed to meet our deadlines. Now that we’ve been blessed with a more up-to-date copier, our job is much easier - rather than all morning or afternoon, it takes half the time.

Different formats have been tried, and in recent years the name was changed to “The Spark”, with the hope it might be a more appealing title. Since Linsey started with Desk Top Publisher, she has developed its present format. It’s a sad fact that at one time we’d print one hundred copies for Rivertown – this number has gradually lessened to sixty to sixty-five. Apart from the standard copy, Linsey also does a large print copy for people with visual difficulties.
It’s always been a pleasure to be involved in producing our church magazine – we hope it is something worthwhile, and a contact for housebound members and friends. “The Spark” is YOUR magazine – without your input it would cease to exist It would be helpful and interesting to have your comments occasionally. Please continue to support your “Eds” – it would be good to know how you feel about the magazine. We look on it as a labour of love and a way of serving in the church, and with God’s help and direction will continue production.

                Dorothy.

(Note from Web content editor- and now we see a move onto the internet, how things have changed in such few years)