Waimarino Bulletin — the first edition
With this edition the Waimarino Bulletin celebrates its 4th Birthday. First published on 31 May 1983 it has served the Waimarino community over the last four years and provided readers and advertisers with 194 weekly editions of their own 'local newspaper* in that time. That first edition provided an interesting logistic challenge for those involved in setting up the project: John Sandford (publisher), Dennis Beytagh (editor) and Johan Newby (advertising and production manager) at the time. Premises had to be found, a printer had to be appointed, typesetting equipment had to be purchased, advertisers had to be sought and a name and format had to be designed for the paper itself. The premises we found were a dilapidated old building (one of Ohakune's earliest and formerly a boarding house) belonging to the Borough. It was, in 1983, being used as a video-games parlour but was due for imminent demolition. Those premises in Clyde Street, after extensive reconstruction and redecoration - both inside and out - now comprise our offices, darkroom and the Ruapehu Region Information Centre and Automobile Association agency. Because no typesetting facilities were available in the Waimarino at the time,
that first edition of the Bulletin was set on the machine at Jason Publishing in Newmarket, Auckland, by Jason's typesetter operator Cathy Shaw. Both Cathy and her machine were to move down to Ohakune for the second and subsequent editions until the Bulletin acquired its own machine from Metro magazine in Auckland some months later. But the copy and artwork for that first edition was typeset and put together - laid out and pasted up '- over one very hectic weekend in Auckland and then rushed down to Raetihi where it was to be printed by Trevor Ede of Raetihi Printing, in time to meet the deadline for our first print run and 31 May publication date. The Waimarino Bulletin was born of necessity and initiative. Several earlier attempts had been made in recent times to establish a successful and reliable 'local newspaper' in the Waimarino. Despite the fact that there were no fewer than three free give-away weekly newspapers as well as one provincial and two major metropolitan dailies circulating in the Waimarino in 1982 there was a 'general feeling' that local readers were somehow missing out on news and merchandising opportunities in the region. All these other papers were printed outside the region and, with one exception, were also published elsewhere. The one exception was the Waimarino Weekly
(printed in Raetihi) which, because of staffing, circulation and logistics problems - the paper had to be typeset and assembled in Palmerston North or Levin, then sent to Wanganui for printing before being returned to Raetihi for distribution. It ceased publication in late 1982. News of local events were restricted by space and alternative priorities in these other papers with the result that they were not seen to be providing a comprehensive news and advertising service to the Waimarino community and were not therefore identified as 'local' newspapers. It was to fill this information gap and provide a comprehensive news and advertising service within the Waimarino that the Bulletin was established in May/June 1983, some six months after the collapse of the Waimarino Weekly. In the past four years we have reported news from around our region without ever having to resort to items of national or international news that would be irrelevant to our readers, in order to fill our pages. For this we must thank the Waimarino community for their support in supplying us with information about their interests and activities. We look forward to continue providing this news service and to your support of the Bulletin. Give us a ring at 58532 or 58681 or drop us a line if you have news of any past, present or future event that may be of interest to other readers.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAIBUL19870603.2.41
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 5, Issue 1, 3 June 1987, Page 15
Word count
Tapeke kupu
643Waimarino Bulletin — the first edition Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 5, Issue 1, 3 June 1987, Page 15
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Ruapehu Media Ltd is the copyright owner for the Waimarino Bulletin. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Ruapehu Media Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.