September 2019

Buckden Roundabout

September 2019

40 years of the Roundabout

Celebrating 40 years of the Roundabout

As we celebrate the Roundabout magazine’s 40th birthday

this month, we look back at its history.

We chatted to the Roundabout’s first editor, Brenda Stead-

man, to find out about the early years of the magazine. Pro-

ducing a community magazine is no small task, so that fact

that Brenda edited the Buckden Roundabout for 30 years,

from its inception until September 2009 is an impressive

achievement!

The Roundabout was set up in September 1979 by Canon

Stanley Griffiths of St Mary’s Church when he became vicar in

Buckden. It was a joint venture between the four churches

(which at that time included the Baptist Church on the Great

North Road) and the Parish

Council.

In 1979 Brenda Steadman was

the local correspondent for the

Hunts Post and was encour-

aged to become editor of the

new magazine. The first issue

included a message from the

Chairman of the Parish Coun-

cil. Village clubs and organisa-

tions were invited to submit

copy which would be printed

for a donation. The churches

also contributed to the financ-

es at that time.

From the outset, the Rounda-

bout was very much a community affair. Of course, produc-

tion was much more difficult than it is now in the days of Mi-

crosoft Publisher! The magazine was typed – accurately - eve-

ry month onto stencils and printed on a portable Roneo dupli-

cating machine which was a gift to the newly established

team. At first, printing of the necessary 800 copies took place

in people’s homes. Pages

were then collated by a large

team of people in the Refec-

tory at the Towers – this took

almost a whole day! Covers

for a whole year were printed

commercially in advance and

the pages were hand-stapled

in.

Distribution was another

problem to be solved.

Leaflets were sent out in-

viting people to volunteer to

deliver to houses. Brenda,

together with Gwen Gibson,

distributed copies each

month to the many deliverers around the village, with Brenda

sitting in the back of the car, counting out however many cop-

ies were needed for the next drop.

When the time came, Brenda was sad to give it up, but

pleased to pass on the huge responsibility. When she stood

down, the post was filled for a short time by Pam Daven-

port. At that time, Tony Gilchrist had been collating regular

village events and he moved into the post of Editor in June

2011, later adding the grow-

ing Advertising Manager

role to his workload. By this

time, production had moved

on a little. Internal pages

were now printed by Marga-

ret and David Moorhouse

on a small printing machine

housed in the village hall,

although the covers were

still printed commercially.

Magazines were then collat-

ed and stapled in the Mil-

lard Room by a team of vol-

unteers, before being

passed to another team of

volunteers for distribu-

tion. From February 2012,

the magazines were printed and collated by an external print-

er and delivered to the Village Hall ready for distribution. This

certainly simplified matters, but many people probably

mourned the loss of the social event that was ‘collating day’.

When Tony announced that he planned to step down at the

end of 2013, the current team offered to take over as we felt

that it would be easier to share the workload and responsibil-

ity among a group of people.

The current editorial team has worked hard to keep the maga-

zine evolving and lively. We are particularly proud of the front

covers which are now full page photos and very eye-catching

– we always invite villagers to submit photos, paintings or

drawings. Over the years we have gradually tweaked the lay-

out to smarten up the look and make the best use of space.

In October 2013, we launched our Roundabout website

(www.buckdenroundabout.info) where every issue from that

time can be accessed worldwide. We also use this as a space

to publish articles too large to be included in the magazine

and to publish information on village clubs, so it’s worth a

look.

In 2016 we decided to enter

the Cambridge Building Soci-

ety Community Magazine

awards for the first time.

That year and again in 2017

we were rewarded with a

Bronze Award in the High

Frequency category

(magazines published 10-12

times per year). This year we

were delighted to win the

award for Most Improved

magazine.

We hope that all our readers

will continue to enjoy the

magazine for years to come.

1986 cover

2008 cover

2012 cover

2014 cover