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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Goderich Signal-Star, 1987-09-30, Page 31PAGE 12 The mailing division is the last but vital link_ The mailing room may be the last link in the production and §ervice chair at Signal - Star Publishing Limited, but it is certainly tops in importance. If the mailing room staff does not follow through with effective and efficient work habits, the skills and labours of all the rest of SSP's departments are in vain. Getting the product to the people, on time and in good shape, is the mandate of the mailing room. It is expected of them regardless of the problems that have been encountered by any of the other depart- ments along the way to cause delays in the schedule. It doesn't matter either how many special messages - flyers, special editions etc. - need to be inserted into the centre of the papers. It doesn't matter how nasty the weather or how impassable the roads. SSP papers are expected to be on the street and in the mail and to the newsstands on time every time ... and ex- cuses, even good ones, are unacceptable. That kind of predictable, set -your -watch - by -it dependability takes well-trained staff, hard work and dedication to the job and to the company. In an average week in the SSP mailing room, 71,500 "insertions" are made into the publications coming through that department. Some "insertions" are the right size; some require folding. Some are small; some are large. Some are printed in-house; some are printed elsewhere and sent to the mailing room with explicit in- structions for handling. But all are important. And it is up to the mailing room staff to make certain the right "insertions" are put into the right publications and circulated in the correct numbers on the proper routes, It can be an administrative nightmare for Don Kellestine, mailing room supervisor and his assistant, Irene Ott. The Goderich Signal -Star, for instance, carries an average of four inserts per week for various businesses. That works out to 20,000 inserts per week for the Signal -Star alone. Not long ago, the mailing room ac- complished 120,000 inserts in one day. Still, the papers made it to the post of- fice on time. The Goderich Signal -Star, The Kincar- dine News, The Seaforth Huron Expositor, The Mitchell Advocate and The Lucknow Sentinel get to the post office every week by 7 a.m. every Wedesday morning and The Walkerton Herald -Times and The Clin- ton News -Record get there before noon on the same day, without fail. It has been said the SSP mailing room is like an arm of Canada Post. The staff there handles first class, second class and third class mail so well that they are now able to work to post office standards and receive direct pickup at the plant of mail by Canada Post. Signal -Star vice-president Jo Shrier, new owner Henry Burgoyne, SSP president Bob Shrier and Mrs. Dorothy Dolittle (Mr. Burgoyne's mother) sit at the head table during the com- pany's celebration of new ownership Friday. In front of Mrs. Shrier is a replica of the press purchased in 1966. Back in April, Sot and Jo Shrier announced to the staff that Signal -Star Publishing had been sold to Henry Burgoyne and the St. Catharines Standard Co. Ltd. That's a real time-saver for everyone. "Our job has been enhanced by the com- puter age," says Kellestine. "Names are pre-sorted into Postal Coded Areas, only the computer is either not quite large enough or it lacks the human abilities needed to count, to sort, to tag, bundle and bag. Our people do that." In addition, the computer allows a com- munity to be broken down by post office box number so that the local postmaster can have the newspapers put in any se- quence he finds most convenient. With the introduction of Community Mail Boxes (CMBs) into Kincardine a few mon- ths ago, copies of The Kincardine News are sorted according to box number plus the four delivery routes for the CMBs. This almost always ensures that Kincardine residents will be able to pick up their copy of The News with their morning mail. And that's service. The Canadian Churchman, tie national publication of The Anglican Church of Canada, has a press run of 273,000 papers 10 times a year, while the 19 diocesan newspapers have a combined press run of 220,000 per month. All of these papers are mailed out second class from the SSP mailing room. The individual diocesan papers each carry The Canadian Churchman inside as a supplement. In the majority of cases, the two papers are printed together and come off the press all ready to mail as a unit. In some cases, however, the diocesan paper and The Churchman combined are too large to be run together on the press. This requires the mailing room staff to physically insert The Churchman inside the diocesan paper. When properly assembled, the papers are first sorted into either large or small mail bags. If the numbers justify it, a monotainer is used, and filled only with newspapers to a particular centre in Canada. All monotairiers are taken to London. Mail for the western provinces and Nor- thern Ontario goes via truck from London to Kitchener where it is sorted by province and cities and loaded onto tractor trailers and sent to the_ proper destination. Using this system, copies of the proper diocesan,paper carrying The Canadian Churchman can leave Goderich Tuesday and arrive in Vancouver by the weekend. Also mailed out second class are 12,000 copies of OnSat, a magazine for owners of satellite dishes. Some of these publications for the western provinces go by Priority Post each week, to avoid delays that can occur in Toronto and Kitchener. Supervisor Don Kellestine claims his mailing room staff of 18 regular persons split among three shifts, has people with "a working knowledge of Canada Post's. National Distribution Guide". Bob Shrier has left Signal -Star Publishing with a legacy of vision, hard work, integrity and the sense that we can accomplish whatever we want and aspire to be whatever we dare to dream. BOb dared to dream and now, he has passed that dream on.