Girl power

They are a unique little group and they are the girl power that brings you your Stratford Press every week. Behind the scenes are the group of six, excluding me, who put the paper together.
General manager Sarah Dazley and Monique Keegan are the sales team who interface with the Stratford business community to ensure your marketing dollar hits the mark.
They make the final check and tick that your advertisement is in the final copy to go to the printer. Monique lays the advertising on the page and hands it to editorial to place their stories and pictures.
Your marketing message is then translated to the design team, Lauren Bowen who is the graphics designer/ pre-press, and Amy Oliver, typesetter/ pre-press.
Lauren designs your advertising and all other graphics that appear in the Stratford Press. She mollycoddles us through the stressful times to make the stories and pictures fit.
Amy is the touch-typist whose fingers slide effortlessly over the keys and corrects my typos from small almost illegible corrections that I've marked on the page. It is Lauren and Amy's job to place all stories and pictures on the page for the final copy. Wednesday's deadline looms week in, week out.
Kylie Malin is the turbo-charged reporter who knows everyone in Stratford, and churns out stories every week. It's interesting when you work with people. You get to know their little idiosyncrasies, like Kylie's dislike of birds, but love of dogs. In the life of a reporter, you have to go where the news is, and many a time you turn up& your heart's in your mouth as you see, in my case, a big dog baring its teeth, which I'm certain, as the colour drains from my face, is planning its first bite.
Or when you've come from the city and you go out onto a farm, in dress boots. I've been known to run in stilettos down SH1 to a truck accident. I was dressed for a funeral. News happens at any time, and you have to be off at a moment's notice.
So I have empathy for Kylie and her phobia. There are many flying varieties of birds in this region.
Last, but not least is Carollyn Bound, the rock-and-roll dancer and office manager.
And every Tuesday night while people make their way home after work, Kylie, Lauren and Amy are working into the evening, laying up more pages.
We're always working to deadlines, and pleasing where we can.
Your community paper is always tight for space, there's so much going on in Stratford and the environs.
Early Wednesday morning the last of the pages are finished before the 11am deadline. Then there's time for a breath before the paper returns in the afternoon.
Thursday, it starts all over again. This is the life of a newspaper, and the girl power at the Stratford Press.