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South East YMPs visit the Guardian!

 Between 7.30 and 8.00 pm on a cold December 18th a number of YMP's made the trip to Stratford East London. The purpose was to visit the Guardian newspaper production facility. The building is only twelve months old and houses some of the most modern production facilities in the newspaper industry and was built in record time for the launch of the Berliner newspaper format, which makes it one of the most unusual colour papers in the world. It is an impressive place and the group were given a comprehensive tour by Dave Kirwan from the Guardian. Gone have the old hot metal days, replaced by two giant MAN Roland presses, these had been specially adapted to fit into the new building.

Between the presses sits the control room, full of electronics. The group watched the "spin up" - the trial run, looking at format, colours, layout. The Guardian printers (a hand full in number) carefully scrutinised the copies using electronic devises to get the final result. Various editions are produced as news arrives, all controlled from editorial. Unfortunately, the group did not see the first edition produced as various football matches had gone into extra time and production was being delayed until the last minute. The decision when to print is literally "driven" by the distribution schedules, the lorries must leave at the scheduled times. If not - no newspapers for us in the morning.

Kevin Stallwood, YMP National Chairman summed the evening up "It was well worth the trip just to see and experience the impressive sound and site of the copies rolling off the presses".