Genesee Valley Penny Saver 70 Year Anniversary Celebration 1948 - 2018

ANNIVERSARY C E L E B R A T I O N

1948 - 2018

1948 70th Anniversary Series - Volume 1

Welcome Welcome to a look back - and a peek forward - at 70 years of publishing the Genesee Valley Penny Saver.

We’ve compiled this booklet from our 70th Anniversary Series, a collection of stories that we have run this past year, commemorating our history of publishing, and even more importantly, honoring some of the people who have helped to make our paper a household staple for thousands of readers each and every week.

We hope you enjoy this look back at our journey!

2018

70th Anniversary Series- Volume 2 In 1948, Roger and Jane Harrison, a young couple new to the Avon Community began publishing a weekly shopping guide. This was in response to area merchants who sought a means to collectively advertise their businesses in a cost-effective way, rather than trying to mail or deliver individual advertising pieces. In its humble beginnings, probably less than 10 pages were painstakingly produced each week with pen and ink drawings and text. Stencils of the pages were then cut and a hand-cranked mimeograph machine, usually run by Jane, printed off the pages which were then collated together and stapled in the top corner. The Penny Savers were hand delivered to the residents of the Village. The first location of the “Genesee Valley Penny Saver” was in a garage on Temple Street owned by local well-known realtor Helen Jobes. Above the garage was an apartment where Roger and Jane lived and which was also the first home of their baby girl, Kim, born in 1950. Rumor has it that while Jane was running the mimeograph, Kim was usually in her little seat on the counter next to the machine. Roger’s brother Ted also worked in production, and his wife Joyce eventually helped as the business and circulation grew.

In 1954, the Penny Saver had grown enough to require more production space. Circulation was expanded to include not only Avon, but Caledonia and Geneseo as well. The Harrisons purchased a home at 68 High Street in Avon from Ira Browne, a local plumbing contractor. Behind the residence was a cinder block building that became the next office and production area for the Penny Saver. Having more space, an offset press was purchased. There was also a dedicated production area and a “composition” area where ads were designed and composed, and a darkroom for producing negatives where the images were then “burned” onto aluminum plates. These plates were mounted on the press to print the pages. After printing, the individual pages were placed in bins and several area ladies were hired to collate the pages, staple and stack the finished product for delivery. (The cinder block building was heated with oil which sometimes froze in the line during the winter. On those days everyone would work in their coats and gloves until the building warmed up.)

Without all the modern conveniences of today, such as temperature and humidity control, often on very humid days the pages wouldn’t stack well and would fly around the collating area. The press run was late into Wednesday evenings. Once the ladies finished assembling the pages, Roger then delivered the Penny Savers to the post office.

Our employee count grew from 2 on Temple Street to approximately 10 in our “new” location. In keeping with the “family” tradition, along with Ted and Joyce (who later went on to do bookkeeping, camera work and ad designing), Clare Harrison, wife of Roger’s cousin Dean was a pillar of our composition and typesetting department for many years.

In 1955, Roger and Jane welcomed a baby boy, Steve (James Stephen) to the family. Both Steve and Kim grew up with the family business – living with deadlines and the smell of negative developer and ink firmly ingrained in their memories.

We take great pride in these many years of publishing, to have never missed an issue! The dedicated employees and many relatives, friends and neighbors helped in so many ways during those early days to produce the Penny Saver each week, often coming to our rescue during snowstorms, power outages and other calamities.

Their contributions of time and talents helped us grow our business to what it has become today.

Temple Street

High Street

Family owned and operated since 1948

70th Anniversary Series- Volume 3 As the Penny Saver circulation and number of advertisers grew, we were looking for new, better and more efficient ways to produce a weekly shopping guide. Also, the need for even more space became evident, so in 1960 we made another move to Genesee Street in Avon, behind the Laundromat owned by Ted Coyne of New Way Equipment. Advertisers who brought their ads to us had to walk through the laundromat to get to our front desk. We utilized every bit of our new area and added a Davidson press and better typesetting equipment including “Headliners,” which as the name suggests, were used to punch out letters one at a time, mainly for larger print and “headlines.” Large plastic plates with different fonts and letter sizes were inserted into the Headliner and spun around until the desired letter appeared, then a button was pressed and the words were printed out on a white tape.

Another “modern invention” was the Varityper. This was essentially a typewriter used for smaller print and text.

With the Varityper, every line was typed twice – side by side, with the copy on the second side being justified right or left, or centered as needed. As “modern” as they were at the time, the Headliner and the Varityper were very slow compared with our methods of today.

After the typesetting was done, the headlines were cut off the strip, run through a hot glue machine then pasted carefully on the page. The paragraphs of print from the Varityper usually could be glued down as one whole piece. We had “cut books” that provided pictures of groceries, cars, furniture and other miscellaneous items that might be advertised. Borders around the ads were usually drawn with rulers or t-squares, with black markers of varying thickness. The classified (reader) ads were typed in strips with letters at the end of each ad indicating what edition it would run in and also the “cut-off” date. These were cut up and carefully pasted on the pages alongside the display ads according to the edition they would run in.

This was usually one of the many jobs Jane took care of each week. During this time, Al Wambold, Roger’s stepfather was our pressman. Our collating crew as well as our composition crew expanded to accommodate our growing circulation. It was becoming obvious that this would not be the last stop on our journey – soon more production and office space would become necessary.

Production was still painstaking as the collating process was done by hand, but now the sheets were folded in advance by Alice Mairs. Her patience was tested many times on a folding machine that wasn’t designed to fold lightweight newsprint, but she persevered! It was during this time that our magazine format took shape and remains today in the handy size our readers have come to know and love.

In the mid 60’s, we moved again, to the other side of Genesee Street to what used to be the “Red & White” Grocery store. This gave us 4,000 sq. ft., practically double the space from where we were. The Red & White was owned by the Root family of Avon and managed by Jane’s Dad – Jim Gulnac (yet another “family” connection!). In this

location, on our main floor, we had our front counter, business office, composition and pre-press (camera) department. There were stairs in the front and the back leading to the basement where the presses and collating machines were located. New presses were purchased. Royal Zenith (German made) replaced the Davidson press that was used behind the Laundromat. Faster, with better print quality, these presses could produce 10,000 sheets in one hour, a big advance at the time. The collating machines were very new to us and the industry and sure beat doing the assembly by hand. Still, they had their moments, especially during the cold months when static electricity reared its ugly head. To combat these dry conditions, water was poured onto the basement floor. Our delivery day was Wednesday, so Tuesdays became our “long days & nights” with the composition department staying until the paper was complete and ready to print. This eventually became known as “pizza night” for all of us. During this time, Kim began working in the composition department while Steve learned the production part of the business. Tuesday nights could stretch into the wee hours of Wednesday morning as our production (basement) crew would work until the final route was finished. Lots of employees and friends logged time on our collating machines and we have many great memories of this period in our history.

Jack Browne, our neighbor and good friend from High Street joined Al as a pressman and one of our funniest memories of this time was Jack’s loud, contagious, bone-tickling laugh. His laugh could be heard throughout both floors of the building, even above the noise of the presses. He would have the whole place in stitches and we wouldn’t even know what he was laughing about! Our circulation during the 60’s was 37,000 which was comprised of 3 Edition areas: North (Caledonia, LeRoy, Bergen, Byron, Scottsville), South (Avon, Geneseo, Livonia, Lakeville, Hemlock) and Rush-Henrietta.

Compugraphic Typesetting System

Reduction Wheel and Typesetter’s Ruler

Varityper

Family owned and operated since 1948 …to be continued in October

70th Anniversary Series- Volume 4 Many people have asked about our Penny Saver logo, including the white horse.

“Penny Saver” is a generic term.

There are many Penny Savers (also sometimes called Shoppers) across the country, no one has a copyright on the name.

But to set themselves apart each Penny Saver can identify with their own individual name, for example: Mt. Morris Shopper, or Warsaw Penny Saver. In the late 60’s we worked with an ad agency which produced and sold us our horse logo as you know it today. With our input, of course, it was decided that the white horse was appropriate and “Genesee Valley” truly identified the area that we served at the time. We are proud that it has become so well known and such a prominent symbol in our circulation area.

In the early 1980’s it was obvious our growth in advertisers and readers would require yet another move to a larger location to accommodate the increase in our employee count and the need for improvements in our press and collating production.

In 1982, Steve and his Mom found a printing press that would fit our production needs. It was a German made Royal Zenith Zephyr 300. One problem – it wouldn’t fit in our current production space. Now, we were on the move again.

We doubled our space from 4000 to 8000 square feet with our move to the Avon Plaza on East Main Street. This move did not come without some problems. The plaza was zoned for commercial use and our business was considered light industrial. The town and village boards were initially against the move, but in the end they decided they wanted to keep our business in Avon and not lose us to another town. So we made the move with the blessings of the Town fathers!

Our plaza location was one big, empty space so before we moved we had to plan and construct walls and do plumbing and electrical to suit our needs. Printing presses weigh many tons, and in order to get perfect, readable print, they must be perfectly level. Just readying the cement floor and placing the press is a major feat. At this time we also installed a new, bigger Muller-Martini collating machine which put the sections of the Penny Saver together. One of our first issues after our move was put together on this collating wonder!

We were so excited, but our excitement soon turned to an entire night of work as papers flew around the room, papers kept jamming and all kinds of things went wrong. Besides our regular collating crew, it took Jane, Kim, Steve, and many of our office crew all night to get that issue to the Post Office on time. Needless to say the Muller-Martini “troubleshooters” were there quickly and the next week’s issue went much smoother.

By this time, Steve and Kim were taking on more of a management position – Steve was making decisions on circulation, suppliers and the many parts that go in to operating a business. He also worked in advertising sales both as a sales representative and head of that department.

Basically Steve acquired the knowledge of all the “moving parts” from sales to production and the entire process of publishing a weekly shopping guide. Kim, along with still designing and creating ads, learned the camera and developing part of production as well as taking on many office duties such as weekly payroll. As you can imagine, payroll was a labor-intensive process done by hand each week. Thankfully we were eventually relieved of this burden with the introduction of payroll processing companies! As

time went on many new processes and applications helped streamline much of the office and HR component. Jane was dedicated to growing the business and although she held a tight rein, she knew if the company was to stay in the family it was necessary to pass on her business knowledge and skills to her children. Jane was a tough boss in some ways, but she always had a soft spot for employees with families. A sick child at home would warrant the mom or dad to stay at home, no questions asked! Being a weekly deadline business this would sometimes throw a kink in our production schedule, but we always made it work.

One of the great improvements with our new press is that we could now print color! One color each week – it’s called “spot color.” We would select the color keeping in mind holidays and seasons of the year or special events.

Green and red at holiday time, oranges and browns through the fall, pinks, greens and yellows during the spring and summer, and of course red for Valentine’s Day! We loved our German made press, but one problem, if we needed service, we had to wait for help from their office in New York City. We had books of instructions but they were all printed in German. One day the press broke down, and our pressmen knew it was a fairly minor problem but they couldn’t read the instructions to fix it. Fortunately, Kim and Jerry and their family were hosting Alex Wortberg, a Rotary Exchange student from Dortmund, Germany. What luck. Alex pulled up a stool near the press and read the instructions to our pressmen and the problem was solved!

During this time, Jerry Rolison, owner and publisher of the Mt, Morris Shopper, approached Steve and asked if the Genesee Valley Penny Saver would become part of a group of papers known as the “4-County” Papers. These papers: Mt. Morris Shopper, Perry Shopper, Warsaw Penny Saver and Dansville Penny Saver had sales agreements between them which allowed for each of the individual papers to “sell into” the other papers, thereby increasing their own weekly advertisers, and giving advertisers greater circulation. We joined the 4-County group and an added benefit for us was that they asked us to print their papers each week for them. We were able to work these printings into our own GVPS schedule. Eventually, the Dansville Penny Saver pulled out of the group and we began our Dansville edition of the GVPS. At this point we had also begun a Batavia edition, so naturally our circulation, as well as our staff, continued to grow.

Another part of our business was doing print jobs – such as tickets, stationery and other small jobs on a small press.

We were also approached by the purchasing agent for RIT about printing their course booklets, or catalogs for the students. He had noticed our magazine format and saddle stitched Penny Savers and thought this would be easier for the students rather than the newspaper format they were using. A long time relationship was formed with RIT and eventually the U of R, St. John Fisher, Nazareth, MCC and Hobart-William Smith colleges came aboard … we had a full schedule, and , we knew again…. not enough space!!

Family owned and operated since 1948 …stay tuned for volume 5 next month

70th Anniversary Series- Volume 5

T han ksgivin g A time to count blessings!

For 70 years, we have been blessed in many ways by the wonderful people who have been so instrumental in our success.

Seventy Years of business means many, many employees who have come through our doors: Some as their life’s work, some as a stepping stone to different jobs and professions, some as a second job to help make ends meet, and some “seniors” looking for a way to continue their involvement and productivity. It would be impossible to name them all, but we will attempt to share with you the people from our past, most of whom were with us for many years. This by no means lessens our appreciation for every person we have employed along the way.

These names are not necessarily listed in chronological order, and for many we no longer have the records to note their dates of service. However, rest assured that these people were the mainstays of our company for many years!

In the very beginnings, Clare Harrison, Joyce Harrison, Al Wambold, Mildred Cook, Ruth Twamley, Alice Mairs, Jack Browne, George Novosal, Dave Kingston….

As time went on, in our Creative Department– Sally DeMunn (36 years), Jodi Rowcliffe (18 years), Amy McAleavy (14 years), Leanne Marquis (8 years), Christine Martin, Jeff Young (15 years), Kevin Swallow (IT coordinator – 18 years), Erica Linderman (9 years), In our Office and Clerical Department– Mary Ann Close (32 years), Henrietta Robinson (18 years), Maggie Robinson (28 years), Jacki Baylor, Jim Fulmer, Germaine Bostwick, Kathie Doser (37 years), Tom Ulatowski (17 years), In our Promotional Product and Printing Division– Mark Evans, Mary Myers, Lori Volkmar (15 years), Mike McFarland, Leigh Normoyle (12 years), Barb Cornell (14 years), Lorie Browne (12 years), In our Production and Pre-press Departments– Todd Gillard, Larry Craft, Dave Harrington (21 years), Bob Gilbert (20 years), Pat King, Gary Rumfelt, Pete Swanson, In our Sales Department– Cindy Sattora (the legend! 40 years), Cindy Gardner, Cindy Clements (31 years). Three Cindy’s in one department!! Lisa Neyhart, Denise Martin (22 years), Gregg Henderson (23 years), Sue Gyore, Paul Rugala (22 years), Tonja Hynes, Vic Thomas, Bill Stevens (16 years), JoAnne Kingsbury (25 years), Toni Shoap (26 years), Angie Raab (19 years), Leanna DiRisio (8 years), Judy Miller-Keenan (12 years), Lynne Standish (20 years), Nancy Chodak (8 years), Dan Welch, Janet Olexy (10 years), Diane Bodine (14 years).

As you can see our employee retention of these people and many others has provided consistency and a deep commitment to our company. It’s a wonderful thing when employees develop a sense of “ownership” and take pride in their work! We have been blessed!

No article of thanks would be complete without thanking our parents, Roger and Jane Harrison who had

the foresight and determination to begin this business in 1948. Jane, one of three daughters of Jim and Lu Gulnac, was born in Pennsylvania and grew up in Geneseo. She worked as a secretary at International Salt company for several years until she married. Roger was born and raised in Castile, one of four siblings of Homer and Lillian Harrison. Roger served in the Air Force during WWII. After the untimely death of Homer and his oldest son Robert, Lillian (Granny as we knew her) married Al Wambold, who would one day work as a pressman in our early years. Our parents made many sacrifices in those early years to keep the business afloat and to build it both in advertising and circulation. In later years it fell on our Mom to continue the business. She was a tough, astute businessperson, and one of the most generous, too. Mom and Angie D’Angelo (Angie’s Style Shop) began the Avon Businesswomen’s organization to interact and share ideas. For many years there was an annual banquet which was well attended by all area businesswomen.

In those days she picked up and opened all the mail, even on Saturdays, and recorded all bills and payments.

She never missed a day! Also, without the benefit of computers and all the conveniences in record keeping, the weekly payroll was done by hand, and she gauged if we were doing OK by checking the balance in the checkbook.

If that was good, then we were good. As progressive as she was in some ways, the computers and bookkeeping methods of today would be so foreign to her, and she might not trust them. In her era, everything was handwritten and figured. Mom always made sure payroll was covered every week. None of her employees would ever go without a paycheck – they had families to feed and bills to pay. However, she always paid herself last, if there was enough, and our names were on the list right before hers, so a few times we also went without a paycheck!

To say the least, our lives have been an adventure for all these years, ups and downs, funny memories, sad memories, but mostly a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that we have done our best – as we know that’s what our parents would have wanted!

Happy Thanksgiving to all our past and present employees, advertisers and readers. Without you there would be no story to tell! In a future article we will highlight our current staff . . . .stay tuned!

Family owned and operated since 1948 …stay tuned for volume 6 next month

70th Anniversary SeriesVolume 6

A look back…

Throughout our 70 years there have been so many changes to every aspect of our lives. Technology changes by leaps and bounds every day. Equipment or programs we update today will most likely be outdated within a month.

This is true for every business, and even personally. How many times have you upgraded your cell phone only to find that soon the newest, greatest one becomes available?

Shortly after we moved to our present location in East Avon, we bought our first fax machine. What a boon it was to our business! Customers and our satellite offices could now fax ad copy to us. In turn, we could fax a proof of their completed ad back to them. When we held our grand opening celebration at the office the fax machine became the center of attention – it was “magical!” And now, although it is still used, Email, and all methods digital, have taken over the job.

From cut and paste in our Creative department, we now have computer equipment to design ads, store thousands of pieces of artwork and fonts and produce beautiful ads and print pieces. Digitally we can send those ads from each ad designer’s computer to another computer that lays out the pages you see each week. We are even able to “flow in” the many classified ads on the pages as pagination software sees fit. The pages are then digitally sent to pre-press so plates can be made for our offset presses.

Another aspect of change we have seen throughout the years is the cost of every product advertised. Looking through older issues of the Penny Saver we have found some remarkable price changes ….For the fun of it, let’s compare!

1948

2017

Sirloin Steak - 69¢/lb...................................................................4.99/lb.

Coffee - 39¢/lb.............................................................................$4-$6 /lb.

Crisco - $1.09/3 lbs.................................................................$6.49/3 lb.

Bananas - 15¢/lb....................................................................49 cents/lb.

Iceberg lettuce - 10¢/head...................................................1.69/head Avg. price for a new car-$1200 - $1500.........................$33,560

1948 Penny Saver choice was 2 or 3 stations. Your milk was usually delivered direct from the dairy to your front porch.

Christmas shopping was done in brick and mortar shops that lined the Main Streets of our local towns. And, Sundays were truly family days with Church and Sunday dinner a must. It’s fun to remember those days, and especially share those memories with our children and grandchildren who will never know those simpler times.

If you would like to share the role that the Penny Saver has played in your life, or your own then and now story, please mail it to: GVPS, PO Box 340, Avon, NY 14414.

From our GVPS family to yours….we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year!

In 1950 the average income per household was $3000 a year, imagine how far you could go with that today!

We are lucky to be living in this era of innovation and technology, although at this time of year, nostalgia kicks in and we long for the days of simplicity. Gone are the days when you had to actually dial a phone and got to speak to a real person on the other end. You had to get up and walk to the television (if you had one) to change the station – and the

Family owned and operated since 1948 …stay tuned for volume 7 next month

70th Anniversary SeriesAs we continue down our path of GVPS history, one of the most important aspects of our business is the weekly delivery of the Penny Saver to every home in our circulation area. We include the counties of Livingston, Monroe, Ontario, Genesee, Orleans, Steuben and Wayne. In our infancy, about 1000 papers were produced each week which covered Avon, Caledonia and Geneseo. Today we’ve grown to over 150,000 papers delivered into 80 towns. No small task to get all these papers to their appointed destination.

Approximately half of our delivery is by adult carriers with either driving or walking routes depending on the area. The other half is distributed through the US Postal Service. Our carrier routes are carefully mapped out and delivered either to a GVPS tube installed by us in front of the home or bagged and placed on the porch or hung on the doorknob.

Coordinating the Post Office deliveries and carrier routes is an important job. Shari Rapone, our Circulation Manager, has been employed by us for nearly 30 years, and has supervised the weekly delivery of our Penny Savers for nearly 25 years. Her duties include hiring carriers, arranging routes and handling absences which can sometimes occur with little notice. Shari sometimes needs to find substitute carriers quickly and has often gone out herself to complete a route. She also keeps track of the carriers’ employment information, routes, mileage and weekly pay. She works with the Post Office weekly as well, filling out postal permits and being sure the papers are bundled according to delivery routes. Also, Shari prepares information for our semi-annual audits by Circulation Verification Council (CVC), which provides audit reports for over 3,500 publications in North America. For the past 13 years, we have received their Gold Standard Award which ranks us in the top 1% of publications in North America and first in New York State for our extensive “Reach”, “Readership” and “Response.” A CVC audit report shows all our circulation numbers and is like receiving the “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval” for publications.

They, as well as we, closely monitor these reports as a way of determining how well we are doing our job, for both our advertisers and our readers.

For our 71 adult carriers, we have 164 carrier routes in total with Penny Savers being delivered every Friday, or Saturday morning if necessary. Our carriers do a great job for us and often need to deliver in rather harsh weather conditions. Four of our carriers have been with us for over 25 years and 27 over 10 years. As we celebrate our 70th year in business, we want to continue to express our gratitude to those who have made it possible.

To our current carriers who are listed here, as well as the many who have worked for us throughout the years, we are very grateful!

Volume 7

Pat Allen James Banker Mark Bennett David Bennetti Heidi Bermudez Lidia Caballero Benjamin Ciurzynski Geoff Clough Karl Cook Jean Suzanne D’Aurizio Heather Donohue Daniel Driscoll Daniel Eddinger Paul Eddinger Carol Ellinwood Dawn Everts Richard Fitzsimmons Ken Fowler Patricia Fowler Al Fratter Sam Genova Allan George Casey Gingher David Gleason Miquel Gonzalez Zoanne Good Michael Grant Edward (Skip) Hall David Hancy Chris Harrison Brian Hill Linda Hogle Lynn Homer James Jackson Tanisha Jackson Arlene Jewett

Joseph Jewett Michelle Johnson James Jorolemon Randy Kehl Arthur Kemp Kevin Knapp Wayne Legg Dale Loucks Cindy Mack Ciro Maggio Carol Magoffin Deborah Mantz Janice Masonis Joanne McCormick Jason Moore Michael Mosher Rita O’Neil Norman Pagels Melissa Perkins Michael Pratt Jean Rapone John Rapone Rachel Rapone Robert Rose David Russell Rich Shelhart James Strapp Tyler Swetman Clayton Tice Frank Tribunella Sandy Tunningley Charles Vanbuskirk Jose Vasquez Noble Williams Brittney Willis

Family owned and operated since 1948 …stay tuned for volume 8 next month

70th Anniversary Series- Volume 8 Our Mission…

We’re in the business of helping you reach your customers through advertising, printing, direct mail and promotional products…

It’s a tall order, but we’re up for the challenge.

The Genesee Valley Penny Saver was our first endeavor 70 years ago and continues on as the cornerstone of our business today. However, through the years, as different needs for advertising developed, we began to stretch our capabilities to include many other avenues in which advertisers could reach their customers.

In 1993 we redesigned our business structure and began Penny Lane Printing, a sister corporation to the Genesee Valley Penny Saver. Although we had been doing printing up until then, Penny Lane Printing gave us the opportunity to market ourselves as a premier source of all things printed: Stationery, business cards, newsletters, posters, flyers, calendars, signage and publications of all sorts. We pride ourselves on our talented Creative Team who use their expertise to incorporate your ideas into dynamic designs for every facet of Penny Lane as well as Penny Saver. Custom designed invitations, save-the-dates, response cards for weddings and graduations have become a nice addition to our print work. (We will feature our Creative Department in a future volume.)

Within Penny Lane Printing, we have the Penny Express division which processes virtually any direct mail piece that is delivered by the U.S. Postal Service.

Our mailing software has quarterly updates and gets the best discounts.

Penny Lane Promotional Products is our division that can provide you with thousands of different specialty items including t-shirts, banners, pens, mugs, glassware, hats, business incentive awards, to name a few.

And on our website, GVPennySaver.com, all our GVPS ads appear online. You can also promote your business through banner advertising, view our weekly online editions, take advantage of our weekly coupon club and promote your business with electronic direct mail. Our online experts can even design custom websites.

Staying true to our Mission Statement, we are always working on new and different ways for our customers to make the most of the dollars they spend to reach their customers. …stay tuned for volume 9 next month

Christi Miller Shopkeeper cell: (585) 330-3661

3067 e. henrietta road • henrietta, ny 14467 (585) 486-4707 • abeautifulmess.biz

Family owned and operated since 1948

70th Anniversary Series- Volume 9 To go back in time in our history, in Vol. 4 we moved to a new, larger location in the Avon Town Plaza behind Tom Wahl’s.

This was in the early 1980’s. We were so excited with 8,000 square feet of space to accommodate our growing number of employees, our expanding circulation and new and bigger equipment. We just KNEW this was it! No more moves! We settled in.

Well, our good intentions of staying put were squashed within several years as we realized we were, once again out of room. Our next – and final move was to our current location in East Avon in the early 90’s. This provided us with 14,000 sq. ft., almost doubling what we had in our Plaza location.

This was it!

Still our business grew and we realized the need for more typesetters and graphic designers, and more equipment including a second printing press, bindery and inserting machines, and a system for shredding and recycling paper. The growth in our circulation area also warranted hiring more salespeople. Suddenly we were crowded again. So, over the course of the 90’s and early in the 2000’s we added on more square feet for additional sales and promo products space, additional bindery space, an area for carriers to pick up their Penny Savers and loading docks for the various suppliers who deliver to us each week. Our new, and final location grew from 14,000 sq. ft. to 27,000 sq. ft. as we added on to our building 5 different times!

Our Production department, which takes up a large part of our building, produces approximately 147,000 of our own Genesee Valley Penny Savers and 30,500 other local Shoppers each week. The printing is done on two Royal Zenith Zephyr 300 printing presses; one with nine printing units and one with six. Each press averages about 20,000 impressions per hour.

The production of the papers uses about 25,000 lbs. of paper each week. Our newsprint comes to us in 1,000 lb. rolls and is shipped from mills in Canada. We are very proud to say we are committed to recycling. A large shredder and baling machine produces about 25,000 lbs. of scrap every three weeks. The 1,000 lb. bales of scrap are loaded into tractor trailers and returned to Canada where it is reproduced again as more paper. So, as you hold this Penny Saver in your hands, just think, you might have held some of it in your hands before!

To print the quantity we do each week takes a large amount of ink, both black and color. We use approximately 7,000 gallons of black ink each year, which is shipped to us 3 times a year in tanker trucks and pumped into a 2,000 gallon holding tank. The tank then pumps the black ink as needed to the presses.

After the printing process, stacks of “signatures” (8 page sections of the paper) are loaded in page order into two Muller-Martini Saddle Stitchers. These machines collate, staple and trim our papers, at a rate of about 7000 an hour to their finished size. In our early days, this rather monotonous job was performed by a group of dedicated people who would stand for hours pulling Penny Saver sections out of wooden boxes and putting them together in order, by hand. Automation most likely saved these people from sore feet and legs and backs, and probably not one of them regrets losing their job to this wonderful machine.

After the papers are put together, those with “inserts” such as grocery stores, drug stores, hardware stores etc. are moved to the insert machine.

This machine automatically opens the paper and drops in the appropriate inserts depending on the area the customer wants to advertise in.

After the inserting process is complete, the Penny Savers are bundled and labeled either for the Post Offices or the individual adult carriers and their routes. Carriers pick their papers up from our facility, and the copies that are mailed are delivered to the Post Offices by our truck drivers. It is an intense job that must be carried out in a limited amount of time!

Family owned and operated since 1948 …stay tuned for volume 10 next month

70th Anniversary Series- Volume 10 The Genesee Valley Penny Saver Creative Department … . . . imaginative, innovative and artistic! What would our Penny Savers be without these talented people who can take a few words scribbled on a piece of paper and turn it into a work of art suitable for printing! Our Creative Department consists of 16 talented graphic designers including our Creative Director Cristie Leone who has been with our company for 33 years, and has supervised this department for the last 12.

The evolution of technology in printing is no more apparent than in our Creative Department. In 1948 composing ads was an arduous task. As mentioned in previous series, the varityper and headliner were crucial for the production of weekly ads. These gave way to the compugraphic typesetter, and in 1985, the introduction of the Macintosh computer in our Creative department was a wonder to behold. With a screen that was 9”, the Macintosh (128k) was the first relatively inexpensive computer to use a graphical user interface, and true WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) picture, all of which are taken for granted today. This computer allowed the designer to actually see their layout on the screen instead of strips of text that needed to be printed out, waxed and adhered to a layout sheet. Artwork could be scanned in and placed in the ad. This technology also hastened the departure of the dark room.

Around this time, the Genesee Valley Penny Saver took an increased interest in what it takes to create effective advertising. True principles of advertising and design became a focus. A job that was once considered strictly typesetting had evolved into a graphic design position. In the past two decades we’ve embraced all things digital, from ad creation, to page creation and output, and finally to plates ready for the press. Programs that log and track ads from billing, through sales and into the creative department have made for a streamlined process. Today the Creative Department consists of talented graphic designers, paginators, and an outstanding proofing department headed up by Carole Bennett. Along with ads for our weekly Penny Saver, all work for Penny Lane Printing and Penny Lane Promotional Products flows through this department.

The recognition that we receive from the Free Community Papers of New York (FCPNY) and the Association of Free Community Papers (AFCP) each year confirms our belief that we have one of the best papers around. The award for General Excellence graces our office each and every year and is something that our Creative department strives for annually.

Recently the task that the Creative Department has undertaken is the transformation of our logo and masthead and can be seen here, with a few examples of our Penny Saver, then and now.

Family owned and operated since 1948 …stay tuned for volume 11 next month

70th Anniversary Series- Volume 11 This month we remember our most important assets, our Employees. As mentioned in previous editions, after 70 years in business, we have been blessed with numerous people who have played a part in making our company what it is today. Whether they’re production workers, graphic designers, sales representatives, administrative or weekend delivery people – every one has contributed to our finished weekly Penny Saver and our 70 years of success.

We are forever grateful to them all, and would like to share with you the members of our current staff.

These are the people who make it all possible!

Steve Harrison, President Kim Dougherty, Vice President

Front Office: Back: Kathy Hammond (Controller/ General Manager), Christine Formicola, Shari Rapone (Circulation Manager), Lynn Forrester. Front: Emma-Jean Hernandez, Bruce Zito, Beth Garbe (Accounts Receivable Manager).

Sales: Back: Jenn Powell, Laurie Abbott, Brittany Walker, Kirsti Vinci, Carmen Campbell. Middle: John Baxter, Colleen Mann, Kevin Patrick, Jennifer Howe, Berta Love, Manuel Karam (Sales Manager). Front: Mary Shepard (Marketing Manager), Casey Hitchcock, Ashley Hanchette, Megan Ebersole, Daria Reitknecht, Judy Gillis.

Not Pictured: New employee, Karen Lambert

Production: Back: Jay Forrester, Mike Pratt, Fred Farrell, Mike Tuchrello, Bill Peaty, Rob Allen, Chris Harrison.

Front: Tom Frantz, Dave Sherman, Larry Blaker, Ciro Maggio, Bob Halbert, Sue Lewis, Jeff Wasson (Production Manager), Don Stevens, Mike Montesano, Noble Williams, Tony Alam, Ed Hall, Mike Nailos.

Not pictured: New employee, Josh Formicola

Penny Lane Printing Bill Rumsey, Gina Doran (Commercial Print Manager), Jeanine Robbins Penny Lane Promotional Products Jill Garza

Creative: Back: Andrea Schmieder, Scott Kingsbury, John Tewksbury, Kathryn Boor. Middle: Deena Scully, Diane Scott, Audrey Blount, Meghan Cook, Kara Johnson, Kelly Nolan, Carole Bennett. Front: Kelly Quinn, Pamela Randall, Anne Barrett, Cristie Leone (Creative Director), Sarah Christ

Recently, we tragically lost one of our beloved members, Judy Gillis, who was the assistant to our Sales Manager.

Her duties were many, and because of her position she was involved in almost every aspect of our business.

She was thorough and efficient in her work and a good friend to us all. She will be sadly missed.

‌stay tuned for volume 12 next month

1948

70th Anniversary Series- Volume 12 Putting together and writing our history over the past 12 months has been an interesting and sometimes emotional experience. So many changes since that first edition in 1948. So many wonderful people have passed through our doors – advertisers, suppliers, many friends and most especially our dedicated employees.

As a family we have been blessed many times over as we have worked together in the advertising business.

The future is bright! We are excited and happy to have a third generation already involved and ready to take on the next chapters of the Genesee Valley Penny Saver.

Roger Harrison - Jane Harrison

Manuel Karam Advertising Director

Steve Harrison - Kim Dougherty

Colleen Mann Advertising Sales

Family owned and operated since 1948

Chris Harrison Production/Delivery

2018

ANNIVERSARY C E L E B R A T I O N

RAISE AWARENESS Awareness Ribbon Water Bottle $4.15* ea.

Pink Awareness Wristbands $1* ea. (Min. qty 100)

(Min. qty 100)

Many promotional items to choose from. * Call for details.

The Livingston Edition

(585) 226-8111 • (866) 812-8111

CALL JILL 585-226-5865 jillgarza@gvpennysaver.com

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