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| THE COLONY NEWS | DECEMBER 2022 | 17 OUTREACH TO HISTORY By Rita Nastri The History of The Colony News As you read your Colony News today, please remember that even after a few iterations of this grand brochure of our daily lives, it had a beginning, and a pretty humble one at that. It all started with Bob Brazeau, who had the hardest job of all. He started it as a newsletter from scratch and was very devoted to his assignment. Since Bob is no longer in The Colony, I'm going to let him tell you in his own words as reprinted from the 200th issue in August 2006. Some may recall this article, but with so many new residents, I resurrect it , since December is actually the anniversary for what is now The Colony News magazine. It is September 1989, and my wife and I have been in The Colony barely two months when I am ordered by Jerry Larsen, our General Manager at the time, to become Chairman of the Newsletter Committee and the first managing editor of The Colony News. Ordered? Yes! I had dropped in to his little trailer parked out on Jackson (pre- Clubhouse) for a visit, as I had done several times before, when I was given this command. He said that many Colony Committees had already been formed with volunteers to chair them, but there was no such volunteer for the Newsletter Committee. And he, being the General Manager, "volunteered" me for that key position on what he believed to be a very important committee. What choice did I have? I obeyed his order and volunteered to take the job. Although I thought to myself, is this why I retired to The Colony, to go back to work and do something I knew nothing about? I guess so. And so began five years of hard work, sprinkled with many rewards and a lot of fun. Jerry wanted the first issue to come out on Oct. 1; I argued for Nov. 1. But it was not until Dec. 1 that we printed the first issue, because it took that amount of time for Jerry to recruit enough volunteers to help with the job. First came Ralph Raming, then Marguaite Tonazzi, followed by Sandy Crivello and Jeanette Graham. We would meet in Jeanette's house with our pencil- written articles and while she typed them into her word processor, the rest of us cut out graphics from newspapers and magazines. Next, we pasted the typed articles and graphics together on separate pages and took them to Jerry's trailer, where he ran them off on his copy machine. After we stapled the pages together into about 100 issues (by hand), Ralph and I delivered them on foot to every resident's front door. Ralph did the Mira Flores Homes, and I did Brock. We followed this routine for five or six months until the Clubhouse was finished, at which time we met and did our work there. Jerry also moved into his office and eventually got better copying equipment, so the work to put the paper together became easier. At that time, we put the issues in a rack in the Clubhouse Lobby and finally we took them to the Post Office and mailed them to all the residents. Our most worrisome problem during those first few months was the content of each issue. In other words, what should we print and what should we not. I remember these were prime sticking points at many of our meetings, but we were able to work them out. The issue of The Colony News you are reading today is the result of those meetings and the decisions made by your first Newsletter Committee. Editor's note: If anyone wants to see the old issues, they are in white binders in the old Newsletter Office next to the Billiard Room. Please do not remove them from the binders or the office.