History

THE BASINGA IS THE MAGAZINE OF THE PARISH OF OLD BASING.

Started by St Mary’s church and other local churches in 1934 as the Basing Parish Magazine and ran for 26 years until 1960.  These were the days of the mechanical typewriter, wax stencils, hand folding and stapling.

In 1961 it became “Basinga Parish Magazine” as the magazine of St Mary’s Church and ran for 12 years until 1973.

With the expansion of the Parish it was decided that to continue to produce a free copy for every household, a dedicated team of people would be needed. So in 1974 the church handed over the production to a group of church and non-church residents, properly constituted as the Basinga Management Committee.

Under the guidance of the Management Team the magazine production has progressed using photocopiers, word processors to Desk Top Publishing and commercial printing. This has lead to the introduction of full colour adverts and covers and the use of recycled paper.

The magazine is distributed free of charge each month to 3,150 households by 100+ volunteer distributors.

The magazine is produced using Adobe InDesign on Apple Mac computers allowing electronic output direct to the commercial printer. The cost of production is paid from the Classified and Contract Advertising revenue. Donations received from residents and organizations together with any operating surplus is used to upgrade the magazine and the production equipment.