19. February 2011 by pat desmond.

The final report from radiology came in late yesterday.

There was a small piece of cancer in my left breast - something unexpected.

So while I am still thinking I may be cancer free because of the bilateral surgery, I know I need to bring more energy to my recovery.

My son is suggesting organic brocoli sprouts. I don’t think it could hurt to try them.

It’s been more than 5 hours since my last pain pill. I’m working towards healing without pain. I think that’s the approach that will work best for me.

I’m opposed to pain. But I know that pain leads to growth.

Truly I think I’ve grown quite enough.

Posted in staff notes | Print | 3 Comments »

8. February 2011 by pat desmond.

For the past month I’ve been working to create time in, what has been up to now, my very busy life.

It’s not exactly an option. A week from today I’ll be lying in a hospital bed. I’ve known this day was approaching.

And for the next three weeks I’ll be restricted in my ability to do more than heal. I feel fine today. Most of what I need to do to has been done.

My son will be flying in to Boston from his home in California on the day of my surgery. He’ll be with me for a week.

Then my daughter and her two children will be with me for a few days.

I have a lengthy list of people who have offered to bring soup to my home, or drive me to the doctor’s office, or just stop at the Fruit Center and pick up meals to go.

More information on this simple story will be published soon.

Prayers and well wishes are welcome. But I can’t handle all the emails and phone calls.

Posted in staff notes | Print | 1 Comment »

21. January 2011 by pat desmond.

The first ever Milton Times Telephone Book went into delivery mode today…

Many copies were delivered by the USPS. Some were dropped in bulk at Fuller Village and Unquity House. We are having more copies delivered to Milton tomorrow from the press. The business day ran out before we were finished.

So far most of the people who have received the book love it. And so do we.

We are already making plans for the 2012 version.

The book that has been delivered was created in partnership with a company that makes a business out of publishing telephone books in small communities. They have a lot of expertise is producing this sort of product.

Our staff believes we can do an even better job on the 2012 issue if we control all the elements.

So the cover this year shows the Baron Hugo Gazebo with Ken Lodge and his orchestra playing at one of the park department summer concerts. Next year what very Milton photo might we use on the cover? That is still to be decided…

 We have a company that enjoys creating print products.

But we have moved into this decade and we are beginning to work on moving to the mobile web.

Our web site hasn’t been tweaked for mobile visitors. But we are working on it.

Before the end of the year we will have an app of our very own.  It will work on iphones and blackberries. I’ve decided to let the bigger papers lose money on marketing to androids. We will stick with the market that has the numbers.

Posted in staff notes | Print | No Comments »

2. January 2011 by pat desmond.

At least once a year, I draw a new plan for the business operation of the Milton Times.

As the year begins I need to look at where we are and where we are going as a newspaper, as a business, as an institution.

The good news is that I am projecting a better year in 2011 than 2010.

This does not mean I expect the advertisters who were spending large amounts in 2008 to be back. Some industries have changed the way they work. So have we.

In the past year the Milton Times created a telephone book. It’s back from the press and will be delivered to Milton residents with the newspaper issue Jan. 20.

We will be putting the list on line using a web site just purchased - www.miltonphonebook.com. The 2011 phone book numbers were purchased by a third party from the telephone company. Obviously cell phones are not included in the listed numbers. But the future may bring a new system for creating the local phone book.

So we have a new product ready for distribution in the beginning days of 2011. And we have plans to add a new web site to our line.

We hope our newspaper will continue to thrive but the best way to ensure our stability is by adding new sources of local information.

People in the news industry are predicting that more advertising money will be spent on APs. Until about six months ago I didn’t know what an AP looked like. Now I’m in the market for one.

The 2012 Milton Phone Book is on our company server already. I think it will be a while before we have an AP ready. But the future will certainly bring new ways of communicating.

Posted in staff notes | Print | No Comments »

23. December 2010 by pat desmond.

Shaquille O’Neal Conducts the BSO

My son, Timothy Ambrose and his wife of four months, Annie, came to Boston for a few days.

They are already back in California, enjoying the rain, and I’m here in Milton, feeling very chilly.

But I have my memories and they are better than I hoped.

We shared time with my daughter and her two children. June and the kids live in New Hampshire. We don’t often get together as a family any more. The problem is we live in three separate states. Getting all of us in the same location depends on work schedules, school schedules, plane tickets and the weather.

This year we’ve had a few times together.  There was the engagement party in July, the wedding in August and now our pre-Christmas weekend. It took me seven months to coordinate the travel plans so we could all be at the engagement party.

I loved every minute of family time. I get so little of it now that my two children are grown with families of their own.

Monday my son, his wife and I went to the BSO’s Holiday Pops. It was spectacular as the orchestra always is. A show of pomp and circumstance, signifying very much. Christmas music soothes the soul.

And then there was Shaquille O’Neal moving onto center stage in his giant tuxedo. Does anyone know how tall Keith Lockhart might be? He looked about half the size of the hoopster. But both men conducted themselves very well.

Listening to the Pops play “We Are the Champions” just seemed so politically correct. It is the season of love and peace. Shaq and the BSO made Christmas a little merrier for everyone who had the good fortune to be in the audience.

The holiday season is a chance to take time from the rush of life to celebrate the joy of family, friends and simple pleasures. It’s all about the joy.

Posted in staff notes | Print | No Comments »

10. October 2010 by pat desmond.

The Milton Times staff just walked away with its second award in two years from the National Newspaper Association.

The award was announced last summer but presented at the NNA’s annual convention in Omaha last week. The convention celebrated the success of community newspapers in a tough economy.

The cartoon that won the Milton Times a third place award depicted Ledger reporter Fred Hanson standing in a crowd of Milton residents just before he was pulled off regular coverage of Milton news for the local daily paper.

Fred was saying “If only a few more of you bought the Ledger, I’d still be covering Milton.” Nearby someone had a thought bubble saying, “I read it online.”

The cartoon is not actually funny. The reality is daily newspapers like the Ledger have been giving their product away free for the past decade and they’ve watched their print readership decline in those years.

The Milton Times, like those big dailies, has a free web site. Obviously, if you found this blog, you can read stories from Milton online.  But after trying the model the bigger papers have been using (for two years back in 2000-2002), we have limited what goes online.

Just last week the Boston Globe announced it would be trying a paid web site while keeping the free site it’s been promoting at Boston.com. All of the big papers have figured out they need to do something differently.

It the past few months those big papers have been going after the small local retailers, trying to eat away at the losses they have been absorbing.

Those small local retailers are the source of life for a small weekly paper like the Milton Times. We have served the Milton market for the past 15 years. There are features we have tried and then moved away from in the brief history of the paper.

Our first responsibility is to create a viable newspaper. This means capturing stories about Milton and its people. It also means we pay attention to the bottom line. Our staff deserve more pay than they receive, but they are willing to accept the salaries that work in this market. We would love to print more photos and add more stories - the limiting factor is a financial one. Advertising pays the real cost of the paper. Subscriptions pay for the postage, plus the cost of subscription upkeep.

It’s fun to win awards. It’s great to be acknowledged by our peers.

Cartooning is fun, too.  Maybe there will be more cartoons in the Milton Times in the coming year.

Posted in staff notes | Print | 1 Comment »

10. September 2010 by pat desmond.

Cedar Grove Garden created an interesting online garden contest in the last days of summer.

This week, three relatively non-partial judges (including me) traveled through the backyards of the finalists. We still haven’t made a final decision. But the results will soon be known.

Cedar Grove’s Richard O’Mara found a spectacular angle for the contest. The five finalists were selected by a crowd of online voters. The five gardens managed to earn several thousand votes each.

So Maureen Forry of the Dorchester Reporter and Kristin Ahern, a Dorchester photographer, and I all agree that the quality of the five finalists was amazing.

Now truth be told, the gardens look more colorful in the photos on the Cedar Grove Garden Web site than they did for our Sept. 9 garden tour. But  the designs, the lighting, the chimes, the stone work are there to bring out smiles even after the blooms fade.

I was amazed at the blooms still available.

So thank you Richard Froio, David Thompson, R. Foley, Cheryl and Buddy Earle.

Four of the final gardens are located in Dorchester. Earle lives in Cambridge. The contest pulled in entries from as far north as New Hampshire.

Posted in staff notes | Print | 1 Comment »

1. July 2010 by pat desmond.

For the summer months, the office of the Milton Times will close at 4 p.m. After Labor Day, we will return to our regular 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. hours.

The early closing begins July 1. We continue to open at 9 a.m. at our office in the Jesson Building, 480 Adams St., Suite 208, East Milton.

Summer months are always slow at the paper.

In the past few days most of our staff has been leaving far before 5 p.m. With the 4 p.m. closing, our staff will have more time of their own. We may even keep the 4 p.m. closing on a permanent basis if it seems to work for our readers.

(We will still be closing from 1 to 2 p.m. on Fridays for our staff lunch.)

Posted in staff notes | Print | 1 Comment »

17. June 2010 by pat desmond.

The core mission of the National Newspaper Association is to protect, promote and enhance America’s community newspapers.

As the owner of Milton’s newspaper of record, The Milton Times, I am excited about the opportunities that working on the NNA board can create.

Last week I spent a few days in Michigan - it was my first chance to sit with the other members of the NNA board.

I have Cheryl Kaechlele, association president, to thank.

As a board, we spent most of our meeting working on a plan to reset priorities.

It’s always a good idea to take a look at goals and decide if current strategy is working. So we’re moving in a new way to achieve our mission.

We talked about concentrating on the basics. After all, isn’t that what usually leads to success?

Posted in staff notes | Print | 1 Comment »

25. May 2010 by pat desmond.

It’s been busy in the office this spring.

It’s always a busy season - but we’ve been trying to finish off our first ever Little MiltonTelephone Book and then our advertising coordinator, Phil Perry, was hired by Comcast.

Phil wanted to keep both jobs. The hours didn’t conflict. At the Milton Times, we work 9 to 5.  The Comcast job was 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. with varying days.  Since he isn’t 30 yet, it was possible. But somehow even young people need sleep.

Phil, a graduate of Boston College High School and Georgetown University, lives in Milton. His goal is sports writing and while he worked on the Milton Times ad, he also turned in some excellent local sports articles.

We all miss Phil. He was forthright, hardworking and committed. We were disappointed when he gave his two weeks notice.

This week our new advertising coordinator began working in our office at 480 Adams St.

Patty Casinelli D’Agostino won’t be writing sports stories in her free time. Once she learns the ins and outs of the job, we expect our page count will increase. We base the number of pages of our weekly paper on the number of advertising inches. The more paid inches, the larger the paper.

We look forward to growth. There is so much more to write about and photograph in Milton. All we need is the space.

Posted in staff notes | Print | No Comments »