Come rain or shine

or even snow we'll get your copy of CJS Weekly to you.

This week every one got involved even HB's kids who leant their sledge and helped to pull the post from the office up to the Post Office for collection - yes, this is actually one of the main roads in the village.

Snow and a Weekly.

One word. SNOW.

Need we say more?

At least it's brought lots of birds into the garden including a couple of redwings. But it's causing problems for the office staff, being in a small village on the moors the office is pretty much inaccessible to vehicles, a large 4x4 got well and truly stuck on the lane this morning and created lots of very deep ruts and skid patches whilst getting out again. For the duration the office is staffed by those of us who can walk in although other team members are doing vital work from home so as long as the power and phone lines hold we'll be fine.
We have been busy taking photos and when we have five minutes we'll upload a few.

Despite this the office opened as usual and the first copy of CJS Weekly has been sent to print. The digital version is already online, the postal one will be with you - well maybe Monday but the white stuff will have a lot say about that. The week it's 11 pages with 72 new paid posts of which 53 came direct to CJS.

Happy New Year

Office is open once again and we're making our way through the mountains of emails and stacks of post having waded in through the snowdrifts. Some staff are still at home and working remotely where possible, only those within walking distance are getting to the office so we may be a little slower than usual in answering the phone / dealing with email etc. Please bear with us, we will get to you all eventually.

Candlemas and snows

If Candlemas day be fair and bright winter will have another flight,
If Candlemas day be dull and drear winter has gone for another year.

But what about if it snows all day??

It started at lunch time yesterday and gradually got heavier with hail overnight, a few breaks in the virtually constant snow during today but the forecasters are predicting 20 inches (yes, nearly two feet) more of snow overnight. So like many offices we're a little short staffed today so grant us a little latitude if we're not quite as fast usual. However, our big worry is that the lights keep flickering so we're just hoping the power stays online.

Hope you're all warm and dry and have made fantastic snowmen to populate the winter wonderland.

What a week

Friday travails: TB had to leave her car at the field with her horses (a couple of miles from the CJS office) and walk home, 50 minutes of hard trudge through the soggy snow. AW tried to get home but managed 200 yards in 20 minutes! But family with a large 4x4 were able to make it through and take her home up the dale. However, we're happy to report to damages to property or more importantly people. The dogs all thought the snow was wonderful, their people were not so pleased at all the soggy pawprints. Friday night it all froze solid but by Sunday there was hardly anything left. Monday arrived and you'd never know it had snowed at all. And now (Friday afternoon) the sun in shining, it's warm and spring like, most peculiar!

Despite the vagaries of the weather CJS has trundled on and right now copies of CJS Weekly are dropping off the printers, this week is 12 sides long with 93 new paid posts of which 63 came direct to CJS.

You may be aware that postage rates are changing yet again come April, this will push the cost of producing and posting CJS Weekly beyond your subscription fee (yes, our profit margins really are so small). So we're looking at ways to reduce the cost and this week we're experimenting with folding your copies to fit a C5 (half A4) envelope which should make them RM letter size rather than large letter with an analogous postage decrease. If it's possible without giving the staff RSI we maybe able to stave off a huge subs increase, if it's not possible we'll have to stick with flats (C4, big envelopes) and charge you all a lot more – sorry. Keep your fingers crossed it works.

It's Friday!

We got there, it's been a trying week but the weekend is in sight.
Guess what – more snow! A light sprinkling fell over night and all day the sky has looked threatening but no more since this morning. More pictures here.
CJS Weekly is now being printed and will be posted out to subscribers as usual. For online readers it's already been uploaded. Once again it's sixteen sides this week with 160 new vacancies of which 100 were sent direct to CJS.

More snow, and then some more snow.

So far the count is one abandoned car, one bumped car (slid into by a transit van whilst stationary), a few sore muscles from too much sledging and lots of damp clothes from snowballs – hopefully that's it. The woodstove is going full tilt keeping us all warm and preventing brains from congealing. In the office we're having of those weeks: yesterday the second half of the work on the server was to take place but it was discovered that the first half hadn't gone according to plan so that was abandoned. Plan B has been pressed into action and a whole new set of hard drives are being configured and at some point will be switched for the old ones which will mean another day offline, we don’t know when yet but will let you know well in advance. Our webhost server (not the office one, we keep them separate) blocked the submissions from the online forms delivering two days worth this morning, including a deluge from a webbot – which may have been the problem. So backup procedures have now been added to the site and a few changes are planned.
However the CJS team struggle on and are determined that your copies of CJS will arrive in full and on time.

We're living in a Christmas Card!

4-5 inches of snow fell over night followed by more flurries through the morning. However, CJS carries on as normal – ish.

The postie got through and collected CJS Monthly so that should be with you tomorrow or the day after.

As you'd expect the bird feeders are covered in birds but every time I go to take a photo they all go and hide in the trees! I'm glad we're not doing the Birdcount today, although they are more visible against the snow there are so many more than usual.

More snow...

More snow overnight but today we have gritters.

We have spring & autumn side by side in the garden with lovely hazel catkins dusted with snow.

How's this for efficiency? Today we received a letter from Sweden for an American company setting up a subscription for an English college paying with a cheque drawn on an international bank.

Wind, rain, hail, sleet and now snow.

We've had it all over the last few days and now it's snowing heavens hard. Overnight less a centimetre fell but the road crews were conspicuous by their absence. No grit, no ploughs overnight or this morning making even the main road treacherous. Mid morning walked up to the post office with the banking and a couple of bills to pay and the roads were still not cleared except by weight of traffic.

This is the view from the office door at about 11 am this morning - isn't it pretty! That 'fog' you can see is the next blizzard blowing in. There's not so much green now...


The birds are having a feast on the feeders outside the office, when the bossy goldfinches let anyone else near.