New and Views and Crews

By: Colleen Gundlach

When Lloyd Garrison and Rosanna Trestman first envisioned what would eventually become Norfolk Now, they saw a professional publication, written by a group of experienced volunteer writers and editors, which would be widely read by the community. Their dream has become a reality. Today, almost six years later, Norfolk Now is a well-respected monthly journal of the activities and day-to-day Norfolk life. It is a non-profit organization, governed by a Board of Directors currently consisting of Veronica Burns, President; Rosanna Trestman, Vice-President; Lindsey Pizzica Rotolo, Treasurer; Colleen Gundlach, Secretary; Bob Bumcrot; Ann DeCerbo; Mary Fanette; Bruce Frisch; Lloyd Garrison; Kevin Gundlach; Shelley Harms, and Dorothy Pam. The paper is delivered to all Norfolk addresses free of charge every month, and also has 125 out of town subscribers. We have a strong base of support in a community that contributes generously in support of our efforts. Advertising is an important part of Norfolk Now, and provides the majority of our income. Area businesses often run ads monthly in the paper and report good results from their marketing dollars. Advertisers who are interested in purchasing space in Norfolk Now should contact T.J. Marolda, our Advertising Manager. T.J. has a diverse background in advertising, and we are very fortunate to have him volunteering his talents for us at Norfolk Now. T.J. can be reached at tj@brimberg.com or 860-605-6641. Katherine Pilbin works very closely with T.J. While T.J. takes the ad information and tracks it through publication, Katherine is the numbers person. She will determine the cost of the ad and send out the bills. She can be reached at dpilbin@snet.net or 542-5973. In addition, Norfolk Now has a strong support staff. Susan Patrick keeps track of all of the paper’s subscriptions, updates the lists and collects the payments. Katie Thomson is our Distribution Manager, who picks up the paper each month from the printer and distributes it to the post office and the various businesses around town where Norfolk Now can be found. Business Manager Lindsey Pizzica Rotolo keeps our books in order while Kevin Gundlach strives each month to do a layout that produces the beautiful visual appeal of the paper. Staff photographers Carol Stein, Bruce Frisch and Adela Hubers ensure that the paper has professional quality pictures throughout, and Lisa Bazzano gathers and writes all of the local tidbits for the Community News column. We have a wealth of talented professionals at our fingertips. Norfolkians have, of course, been the absolutely biggest supporters of our little paper that could. Now we at Norfolk Now want to ask one more thing of our readers. We want your news. Our reporters and writers do a very good job of covering the community news that matters to all of us. Now we want your personal news. Have you or your child received an award? Have you been promoted at work? Have you gotten engaged or married? We don’t run engagement or wedding photos at this point, but we would like the opportunity to briefly announce your good news to the world. We would enjoy writing just a few very brief lines about your accomplishment or other news in Norfolk Now. Please understand, though, that we can only include life events about Norfolk residents, and we reserve the right to accept or reject any submitted material. Remember, too, that Norfolk Now does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. If you have an idea for a story that should be covered by this paper, call or e-mail your suggestion to the issue editor for that month. She will review it for appropriateness and assign a reporter to cover the story and write it for the newspaper, if warranted. Just give us your story idea and we will take it from there. Send your personal news and your suggestions for future stories to vaburns@aol.com, lindseylauren@yahoo.com , ToRosanna@comcast.net or cgundlach@snet.net. We look forward to hearing from you.