Ian Boughton

ianb@coffee-house.org.uk

Heart’s Content

Pendower

Veryan

Truro TR2 5PE

01872 501050

mobile: 07702-348866

March 2008

Current activity:

Boughton’s Coffee House - Publisher, editor, writer, typesetter, photographer, ad salesman, designer and general dogsbody, for the leading bi-monthly for the retail beverage trade. (Produced on Quark, with Adobe Photoshop. Working on PC format)    We do everything from newswriting to putting the things in envelopes when they come back from the printer.  We also maintain the beverage trade’s leading news website.

Other current/recent writing work:

FM World and FMX  (the two competing titles in the facilities-management sector)  -  regular feature contributor on subjects relating to workplace design and general management.  This can be anything from the trend towards in-house coffee bars to discussion of the issue of ‘desk miles’, which is the furniture equivalent of ‘food miles’. Amazingly wide subject base.

Caterer and Hotelkeeper – this is the big weekly for the hospitality trade. The section editor calls me ‘her coffee man’, and I write the beverage supplements four times a year.

On Office – a glossy and trendy magazine for those who specify and design workplaces. Yes, there really is a ‘style’ fraternity for that occupation. 

Fresh Cup, and Tea and Coffee Trade Journal – contributor to the two big American titles, the equivalents of my own magazine.  (But if my magazine operated there, we’d be on a different scale – 80 pages a month !)

Cranes and Access – monthly British trade magazine devoted to the business of lifting things.  A very specialist field, but still general-interest ‘exclusives’ to be had – we uncovered a teenager who invented a radio-controlled system for guiding crane-lifts, ‘blind’, and who could lift entire canal boats out of the water and position them in a workshop - without looking.

Catalogue and e-Business – a west-country magazine for which I was briefly (my choice!) the editor-in-chief, a vast over-description.   Business magazine working on a very good current issue – catalogue and mail-order commerce, which is now fairly evenly split between online and paper catalogues. 

Falmouth Packet - sub for a regional weekly paper in Cornwall.

North Devon Journal – some advertorial and listing work while we lived in Lynton for ten months.   I quite like doing advertorials, because they’re a good range of subjects – where possible, I like making them interesting, inasmuch as the space available allows.

In The Cup – every member of staff for a small bi-monthly paper produced for a beverage trade association.

Health Help International - Voluntary editor/designer of magazine for a British Christian healthcare charity, and recording engineer/designer of their promotional CDs, including the sleeve designs. Have written three books for them so far – maybe a fourth by this Christmas..

1998-2003  Freelance Editor/designer and feature writer. Major projects/clients:-

Guardian – regular weekly contributor to Office Hours, the PA supplement.  In most cases, I came up with the feature ideas as well.   (I see that these subject ideas now keep coming back, but there’s nothing I can do about it!)

Executary International, - editor of glossy 80-pager for senior secretaries and PAs worldwide… we were actually in at the beginning of the phase for glossy magazines for executive women.   News-gathering and feature writing across the globe.  As editor, I was the only member of the writing staff!

Licensee and Morning Advertiser, for the pub trade.  Although this is (was) a business title, it also counts as a newspaper – a twice-weekly publication, which I think was the oldest newspaper in Britain.  Again it was largely my responsibility to suggest feature ideas. Before moving on to feature writing, I worked with them as a sub/page designer, using Quark on Mac format.

Real Coffee and Pizza and Pasta magazines.  Editor, sole writer, designer and layout man - Quark on PC format.  Absolutely no budget whatsoever – and very often, no pay, either.

Christian Herald/British Gospel Music/Baptist World Mission, feature-writer for three Christian-interest papers.                                                                         

1984-1998

Group Editor, Trade Media Ltd. (now closed) -   Writer, editor, and co-ordinator of operations and  training across half a dozen trade and business publications, mainly concerned with the office-equipment and office-management sector.  That was then a £3bn sector, so there was no end of newsworthy subjects and issues for a monthly magazine.  (As leader of operations, my  proudest record in this period was taking four complete newcomers to journalism and seeing them become editors worthy of the title).

Editor, STN (Stationery Trade News) -  a campaigning trade paper for 8,000

manufacturers and dealers. Imaginatively-presented product news and creative discussion of marketing techniques for use in a business-to-business market.  Wrote the book of the industry, Small Cars Over there, Please, which raised £7,500 for Children in Need.       Editor, Office Buyer -  discussion of office-management subjects and products or  technologies for a readership of hard-nosed professional buyers. 

Editor, Greetings and Gift Stationer - News and marketing for the retail gift industry - a rare opportunity to write features on the strategic marketing of Winnie the Pooh, and to discuss the targeting of teddy-bears!

1979-1984

Feature writer, Sunday Standard (Glasgow) -  feature writer and diary-column

contributor for a short-lived quality Sunday paper for Scotland, which won a lot of

critical praise, but insufficient sales.

Typesetter, Scottish Community Education Council - at the time when photo-

typesetting was making its appearance, a year spent setting books, magazines and

promotional material.

Further back in antiquity:

Scottish Daily Mail, 1965-69ish – from copy-boy to feature writer.

1970s – largely spent in a haze of music-magazine work.

Further data: please visit

www.coffee-house.org.uk  -  this is the site for our coffee-trade magazine

General information:

Age: still young,  even if birth date was 9.5.49.

Family:  partner, 20-year-old son, dog

Qualifications : no formal work-relevant ones – all on-the-job training.   Awarded myself an honorary GCSE in Latin, 2003, while invigilating school exams.

Languages: rusty French and German.

Driving: full licence, three speeding endorsements in 39 years… and all below 36mph!

Hobbies and occupations: although old enough to know better, still a recording musician.

Ian B.

August 2007.