May
11
James Bay Newspaper Society
April 16, 2015
I have just completed my third term on the board, and second year as chair.
This past year we have been focusing on our process, and asking the question, “what can make us better?”
We also decided to strive to have photo spreads on the covers and this has been well received.
Starting with our next issue, we will be printing on a whiter paper. This should result in both text and pictures being sharper and simply popping off the page.
Our double issue for July / August will be in colour. This will coincide with the printing of the winning photographs for our photo contest.
Our website traffic has increased and remains steady - the website report is one of the highlights of our board meetings.
For 2014 there were 75,210 visitors to our website with 188,866 page views. I want to thank Stephanie Garber for preparing the website report for us.
The Beacon strives to promote community pride and educate readers as to their privileges, rights and responsibilities as residents of James Bay.
This is a difficult assignment when you only publish once a month and there is a one month lead-time. By the time something is published it can be very old news.
However, local governments make policy on small things which pass traditional forms of media. Examples: smoking by-laws; camping in the parks; and green gardening workshops.
The Beacon tries to inform its readers regarding the impact of some of those little decisions that directly affect James Bay.
With that in mind this past year saw the development of the column “Local Government – Notes and Queries.”
This past year all ten of our issues were 24 pages – that is a first!
The James Bay Newspaper Society has produced our James Bay Beacon community newspaper for 23 years. We cannot do it without our community members’ submissions of articles, poems and stories, as well as regular columns, photographs and letters to the editor.
Our contributors do not get any remuneration for their submissions, and we encourage all members of our community to submit articles and letters for publication. Our planning meetings are held monthly and are open to the public - we encourage you all to attend.
I would like to thank Sarah Pugh who served as vice-president this past year and has just completed her term on our board of directors.
Many thanks to Deborah Antonsen, as well as our advertising sales manager, Rosalinde Compton, and Connie Attwell, volunteer office assistant.
Last but certainly not least I would like to thank all of our volunteers for their time, talent and energy. To our writers, editors, graphic designers, layout artists, distributors, technical wizards and photographers…we could not produce the paper without you.
Bob Tuomi
Chair, Board of Directors
James Bay Newspaper Society