Chair's Report to AGM

By Helen Tuele, Board of Directors, James Bay Newspaper Society

We are now into our 19^th year of publication and counting! The purpose of the James Bay Newspaper Society is to produce a community newspaper with the following objectives: to educate readers as to their privileges, rights and responsibilities as residents of James Bay; to promote community pride and awareness of identity; to facilitate co-operation between individuals and organizations for the good of James Bay and its residents; to motivate involvement of residents in the community; to increase community awareness of the impact of decisions of governments that directly affect James Bay; to initiate change for good in the community; to highlight community issues; to welcome and inform newcomers; and to inform of opportunities of community service. Wow! A tall order! We strive to meet some or all of these objectives in each and every issue of the Beacon, and we want to know how you think we are doing. So in the April issue we included a reader survey that is also posted to our website. We are looking forward to the results of this survey.

We are proud to encourage contributions from local residents and also from local community organizations. We feature regular columns from James Bay New Horizons, James Bay Community School, James Bay Community Project, James Bay Market, and the James Bay Neighbourhood Association. Many thanks to all of our contributors!

Our blog, initiated last year, continues to be a little slow, but we are hoping that over time interest will pick up. However, the number of visitors to our website continues to grow at a steady pace, with visitors from all over the world. In any given month the website will receive upwards of 1,800 visits.

In September we received our annual grant from the City of Victoria. Our gaming grant this year was initially cut by 50%, but we were very pleased at the end of March to be notified that the funding was restored to the previous level. We are very grateful to the City of Victoria, the BC Gaming Branch, and our advertisers for their continued support.

I think it's important to note that the Beacon is produced with only three paid positions: our very capable administrator, advertising sales manager, and distributor. All the other positions that are needed, and there are many needed to produce the paper, are held by volunteers. I would like to thank all of them for their time, talent, energy and demonstrated commitment. Here's to another successful year of publication!