It has been a whirlwind my friends. We are now on issue five of the Kamloops Chronicle.

We’ve got a wonderful board of directors for our local news non-profit. We have an experienced and engaged editor, designer,  and freelance reporter team. People are in touch regularly about submitting information for publication. It’s been so wonderful to see many of these submissions published.

It is an important principle that people on the business side (like me) of a newspaper don’t interfere with editorial responsibilities. I never know what’s exactly in the paper before we do a final review. It’s always a fun guessing game as to what might be on the front page.  It is rightfully the editor’s final call on what is in each issue. (Even on the editorial page)

That doesn’t mean people on the business side are silent. The board and I provide broad feedback and ideas. We especially pass along feedback and ideas we hear in the community. We will be organizing focus groups in the spring for people who might be especially interested in providing editorial ideas and feedback. Email me at [email protected] if this might be of interest to you.

I appreciate the feedback I’ve personally received so far. We are working with our editor’s agreement, for example, to add more coverage of more issues and more public bodies.

Five issues does not  happen by magic. We don’t have one or two deep-pocketed people behind the scenes financing everything. The success of the Kamloops Chronicle so far has been because of so many people.

Many people have responded to the request for community donations. At this point, we have received donations from over 600 individual people and organizations. Every week, I open our post office box and find more donations and well wishing notes. The paper has over 320 monthly donors and we are confident that the paper will have 1000 monthly donors in the near future. Huge thanks to all our donors!

Advertising interest in the Chronicle has been stronger than I had initially anticipated. Fifty-two different organizations and companies have placed ads in the Chronicle so far, taking a leap of faith in this new publication, both to promote goods and services and also to support the revival of community news in a print format. I encourage readers to consider supporting those who support local news and views.

With all this activity, it has been a challenge to keep up. No one currently works full time on the Kamloops Chronicle. Not yet. Appreciation for the community’s patience as we might take longer than we would like responding to phone calls and emails. Our Chronicle task list is a happy one but a long one. We strive to learn from any missteps along the way.

This brings me to plans moving forward. Our goal is to publish the paper more frequently than the current once a month schedule. We hope that this year we can sustainably move to at least a twice a month publishing schedule. I’m hopeful we could have full time staff.

So this amazing whirlwind journey continues and, based on progress so far, I feel very hopeful.