Ideas please

Getting ready for the festival which is only 6 weeks away. I have been organising it for the last two years since we first decided to hold a stall, and each year it gets bigger and better. 
So as this years festival approaches, I can’t help starting to worry if we will once again rise to the challenge. 

The idea is to make our stall people friendly, to draw in the crowds, to generate interest. 

I should mention that we host the Community Newspaper stall – and as you may or may not know, community newspapers are non for profit run solely by volunteers. That’s why it is important to get as many people interested in the papers as we can. 

In previous years we have had surveys, paper plane (made from our newspapers) races, colouring in etc . We have thought of doing a secret story but have never actually managed to get it going. Maybe this year!! 

We are always looking for, and needing, people to write articles, to deliver papers, to sponsor ads and to just get involved.

If anyone has any ideas on how to generate interest in the public I would love to hear them. 

 

Community Newspapers unite.

Well thank god the festival is over!! After many months of planning, and preparing the Community Newspapers of Knox finally hosted their first joint stall at this years Knox City festival.

The theme of the festival was ‘make your mark’ and I believe that we were able to accomplish this.

As a first attempt I think it went well. There are things we will definitely change next year. Next year we will have a banner to attract more people over to our stall. Next year we will have little show bags made up so that people can carry their papers easily, and next year we will have flyers with all the newspapers details on them for those that are interested in getting involved, or advertising, sponsoring or even contributing articles, photos etc..

It was interesting to note just how many people confuse the community papers with the commercial ones. Community newspapers are run solely by volunteers. They feature articles on local people and their local area. They address the everyday issues. Unlike the commercial papers, community newspapers have minimum advertising, enough to pay for the printing costs. In contrary most commercial newspapers are so full of advertising that they have very little room left for articles. Commercial papers tend to scandalise rather than take the time or effort to get the real facts.

This event has been a real milestone for Community Newspapers, and I am honoured and proud to have played my part.