Woops, we made a newspaper!
Usually when you make a baby there’s a fun bit at the start, followed by months of excitement and anxiety, culminating in a fair bit of pain and discomfort.
And then joy!
In the case of our first Taupō and Tūrangi newspaper under new ownership, it wan’t actually that great at the start – more of a rebound thing - but the rest was much the same.
And what we’ve produced is beautiful – at least we think so - thanks largely to some very hard work by a small team and a lot of support from a large number of local people.
There is quite a few of us behind the scenes of this first edition of the Taupō & Tūrangi News, who essentially came together three weeks ago to carry on where the Taupō & Tūrangi Herald left off.
My wife Tracey and I have been busy figuring out how this whole small business thing works, and in fact if there are any experienced administrators out there who can help take the strain off a couple of newbies over the next couple of weeks, give us a call.
We are all about bringing in people who are highly skilled at what they do, and I doubt there is anyone in town better at understanding the advertising needs of Taupō and Tūrangi businesses than our media specialist Belinda Paalvast.
Journalist and former high school teacher Chris Marshall was an incredible addition to our team last year, and we would have struggled to fill this first edition without him, given everything else going on.
A big thanks to Paul Taggart and his team for making sure the artistic and technical aspects of layout and pre-press production were spot on. I didn’t even know what a ‘pre-flight test’ was until a few weeks ago.
And then there is the 100-odd people who organise and distribute the paper, some of whom start in the very early hours of Thursday morning.
Taking over a business that has been running for 58 years means you have to hit the ground running, and we are very aware that we haven’t been able to get to everyone and everything in the first edition.
It takes a village to raise a community newspaper and we have been humbled by the support of readers and other local businesses.
We’d also like to acknowledge the collaboration with Korio Media, whose support has been invaluable in bringing this online edition of Taupō & Tūrangi News to life.
Now, we just want to keep growing every week.