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In this last post for 2018, our interim editor reflects on the successes and challenges of the last year and looks forward to 2019.
As most of you know, a new editorial and publishing team took on the running of insideMORAY in May, following the retirement of founding editor Stuart Crowther.
The team were quite clear about what they could commit to: as volunteers with limited time available they would aim to publish a news story on the website and social media every working day, i.e. Monday to Friday. Barring a couple of short holiday breaks, we did. And that was thanks to those of you who shared their stories with us; thank you very much for that: we couldn’t do it without you!
In addition, we also published police and traffic updates on social media whenever we could, including a daily update on transport plans for the Dorenell wind farm turbines.
And of course, we have tried to keep up the ‘Moray Life’ tradition, publishing photographs submitted by our readers capturing the beauty of our wonderful county and the activities of its people. A huge ‘thank you’ to those who have sent their photographs for publication; keep them coming!
During this period, our Facebook group on https://www.facebook.com/groups/insideMoray/ has gained slightly more members than it has lost, showing a modest increase from 8,361 in May to 8,768 today; thank you all for your continued interest and for your engagement!
And thank you all for engaging in the Facebook discussions in an almost universally respectful way!
So: a story of unmitigated success? Not quite.
We are pleased to have been able to keep the service going and delighted to have so many of you still with us BUT we aspire to do much more.
The original intention was, and remains, to raise funds to run insideMORAY on a professional basis, providing incisive analysis on the stories of the day as well as a platform for the people of Moray to share and discuss the news and their impact. Seven months on, we have not been able to find the time to do that yet. We’re still running the show on volunteer time and with extremely limited resources … and we’re stretching the meaning of ‘interim’ arrangements well beyond normal usage!
However, we have not been totally idle on this front either, and we will start to set out our plans in more detail in the coming months.
We will take a short break over the next few days, and plan to re-start on Tuesday 8 January.
Hope you all have a safe and enjoyable time during the rest of the festive season.
See you in 2019!