Community activists, business leaders, local workers and politicians joined members of the NEN board to celebrate the relaunch of the community newspaper on 16 February.
The paper ceased publishing last March following funding cuts, but since then the NEN’s voluntary management board has been working to get the paper out once again. The relaunched NEN has now been delivered across the area and the NEN board held a celebration event in The Doo’cot to mark the occasion.
NEN chairman Martin Hinds told guests: “Almost a year ago the last edition of the NEN was published, after 30 years of almost continuous publication – an extremely sad day for us all. We all recognise the value of our community newspaper – I don’t think we can underestimate the importance of the NEN; it binds the community together and gives it identity. It therefore gives us great pleasure to relaunch the newspaper this month”
He went on to thank those who helped to make the relaunch possible – past and existing Board members, community groups, contributors and politicians – but pointed out that there are challenges ahead.
“We have been able to produce the NEN with money left over from the sale of the NEN office and staff redundancy costs have been paid. Longer term, the model that we have hit on will depend on contributions from the community – we have applied to the Neighbourhood Partnerships to allow us to recruit volunteer community journalists. We also need to increase our income to make us sustainable on a long-term basis. This is going to be a challenge for us but I think we’re up for it. Onwards and upwards – and welcome back, NEN!”
The next issue of the NEN is due out next month – and remember, the deadline is this Friday!
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