He said: “To say the least, this has been a very difficult year! At its Budget meeting on Thursday 10 February this year, the Council took a final decision to “disinvest” in a number of community organisations, one of which was The NEN. This decision had been anticipated for some time, but was hard to bear all the same. It means that we shall get no further funding from that quarter and effectively has forced the closure of the paper in its current form.
The Board has been very diligent over the past year in trying to persuade the Council to continue investing in the NEN. Delegations of Board members have met with local Councillors to press our case. We have also been trying to find alternative ways of funding the project and have had some success with advertising and sponsorship. For the past year we have been able to continue with support from the Fairer Scotland Fund and through the good will of the staff, who agreed a cut in hours and pay. The community reps on the two local Neighbourhood Partnerships have also been very supportive, recommending continued funding for the paper. Unfortunately, elected members, apart from two, have shown either no, or very little, support.
However, all this effort has been in vain, as you know, and we were forced to issue staff with redundancy notices and, finally, to sell off the office in order to provide the redundancy money. This is now in-hand. The result is that after over 30 years your community newspaper, the voice of your community, will no longer be dropping through your letterbox each month for the foreseeable future.
During the past year we have also been looking at possible partnerships with other organisations, such as Telford College, in order to keep the NEN going. This looked at one time like a good fit, as we already work with the journalism students to give them work experience. The College would have provided us with valuable support in terms of work space, IT and administrative support, access to design etc. However, these discussions are at a very early stage and may come to nothing. So, we are now looking at alternative homes, and to see if we can start up again in the future on a different, perhaps more modest, basis.
We have applied to the two Neighbourhood Partnerships for community grants, one for assistance with fundraising and the other for capacity building within the local community. The aim will be to harness the immense amount of support within the community and to develop the capacity of anyone interested in becoming “stringers” – people who can provide their own reports and articles. If we are successful, the grants, together with the surplus from the sale of the office, should go a long way to help us become sustainable in time. In a sense this is a return to the NEN’s beginnings, by becoming once again a community project, run by volunteers.
To end on a more positive note – the Board are committed to ensuring that this isn’t the end of the NEN. We will work with the community to try to identify practical ways of raising income to put the paper on a sustainable footing. We will have some money from the sale of the office and we will be looking to find a new ‘home’ and will be exploring ways of reducing costs even more, while trying to maintain a quality product. This will take some time, but we are hopeful of getting there.
We are extremely grateful for the invaluable support we have received from the local community and we will continue to follow up opportunities to re-launch your newspaper.
We have developed an online presence for The NEN with a new blog, Facebook and twitter profiles, so we can at least keep the name of NEN going. The success of any new venture, however, will depend on the willingness of local people to get involved, so keep in touch.
Finally, I would like to thank all my fellow Board members, both those who have resigned during the year, and those who are willing to continue, for all their support. I would also like to thank the three members of staff, without whose hard work we would not have been able to produce a newspaper at all and I am sure we all wish them well in whatever they do from now on.”
NEN’s annual report will be presented at the project’s EGM/AGM this Wednesday (30 March) and board member Ann Confrey has appealed for public support. She said: “NEN needs Board members. Show your support at our AGM/EGM at 2.30pm on Wednesday 30th March at West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre”.
Dave Pickering