BLACK HAWK - Over the last several months, our TEAM has been participating in a lot of outreach. We have several staff members that run our booths across the Peak to Peak. This past weekend we had a booth at Ned Jazz Wine. It was a lovely corner booth near the stage, where we had a ton of engagement with our readers and advertisers. We also interacted with several community members who were not subscribers, but are now. A good day overall.
We also had one very negative encounter with a couple that believed it was okay to walk up to our booth and yell at us. This is a very negative experience I have not had in my 18+ years at the newspaper. I hope to never experience that again.
Hope everyone had an amazing #nedjazzwine. We did, except for the time we wasted being harassed by some locals who felt that was acceptable behavior.
Find us at the rest of these events through the year:
Nederland Farmers Market
Nederland Holiday Market
Gilpin Artisan Market
Buck for the Badge
Gilpin Winter Arts Festival
Tommyknocker Holidays
and more!
Do me a favor—if you do come to our events and want to talk with us, please approach each of us with a kind word, a respectful manner and a listening attitude. Anything less will not be tolerated by any of our staff. Ever.
On top of our booths at local markets, our staff has had a lot of continuing education this year. We had a dozen members participate in the recent Colorado Press Convention, including all day opportunities to learn and share cool stuff about our news TEAM.
In September, Jessica LaFone, Samyukta Sarma, and I will attend the National Federation of Press Women conference in Golden. And then in October, Christopher Kelley, Jessica LaFone, and I head to Minneapolis to the National Newspaper Association 139th Annual Convention & Trade Show for a couple days.
This year we have learned so much and it's so exciting to have the support of our publisher to make these dreams a reality. We are really stepping it up for our little newspaper.
On top of our continuing education, this year we have supported over a dozen local events with partial or full sponsorships or events. This is a very important part of our outreach into each community in the Peak to Peak region. From Allenspark to Central City, we support the communities that support us. I'm already working on my list for sponsorships next year and hope to expand our programs.
As well, we are interviewing our high school and college interns over the next few weeks. We have already hired a Nederland High School student. We are interviewing another soon. And we have space for a Chinook student and a Gilpin County High School student.
Our interns are paid. They are part of out TEAM. We offer our knowledge and we are excited to learn their unique perspectives about how their age group consumes news. If you have a student looking for an internship this year, have them reach out to us.
We are excited to have a college internship position open as well, and hope to interview for that position in the next two weeks.
Next week we may share some exciting news about an idea I've been working on for a few months. Just have to present it and get approval for it before I can share….
Lots of great news happening around us. The most exciting to me is our role in the community and how we continue to expand, change, morph, refocus, and concentrate on giving all of our readers what they're looking for.
Reach us anytime during the work week at 303-810-5409 or email frontdesk@themountainear.com. You can also reach me directly at info@themountainear.com. The Mountain-Ear is YOUR community source for news, created by locals FOR locals since 1977.
