'40 Years of C&B News', Gail Rankin

Wed, Sep 7th 2016 at 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

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Our speaker was Gail Rankin who had been chairperson of the Currie Balerno News for the past 3 years. She gave a short history of the paper which had now been in existence for 40 years. She also outlined the current position.
They had started with strong links to the Heriot Watt University. But sadly these links no longer existed. After 10 years C & B News was financially secure with a circulation of 2500. In the 40 years it had grown from 10 pages to 40 or sometimes even 44 pages now.
It is now a company limited by guarantee and is a charity in all but name. Unfortunately it has to pay corporation tax. It is printed in Wales as local companies were uncompetitive. It has always managed to pay its way and now has a turnover of some £48,000. 14% of this is from sales and 86% from advertising. It donates £12,000 to local causes. They have a number of regular contributors but encourage members of the public to submit articles.
The new Sainsbury shop and garage insists on using a commercial distributor but other outlets will carry on as before relying on the Rotary club to deliver their copies.
There are a few challenges ahead. The circulation is reducing. To purchase a copy people need to be shopping locally. They have a lack of reporters. To produce the paper they rely on volunteers who may lack IT knowledge and have many family commitments. The possibility of issuing the paper free had been looked at and been rejected.
Gail was delighted to announce that a donation would be made to help with the Club’s Young Musician competition.
The club’s vote of thanks was given by Graham Low.


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