HAPPY EASTER DAY!
We are delighted to have published our very first magazine covering stories from across SE16! It has been brought together by a small group of volunteers with the help of some local businesses and organisations. The magazine is A5 so that it will fit comfortably in your bag and its 20 pages which allows us to give you lots of content about the area as well as promote some fine local businesses who have advertised with us in this first edition.
The idea emerged as we talked about the links we want to make between local residents and visitors and the businesses that often depend on them as customers. We all know that small business is fragile and needs constant attention to make it grow and flourish. You need bucketfuls of luck and some key friends to help you with the difficult decisions. But most of all, local small businesses need customers! Many local businesses are crying out for more local people to come shop with them or use their services. So many local residents buy their goods from well known big brand outlets rather than spending their money in the local economy.
We want to bring to the attention of SE16 the fine businesses who are serving this community faithfully and to encourage local people to use them whenever possible. Shopping locally means that the money we all bring into the area stays at least for a while here. When we spend it with big brands, that money leaves SE16 straight-away being passed to shareholders and investors. We want to help local business people to reach the SE16 community more effectively and to help us all benefit from their enterprise. A growing business will mean more local jobs; more jobs means more money coming into SE16 and so greater spending power.
But the magazine has a further purpose. We want to help everyone get to know the area, what’s going on here and to feel proud of all we are creating here. SE16 has a great range of people and organisations with ambition and potential and as we come together and build a strong network of local residents and businesses, so we are better able to speak up when necessary. We want I Live in SE16 to facilitate a dynamic and more prosperous community in which everyone is welcome and given a voice. So that’s why we hold online conversations on Twitter each week (@SE16Hour) and monthly MeetUps around SE16 to help people to find friends and build a local network.
So welcome to our Magazine. We are really thankful to our partners Tazgaam distribution for helping us reach many homes in the area and to our volunteers who delivered the magazine to the shops, pubs, centres and cafes across SE16. If you got left out, let us know and we’ll find you one! Thanks too to the seven local firms who through adding their advert to the magazine enabled us to get it designed, printed and delivered. And thanks too to James at Canada Water Osteopathy who has continued to invest time and effort in this network.
But now we have to ask what do you want in your local magazine? Do you want an article on a particular aspect of the area such as the wildlife, heritage or sports? Do you know someone who would like to be interviewed for the website and magazine? Do you want to advertise and reach 10,000 people across SE16? And your feedback on this first edition is really helpful. What did you like and not like? Where can we improve? We want the Magazine to properly reflect life round here and know that our readers will have a better idea than we can have what that might look like!
