Magic headline word is chocolate

My most-read stories this year were about Bloomer's and World's Finest

Readers like stories about chocolates.

Well, this is where I came in, but I think I’ll stay around for a while, there are lots more stories to write.

A year ago today, I sent out my first story for Trent Hills News. It reported that Trent Hills council had hiked taxes by 6 per cent for 2024. I knew that I had a scoop because no one else was at the meeting and certainly no one was covering it for any media.

This Tuesday council raised the tax rate by 4.8 per cent for 2025. That was my 150^th story in the last 52 weeks, just under three a week. Not all are about council raising your taxes, but there is a reason they are a regular topic.

When I first thought of returning to writing local news stories, something I started doing 50 years ago at the Bradford Witness, I was drawn into action by the collapse of the local print media and the demise of a website.

I knew that thousands of writers were using a relatively new platform called Substack to send out email newsletters and create websites that offered their stories. A bit of research showed that some individuals and groups were using the method to distribute local news.

The platform had two main advantages from my perspective. It was easy to use, and it handled all the non-writing elements including distribution, collecting payments, and creating marketing offers, meaning all I had to do was write stories.

I didn’t really consider in depth exactly what I would cover, but it’s turned out that many of my stories are related to council’s actions in one way or another. I think that makes sense because the councillors oversee the spending of almost $37 million a year and they have been acting largely in a public vacuum.

One of the best examples of that is the kerfuffle and dismay this summer when many people learned that the Ranney Street outdoor pool was being demolished. That decision had been discussed over the years and was confirmed by council at a meeting in February, as I reported to the 150 subscribers I had at that point.

When the closing hit the fan in September lots of people took to Facebook to say they hadn’t known about the plan and complained it been hidden from them. It wasn’t really hidden, but it certainly wasn’t featured on the town’s website and especially back in February I only had a few readers.

By the way, those numbers have continued to grow. As of today, I have 565 subscribers, including 113 who pay.

All I can promise you is that while I am following council you’ll have a place to find out about such plans – either in your inbox or on the website. I’ve kept the archives open to all readers just so you can look back at what you may have missed. The Substack search function works really well. Don’t get me going on how difficult it is to search for anything on the town’s website.

So, what have I learned about the types of stories people prefer? One word – chocolate.

The first major story that had thousands of readers was on March 25 when I wrote that Blommer Chocolate Co. was planning an $80-million expansion. That story received more than 6,000 views.

And then in late November I wrote about World’s Finest Chocolate’s plan to shut the store. That’s been read more than 14,000 times.

In total, all the stories have received more than 100,000 views. As my audience has been growing new stories are routinely getting more than 1,000 views.

I’m looking forward to the next year and I have a lot of stories in the works, most of them not about your taxes going up you’ll be glad to hear.

I intend to keep pestering the Ford government to announce a decision on our new hospital. For what it’s worth, my guess is that the $3 million or so for a planning grant will be announced just ahead of the election, which seems likely this spring.

One caution though, that still won’t guarantee we’ll get a hospital and certainly does not start the clock running. After the detailed planning work is done, which could take a couple of years, that’s when the province will have to finally make a firm decision, something that is likely to drag on.

They routinely say it will take eight years after the final go ahead to complete construction. I’d guess that’s optimistic, especially since we are overdue for a recession that will slow provincial spending even more. I’m nearly 73 and I’ll be surprised if there is a new hospital on the edge of Campbellford before I’m 85.

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You can read all Trent Hills News stories anytime on the website.