Read us on the Web

A Flame This High

By Margo Frink

(Madison County, NY – Dec. 2014) Last fall when we decided to cease publication of our print edition, I never said farewell. Maybe because deep down I didn’t really believe it was the end. And it wasn’t.

When Don Jeffrey approached us and offered to sell advertising, Martha and I agreed to give it another go. He had some experience selling for his annual Civil War newspaper and was very eager and excited to begin, which gave us a spark of hope that just maybe we could make a living at it.

I thank you, Don, for having a vision as we did that what we do is valuable to some people.

At that time she and I were already working other jobs. The countless hours of regrouping, meeting, planning and trying to keep our online paper active, on top of our already busy lives seemed insurmountable. I kept telling myself that I could work a full-time job, come home and post to our website, prepare copy for the paper, keep the accounts in order and organize circulation, which included a trip to Canandaigua to our printer twice a month.

I also believed that I would eventually get back to covering board meetings at night. But how in hell was I going to find time to write? How could I take care of the things I needed to at home?

Martha could somehow manage to work a job, design ads, prepare copy, layout our print edition, take care of the billing, report at a meeting AND write about it. All of this and probably more on top of her personal life.

When someone asked who did a particular function at the paper, Martha would reply, “Just ask me what function and I will tell you which one of us is doing it.”  I guess people found it hard to believe that over the last two years, aside from the advertising aspect of the paper, her and I were it.

And we did it all for little or no salary. That’s how much we believed in what we were doing.

Against all odds we managed to stay afloat for another year, but just barely. There have been many, many sleepless nights, with the worry and stress of how to pay the bills because it just wasn’t enough.

When we made the decision about four weeks ago to “stop the insanity” I already felt the weight lifting.

We never doubted we had a good product, and we always had plans to improve it. We wanted to get back to publishing weekly, add pages and write the stories we used to have time to. But why should we continue to put out a product that we weren’t getting paid for and was barely supporting itself? If the communities that we served did not find our product valuable, then no longer were they going to get our time, because to us, our time is more valuable. It saddens me but we had to face reality.

I couldn’t go out kicking and screaming without saying thank you.

First I’d like to thank our consultant, Richard Keene. He sat with us and our sales people time and time again for nothing more than a meal.

I’d like to thank our loyal advertisers who stuck with us and our loyal subscribers and readers who are the very reason we wanted to continue in print.

I’d like to thank our printer for special accommodations that fit our schedule, even if it meant picking up our papers at 5:30 in the evening. I send a big thank you to the staff at the Peterboro Post Office.

I’d also like to thank our newsstand locations for allowing us to sell our papers in their establishments. A big thank you goes out to Molly, Roger and Don for delivering to these locations no matter the weather conditions.

I’d like to thank Don Crossman for helping us to keep our online site up and running. For someone who does the web posting, I’m Word Press challenged.

I thank my family for their support, more importantly my husband, Jeff, for the countless hours he spent driving me to Canandaigua, the years he delivered papers and his understanding that no, I can’t because I have to work. The sacrifices were “a plenty.”

I also thank Martha’s husband, Henry, for pretty much the same as mine, and her children for everything they’ve ever done for and given up for “the paper.”

Last but certainly not least I thank my business partner, Martha, for being on the same “page” with me throughout these five years. We met more than 14 years ago for a reason. And we will continue to work together through the next phase of our business…because this is not the end. We will continue bringing readers news stories through our online paper. Our website is where it all started in 2009 and became increasingly popular. That has not changed. It’s as strong as ever and something that we are very proud of.

I thank those readers who subscribe to our newsletter and following us on Twitter, like us on Facebook and/or take time to comment. Visit us at www.madisoncountycourier.com.

 Margo Frink is vice president of M3P Media LLC and publisher of the Madison County Courier. She can be reached at Margo@m3pmedia.com or 315-481-8732.