It’s time for a change.

This summer, we will start to publish new articles on our website instead of in a printed newsletter. The June magazine will be the last printed issue we deliver, at least for now.

This decision has not been taken lightly, but times have changed, both in Fairfield and in the wider world, since the first issue of Fairfield Matters was published at the end of 2012 – and we think it’s high time we changed too.

Our print newsletter has an important place in history.

Back then, a small group of residents was campaigning for what was then just a housing estate to become a self-governing parish. Communication with all residents was important if they were to put their ideas across and have any hope of receiving the support they needed from the community. 

At the same time, the custodians of the newly opened Fairfield Community Hall were trying hard to attract people to host and attend events, groups and classes in the hope of generating enough income to fund the upkeep of the building, which was widely seen at the time as a costly white elephant.

There was no community Facebook group, there were no noticeboards on which to post information, and the email newsletter, which at that time was run by the Fairfield Park Residents Association, had only a short list of contacts. The only way to reach significant numbers of residents was to put information through letterboxes.

But it’s not the future.

Now, many of the things that small group of residents set out to achieve have been accomplished. We have an established parish council, and a regular email newsletter from them which goes out to about 900 residents. Increasingly, that newsletter covers stories beyond the confines of council business, overlapping significantly with our output.

In addition, the Fairfield Family Forum on Facebook, set up in 2013, has more than 1,700 members. It has become the first place most people choose to connect with other Fairfield residents, canvass opinion, find out about or publicise events, tap into local knowledge, post pictures taken around the parish, ask what bin day it is or trace a missing parcel. It’s a valuable resource, and although not everyone loves it, it does get information out very quickly.

Conversely, by the time we deliver our news­letter each month, at least two or three of our articles are already old news – and we can almost guarantee that in the couple of days it takes to print and distribute, there’s new news that hasn’t made it in, too. 

As a print publication, we will only become less relevant as time goes by – and we’re not alone. The data show print is in decline across the country as ever more of us get our news online. Ofcom’s survey ‘News Consumption in the UK 2022’ shows a drop in the percentage of adults consuming local news through printed magazines to 4 per cent, down from 6 per cent in 2020. That is compared with 23 per cent who get their local news on social media.

However, there is a niche for us.

Facebook is great for immediacy (and we will certainly use it going forward to alert our followers when a new article is published on our website), but a nightmare for finding things you’ve seen before and want to look at again. Likewise, email newsletters get read once and then deleted.

Our website, which has existed alongside the print publication since 2018, already contains a rich archive of articles about Fairfield. Many of these are just as relevant today as the day they were written – they are about our parish’s history, wildlife and people, amongst other things – and even the articles which are technically out of date form a useful (and searchable) timeline of Fairfield’s recent history. Increasingly, we are seeing our older articles being accessed and sometimes reposted on social media, usually when a new event prompts people to look back at an old story.

We also have a directory of useful contacts, and links to many other web pages relevant to the parish. If you have a question about Fairfield, you are very likely to find an answer within our pages – and if you don’t, you can almost certainly find the contact information for the person you need to ask. If you don’t find either of these things, please send us your question and we will consider writing an article to fill the gap. We like getting feedback.

The future is online.

And it’s not just about immediacy. There are a few other factors at play.

Firstly, although our magazine is recyclable it is far more sustainable not to create a large amount of paper waste every month. Reducing is better than recycling, people!

Secondly, as print costs skyrocket along with everything else we would need to include significantly more advertising if we were to keep producing a regular printed newsletter. Unlike other local publications we have always had a very low level of advertising. That’s because unlike them we don’t do this to create an income for ourselves, we do it purely to create useful and interesting content about Fairfield for our readers. And we don’t think pages and pages of advertising is a good look.

And thirdly, the core editorial team that produces Fairfield Matters has not changed in more than six years. We want to make it easier for new people to get involved, and the best way to do that is to remove the need for specialist skills and software. Anyone with an internet connection can write and publish a story to our website – and we really hope that lots of you will.

Join us on our website.

Our regular columnists are coming with us online (and there’s plenty of room for more), and we will still have news about important local issues, event listings, interviews, interactive features, and all the other things you have enjoyed in the print newsletter over the years.

Visit us, bookmark us, sign up for email alerts, submit an article, become a regular columnist (blogger), become an editor and help decide what content we should feature. Make us your homepage. The changing face of Fairfield Matters is all about keeping things relevant and inclusive. Be included.

http://www.fairfieldmatters.com