I will start with Hethersett Herald and Good News.
Hethersett Herald I have spoken about on numerous occasions but it is something I am immensely proud of.
An award to a similar publication recently certainly got me thinking. Our friends at the Wymondham Magazine were named South Norfolk Business of the Year and praised for their original form of journalism.
Wymondham Magazine thoroughly deserve this accolade and I was delighted for them and I think the judges have a point. Put together the Wymondham Magazine and Hethersett Herald and you have a new style of journalism that covers a town and village with a combined population of almost 25,000 people. That's a larger population than London had for most of the 12th century.
The great thing about my Hethersett Herald is its flexibility. Deadlines can be just before publication and articles can be allowed to run their length as there are no constraints on the number of pages. We have had anything from 12 pages (edition one) to 150 pages and virtually everything in between.
I had a number of aborted efforts to publish an e-magazine but never had the time to really devote to it. I decided not to launch another attempt until I could sustain a publication over a considerable time.
The April edition will be number 90 and that means we will reach our ton next February. Herald has become a real labour of love for me. It gives me the chance to go into areas of village life I wouldn't have been part of. It gives us the chance to highlight what is going on in the village, to promote coming events and to even campaign on behalf of improvements for the village. I hope that we have never dodged issues and that we have maintained our independence.
We are not affiliated to any religion, any group or any political party and I hope we report matters in an honest and forthright way whilst maintaining a sense of humour.
I have always been a fan of the village Good News magazine and have spent many hours reading through back copies in the Hethersett Archive. My website Hethersett A Norfolk Village at War 1910 to 1950 largely takes its information from copies of the Good News during those years.
There is a wealth of Hethersett history amongst the pages of the magazine. I have to say that over the past couple of years I felt that the magazine wasn't hugely representative of the village. It was still a very good publication but there was something lacking.
Then the editor announced that she was leaving the area and I was approached with a view to taking on the position of editor- something I jumped at. I had to temper my wish for the publication to carry village news for Hethersett, Great and Little Melton with the fact that it is a church-based publication.
After a year I think I have reached a reasonable balance, always keeping in mind the fact that the name of the magazine is Good News and that it should primarily contain exactly that. So while this one hones in on Good News, Hethersett Herald looks at all aspects of village life.
I'm hoping to improve the lay-out of Good News and maintain the hope that the two publications (one printed and one electronic) dovetail together to provide good coverage of what is going on in our villages.