It’s not about bees, is it?
Well, haven’t we grown? Haven’t we blossomed?
Welcome to the new look of The Beestonian. It’s much the same mag as before, bit bigger, more colourful and with up to 28% less typos. We’ve gone a bit professional, thanks to a grant from the National Lottery. Thanks National Lottery! They gave us some funding in return for getting the issue out to more readers: so we’ve doubled our print run. Possibly it’s the first time you’ve had a copy. If so: hello!
Yet despite the changes the underlying philosophy of the magazine remains much the same as it was when we furtively first used the work photocopier to run off a load of issues back in our early days: to provide Beeston with its own magazine, written by Beestonians, read by Beestonians, about Beeston. We want to celebrate the great things about this town, build a sense of community and have a good time while we do it. Our editorial line is simple: “If it’s about Beeston, and if it’s interesting, let’s get it out there.”
And what is it we’ve found interesting lately? Well, more than we could actually put into a mere 24 pages, that’s for sure*. Yet you will find inside stories about what happens when everyone’s favourite local grocer gets rendered into Lego; Beeston’s burgeoning poetry scene; the wonder of local trees; Stumpy facts; a scientific knight; trails and streets of art; hedgehogs; comedians; parenting; local legends and all your local favourites.
None of this would be possible without a wonderful group of people who each issue go out and find stories, before bringing them back and dropping them into the big Beestonian content bucket. Others make the magazine look lovely, others find leads for us to check out and keep the webpage ticking over. We even have a paper-boy. His name is Will, and he’s great, and yes, he does accept cash tips. Thanks to them all.
We are also reliant on our advertisers to help us tick along: go and visit them and say you read about them in The Beestonian. If you run a business, drop us a line and see what we can do for you. We’re very reasonable, and very flexible. We’ll be happy to have you, provided you’re not some evil company that makes puppy-soup, or similar**. If you’d like to stock us, then we’d delighted to send the aforementioned Will over to drop you some copies off.
I’ll wrap up with a promise to you: despite our flashy new design, despite our slick professionalism, we still promise to make The Beestonian free to read; non-profit and as much a part of this wonderful creative, vibrant, often plain weird community as we can. It may not be about bees. But we’re buzzing.
LB