>> Lee Herrin
In June 2005, the Cornerstone Building was still boarded up and the George & Dragon (now the Fernwood Inn) was desolate through the day and night. There were businesses in Fernwood square, and the DB Market beside the pub, but everyone was struggling with few customers and not a lot of foot traffic. The Belfry restoration had been completed years earlier, but the theatre patrons came, enjoyed their shows, and left the neighbourhood as quickly as they could.
It was in the midst of that, when things seemed dark for the neighbourhood, that Fernwood NRG (then called the Fernwood Community Centre Society) began a project of hope by delivering, by hand, to every door in the neighbourhood, the first edition of the Village Vibe.
In those days, the “paper” was two black and white sheets of 11”x17” paper photocopied and folded over to produce an 8 page newsletter. We did the photocopying and folding in-house. The first edition featured articles written by board and staff members of Fernwood NRG. Our goal was to let people know who we were as an organization and what we did. Previously, there had been other papers in the neighbourhood but they had proven unreliable in terms of their publication dates. We needed a vehicle that we could use deliberately to communicate with our neighbours every month like clockwork to let them know about our activities, and the events and programs they could enjoy in Fernwood.
In particular, we knew we’d soon have some big news to announce. We labeled the August 2005 edition (vol. 1 no. 3, for those who are counting) a “Special Edition” which announced that we had completed the purchase of what we had just then named the Cornerstone Building (yes, this fall the Cornerstone Building will mark 10 years in neighbourhood hands).
The paper continued monthly in its newsletter format until November 2006, when we went to two-colour process on a newsprint tabloid size format. The first edition of the new format, (vol. 2, no. 11) featured pictures of the new renovated buildings in the core of Fernwood Village, especially the Fernwood Inn and the Cornerstone Building. The new format of the paper had higher production costs, and more room for advertisements. However, the November edition featured a number of “your ad could be here” inserts, as we hadn’t yet lined up advertisers for all of the spaces available. The new format also had room for a feature article in the centerfold (where you’re reading this article now). This allowed space for longer explorations of issues of importance to the neighbourhood—the first one was written by our then Board Chair, Lisa Helps; her article, “National Disaster…An end in sight?” explored the issue of homelessness in Victoria.
Although I had been involved with the Village Vibe since its inception, the first article I ever wrote for the paper was published in August 2008. It was a feature—“Dreamers of the day: Ten years into the Fernwood Revolution”—where I described my early involvement with the Fernwood Community Centre in the late summer of 1998, and the genesis of Fernwood NRG’s Declaration of Principles and Values which appear every edition in the masthead (as I wrote last month in the editorial “Ten years of ‘Principles & Values’”). When I wrote that article, I had assumed that my time with Fernwood had ended, and that my contribution was merely for posterity. Little did I know that a year later I’d be in the Executive Director’s chair myself, and doing my best to lead Fernwood NRG into the next period of growth and development.
The Vibe went four-colour (which allows for full colour photos and graphics) for the first time in September 2008 to announce the opening of Fernwood NRG’s Park Place project on Yukon Street. By then, the paper had settled into a three column format and featured eight ads, including four from local politicians.
We went four-colour permanently in June 2009 to announce the departure of our Executive Director Roberta Martell who had led us through the period of the Cornerstone and Park Place projects. That issue also marked the four year anniversary of the Village Vibe, where editor Lisa Helps wrote about the genesis of the name “Village Vibe” and our tagline “news and views from the heart of Fernwood”: “The news and views come from the hearts of the food-security enthusiasts, the gardening gurus, the artists, the activists, the innovative Vic High students, the musicians, the healers, the teachers, the chefs, and many, many others who have shared their stories and connected with each other in and through the pages of the Village Vibe.” In fact, it’s probably that same list of correspondents and their readership that elected her Mayor last November (with the exception of the current high school students, of course).
In December 2009, the Vibe took on its current four column layout and format, with news items on pages 1 through 3 (including a redesigned masthead and a new “Editorial” space on page 2), a feature article on pages 4 and 5, and arts, gardening and events on pages 6 and 7, and the full colour photo essay “Scene in Fernwood” on page 8.
Since then, we have focused intensely on neighbourhood content to ensure the newspaper is maximally relevant to residents, and contains content you can’t find anywhere else. Fernwood NRG first published our annual report as an insert in the February 2010 edition (this marks the sixth year we’ve published our annual report in the paper).
We’ve also worked hard to attract many more “hyper-local” advertisers—our paper is distributed to people within 10 minutes’ walk of Fernwood Village, so it makes sense for businesses in that circulation area to advertise in the paper. We dropped down to bi-monthly publication in August 2010 (labelled Summer 2010) to ensure that the paper was financially sustainable long term (i.e. costs and benefits were balanced). Today, Fernwood NRG pays for the production costs (design and layout), but we also have a newspaper in which we can provide information about our activities on a consistent basis to our neighbours. Neighbourhood writers, artists and photographers have a venue in which to publish articles, comics, and photos; and, other Fernwood organizations have a place to let the neighbourhood know about upcoming events. Paid ads by local businesses cover the hard costs of printing and distribution.
Over the past 10 years, the Vibe has evolved into a stable format that is both engaging and distinctly Fernwood. It’s still the best looking (in our humble opinion) neighbourhood newspaper in the city. And, as this article shows, the 10 years of collected papers provide a tremendous historical resource that paint a portrait of a neighbourhood in transition. And with support from volunteers, neighbours, and advertisers, the Village Vibe will be here a long time into the future.
