It all started with a splash five years ago, 7 a.m. Feb. 8, 2016. GuelphToday was born.
First story: a polar bear plunge for charity at the University of Guelph.
Nobody knew who we were. Heck, as the first employee, I barely knew who I worked for. But off we went, Village Media’s foray into digital media in Guelph.
It seemed like half the time in the early going our two lone staffers, me and my former Guelph Mercury colleague Rob O’Flanagan, spent as much time explaining just what GuelphToday was as we did writing stories.
Rob and I had worked in Guelph for many years, so that helped. A move by Village Media design, knowing having some credibility on the other end of the phone or camera was a big part of starting off on the right foot.
Our first day saw 7,125 people view our site, a fraction of the numbers we now see on a daily basis. Top stories of that day were the former Biltmore Hats property coming closer to redevelopment and that photo gallery of a charity polar plunge at the U of G that saw the MP, the mayor and the Chief of Police, among others, get very wet and very cold for a good cause.
Our first workspace was a room in someone else’s office space on Woolwich Street where in the summer it got so hot it was unbearable. I’ve been in cooler saunas.
Then it was a borrowed boardroom in the Western Hotel and then a former jewlery store on Wyndham Street where in the vestibule outside our front door we once listened to a man show and tell with friends about the bout of pubic lice he was dealing with. Good times.
But we worked hard and we worked well. Eventually we started to build a following. One story at a time. One photo at a time.
We also promoted ourselves. Free cupcakes. Free coffee. Free Frisbees. We did and still do sponsored several local events.
Eventually people stopped asking “what’s that?” when we told them we were from GuelphToday. Eventually people started asking “are you from GuelphToday?”
Our full-time editorial staff now sits at six, plus a cadre of regular freelancers. We have an advertising staff of three and a nice office on Norfolk Street.
Hundreds now support us with voluntary donations. Advertisers appreciate the innovative ways we get their messages out there. People appreciate our coverage. Sometimes, when we are on a story exposing wrongdoing, some don’t appreciate it. Which is even sweeter.
And at the root of it all is community journalism. The reason we exist.
There has been a learning curve. Still is. As there should be.
We've had a few bumps along the way. We've made mistakes, and learned from them.
Our most read story to date? A story Ken Armstrong did a few years ago on Noah Irvine, a teenage mental health advocate who was about to splash on the national stage with his perseverance, passion and message, a story read over 47,000 times.
I still run into Noah every now and then and he often reminds me that we were there at the beginning, thanking us for helping get an important message out to the public.
And that, folks, is why we do this.
