The Solway Buzz was started
when the Silloth Regeneration Partnership received a request to resurrect
the old Silloth Newsletter, which had not been produced for quite a few
years. It was pointed out that there was no easy method for either
residents or organisations to communicate what was happening in the area.
The Silloth Regeneration
Partnership recognised that having a local newsletter would help every
aspect of the community, however, as we were at that time coping with the
effects of the Foot and Mouth epidemic, this need applied to the outlying
communities around Silloth as well.
One positive aspect of the
Foot and Mouth disaster was the availability of grants to fund projects
which would help communities like ours. It was therefore decided by
the Silloth Regeneration Partnership to start-up a newsletter which would be
freely available around the area within a few miles of Silloth.
Grants were applied for and
the first edition, called the Silloth-on-Solway News, came out for August
2001. One of our first questions we asked the community was to suggest
names for the new paper and we eventually settled on the "Solway Buzz".
The start-up costs were
provided by various grants and generous support by Joe Cowell of the Wigton
Observer. Ongoing running costs are covered by advertising from local
businesses, most of which have generously paid for twelve months advertising
in advance to help ensure the long term viability of the paper.
The Solway Buzz
was run as part
of the Silloth Regeneration Partnership, although from the very start the
paper was put together by Peter McRobert, who also sold the advertising and
was the Treasurer. Eventually the Partnership passed the paper over to Peter
who will continue to produce it as a community paper so long as the
community at large continues to support it as before.
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