This morning, I was talking to Shawn Phelps, a writer who lives in Toronto, but has had a small
farm in Meaford for the last two years. She has a passion for permaculture gardens, and she’s been creating one on her Meaford property; I’ll be sharing some of her ideas in this blog soon.

Of course (I say this because I agree), Shawn had nothing but good things to say about Meaford. “I love Meaford too much,” she says. “I love the waterfront. I love the people. My neighbours are amazing human beings; I absolutely adore them. And just everything about Meaford that I’ve experienced has been amazing. It’s the kind of place where I’d like to spend my life.”

But beyond that, another thing Shawn mentioned seemed quite timely. When I asked how she’d learned about Meaford Haven she explained that it was through reading The Meaford Independent, which she turns to when she wants to know what’s going on in her adopted home away from home.

The Meaford Independent (or TMI), is Meaford’s very own online newspaper, and it provides an array of local news, updates on events, and a refreshing editorial slant. It’s the brainchild of Stephen Vance, who moved to Meaford in 2005 and “fell in in love with the community, the geography, and the people.”

Meaford has always been well served by various media. There’s the Meaford Express, which was established in 1906 and remained an independent weekly until just a few years ago. (One of the pleasures of reading the paper until recently was the snippets of old articles pulled from the archives each week – tales of snowbound farmers harnessing their horses to take the sleigh into town – just a few decades ago! – and other news evocative of the region’s unique history.)

Owen Sound has a daily, The Sun Times, which is now owned by QMI (Sun Media), and it’s the home base for Bayshore Broadcasting, which has seven radio stations and whose President and General Manager, Ross Kentner, is a Meafordite.

But Stephen saw there was something missing.

“I had been freelancing for the Meaford Express and I could see the difficulty of serving a small community with a weekly newspaper,” he says. “I felt that since the shift in news media will be (and is) away from print to the Internet, that it was a good time to start a new news service for Meaford that was community focused, engaging, and accessible.”

It was a hit.

“It took off much more quickly than I had anticipated. Just four months after we launched, we had been nominated for three Chamber of Commerce community awards (winning the Tourism award), and then this year we were once again nominated for Chamber awards (Business Owner of the Year and Tourism and Customer Service), so I think that The Independent hit on something that the community was looking for. We now see 15,000 to 20,000 visits each month, and it is still growing.”

The online newspaper now has a publisher, Susanne Wussow, and just this past weekend, it moved from Stephen’s home office into new digs in town.

Mayor Francis Richardson, Editor Stephen Vance and Publisher Susanne Wussow at The Meaford Independent grand opening

Enjoy your read… it’s a great way to keep up on things and engage with the community when you’re not here all the time.