You’re invited tonight and it’s the start of something awesome

Press Club

Each time we’ve taken a jump here in Harvey County, we’ve found plenty to come along for the ride.

We had you dreamers who bought subscriptions to a non-existent paper. We had you music lovers supporting a start-up concert, even when weather forced us into a barn. When the pandemic hit and we made a jump to combine papers, you not only stuck with us but convinced us to keep the combined edition.

We had an inkling that all of these decisions would be successful but had no way of knowing.

Now we’re asking some of our solid supporters to take the jump with us again on another community venture we think will be a success: Press Club.

The idea is simple. People with a newspaper subscription can pay a small annual membership fee and have access to monthly socials with food and drink, where they can simply enjoy themselves and connect with other engaged community members. There’s a T-shirt, too, if that moves the needle.

We’ll provide quarterly forums where we assemble panels to talk about hot-button local topics.

We’ll organize group trips to regional draws in the area.

Participation in Press Club not only allows you to further support local journalism but have a blast doing so.

We hope in the future the club will grow into a way for members to organize activities organically with each other.

Press Club represents us trying to build a system and infrastructure to further improve Newton. It represents us trying to be the change we want to see in the city.

On these pages, we’ve often discussed shortfalls in Newton when it comes to retention.

We need more activities and events to keep folks in the community, to convince new people to come to the community and to help our businesses recruit.

A number of us moved to Newton to start our paper seven years ago. And if it wasn’t for the paper, we doubt we’d have met a whole lot of people.

Outside of joining a civic club or church, there weren’t a ton of options.

It’s meeting people that nurtures a connection to the community. It helps set down roots. It helps convince those on the fence about relocating to make the move.

So now, with our paper established and with strong relationships between both our readers and our community, we’re hoping to build a bridge to further connect people with Press Club.

We’ll talk about all this Thursday night during a mingle at our office from 5 to 7 p.m. There will be food and drink, and any questions will be answered. We’ll also give away some door prizes to those who come.

We just thought we’d put this out there for those who aren’t able to attend or for those who might be interested in attending.

We look forward to seeing you either Thursday or at our Press Club’s first official event in July and thank you for your help in making this another successful venture.

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