Welcome to the Sydenham Current

We could not be more excited for today as we embark on a new era for the communities of Wallaceburg, Dresden, Mitchell’s Bay and Walpole Island.

As we flick the switch, plug in and go LIVE – let me introduce you to the Sydenham Current.

We are your brand new on-line newspaper for the community.

First of all… how did we come up with our name?

At the beginning of this endeavour, we knew the paper obviously had to have a name, a backbone to help start and build our identity.

After taking over the Chatham-Kent Daily Post and knowing that we wanted to narrow our focus for the new paper, we felt it was a no brainer to incorporate “Sydenham” – as the winding river is a focal point for our communities and runs directly through Dresden and Wallaceburg.

The second part of the name wasn’t as easy.

I started a list of newspaper names, Googled “newspaper names” and went through name-by-name. A few jumped out at me and through some other brainstorming sessions, we narrowed down a list and put it up on a poll – for you to decide for us.

The final name Dana and I discussed – United – we thought would be the walk-away winner. It represented what we wanted to do: unite the people in the community together, bring the business communities together, bring the people in media together.

However, when the results started pouring in, it was my Mom that prevailed.

Sydenham Scoop took the lead, and was in a neck-and-neck battle with Sydenahm NOW (News on the Web.)

As we watched the on-line votes on our parent site for Glassroots Media, we noticed some chatter on social media starting up, and we got the impression that people were not totally sold on the names we provided.

So we asked on-line and at 9:23 p.m. on January 27, Gale Steadman wrote a simple, one-word comment on a post we had Facebook – “Current.”

Dana and I looked at each other, smiled, and nodded.

The new poll we put up held true as well – and the Sydenham Current pulled away in the voting.

So what does the Sydenham Current mean to us?

Well, Gale summed it up well for us once again, describing the two-fold meaning of the name: the physical current of the water in the Sydenham River combined with the notion of currents news, events and issues in our community.

This is exactly the kind of information and service we are going to be providing.

A service we feel is essential for the community and a service we are honoured and privileged to provide.

We feel having quality media is important to any community and we’re going to do our part to ensure we keep it at a local level in ours.

Just as we went to you – the public – our neighbours, our friends, our colleagues, our local businesses – to help come up with our name, we want this trend to continue.

See news happening? Send us a photo, a tweet, a Facebook post, and we’ll do our best to spread the word to the masses.

Have an upcoming event? Let us know and we’ll get it added to our list.

Have a story to tell? Let’s see if we can help you describe it.

Have a business locally? Join our growing team of sponsors and supporters that have been PHENOMENAL as we prepared for the launch of our paper. By the way, we reached and surpassed our pre-launch goal, and to that we are deeply appreciative and humbled.

We’re ecstatic to have teamed up with a handful of local media companies as well – working together is a better way to move the whole community forward!

We are ready to commit our professional lives to this paper.

See you around town!