SEED CAPITAL EDITION

For those of you interested in the goings-on of this here Nanton News Experiment, a brief update is warranted. 

Last weekend and the weekend before last weekend were really the New Experiment’s true grand debut. With the help of a number of Nanton townsfolk spurring me on with hearty encouragement and gratti cappuccinos I made my rounds to over 200 homes and businesses in the greater Nanton area. 

The objective remains to re-open the historic downtown Nanton News office, which closed April 6. The shtick, for those just tuning in, is a miniature newspaper written by myself and hand-delivered to Nantonians with hopes of generating enough support to grow the newspaper from the one-sixteenth-sized chapterette it currently is to a legitimate publication that no longer feels so embarrassed when showering with the other newspapers after gym class.

Door-to-door I went walking, ringing, explaining, begging, sweating, apologizing and selling garden seeds – a symbolic product of growth and faith and slow hope that after weeks of playing in the dirt a product will finally bear fruit. (For this ideal and for all the seeds I must thank the good owners of Home Hardware in Lloydminster. http://www.lifeatthestore.com/ )

The seeds were packaged in five and ten-counts wrapped in Sun Media’s free weekly paper 24 Hours – the symbolism there being that it is good for little else but wrapping. I even used twine to tie a bow and tucked the papers in like a mini present.

Alas, I would measure the success of the past two weekends somewhere in between stinging, bitter failure and acceptable first-time venture. I had hoped the revenue generated by the seeds –  “seed capital” if you will – could grow the next issue of the News Experiment. Maybe even make it colour. Factor in the cost of production and the seeds, and I barely broke even.

In a final blitzkrieg late Saturday night I turned my dial from ‘carefree young entrepreneur’ to ‘desperate Willy Lowman’ but it was no use. I have several dozen unsold packets of seeds and even more that were given as good will.

The next issue of the Nanton News Experiment will therefore likely be the same size.

This is not to say last weekend was not a lot of fun. In my next post I plan to share stories of the folks who invited me into their homes and share some of the concerns they raised for good or ill. After last weekend, I’ve never wanted to start my own Nanton newspaper so badly.