My view: Springwater News – A true community builder

By Bill French Springwater News

I was surprised at the last Council meeting when there was a report and discussion on print communication. Council was presented with various options with the main focus on either retaining the status quo with Springwater News, or splitting print advertising between the Springwater News and the Barrie Advance. What surprised me more was that the motion to retain the status quo was only supported by Councillors Cabral, Hanna, Ritchie and Ma-Chapman.

Of course it would have helped if the chair of the meeting (Mayor Allen) would have kept the discussion on track, rather than allowing it to run off in tangents with broad discussions on communications and social media which was not the subject of the report. The communications person tried to mention a couple of times that this was a discussion only on the use of print media but that seemed to get missed in the confusing dialogue. What should have taken 10 minutes took about an hour. That is why you need strong leadership at these meetings, so Council members have clarity on the matter before them.

I took recent copies of the Advance and Springwater News and did a comparison. Both editions were 24 pages. The Springwater News pages are 50% larger to start with. About 20% of the Springwater News was advertising while 80% of Advance was advertising and virtually no news except for a few Barrie related matters. What keeps the Advance alive is the paid distribution of flyers which is the main reason for their existence. The Springwater News is received in your mailbox while, in my case and two snowblower shear pins later, the Advance is thrown in my driveway and becomes a brick in cold weather.

I grew up in the north part of Springwater, then known as Flos and, as the old timers know, Flos and Vespra became Springwater in 1994. It has developed into a true community of communities and I do attribute much of the glue holding it together to the Springwater News Community Newspaper.

By simply reading an edition you do know what is happening in our roughly 525 square kilometer township. Each community is welcome to share their news and you see community articles from Midhurst, Hillsdale, Anten Mill, Grenfel and others, so we become connected. We also get regular updates from our MP and MPP which is quite helpful.

It boggles my mind why our Mayor, who gets free space for a column, opposed it along with our Deputy Mayor. The reason the Springwater News is effective is because it is locally owned by Michael Jacobs and is not under the corporate thumb of someone analysing spread sheets in an office tower in Toronto or Montreal, dictating how it will be run. It would be nice to see readers compliment the work that has been done by the Springwater News to hold and unify our beloved Springwater over the last quarter of a century.

Bill served as Mayor of Springwater and a County of Simcoe Councillor from 2014 to 2018 and has taught business at the college level for over 15 years.