Omemee Pigeon – 2011 Year In Review!

Omemee Pigeon eFlyer The Little eZine That Grew!

Editorial by Suzanne Sholer

Omemee Pigeon eFlyer,will not be a year old until February, 5th, yet it has impacted many lives in our local community,distributing news through a wide variety of Social Media channels,and through active personal engagement with readers both local,and around the world.

What Omemee Pigeon Did This Past Year to Help Our Local Economy

We chatted with people from Holland  on Twitter about visiting Youngtown Museum, Freedom Valley Horse Rescue gained donors, businesses were placed on Google maps, local farms were found through Twitter,Facebook, G+ Paper,li,StumbleUpon, Tumblr,and Circle of Moms, People learned about services they didn’t know locally existed. We established a back office for contributing writers,and a Free classifieds section to help people find local services and products,and to meet the needs of others that do not fall within our editorial policies. We were recognized by Google MapMaker North America for our contributions in mapping Canada.Most importantly,made wonderful friends from around the world, and gained a loyal readership,-a number of whom have started writing articles for Omemee Pigeon eFlyer.

Omemee Pigeon eFlyer Stats

Omemee Pigeon eFlyer has gone from an initial readership of 3 –me,myself and I; to over 700 unique visitors last month alone,over half of whom were return visitors,and a third of these visitors read Omemee Pigeon eFlyer over 25 times last month.-Most of our visitors arrive here via Google organic search,with an increasing number from Feedburner email subscriptions 91 and Facebook. Our top repeat visitors are from our local area with Peterborough and Lindsay ISPs reading about 4 pages per visit. One person from Middlebury read 16 pages on their last visit. Most local visitors spend about 10 to 13 minutes on our site Last month, a Calgary reader enjoyed our site so much, they spent over half–an–hour reading articles. 

Top Newsmakers of 2011

According to today’s headlines in Lindsay This Week,they believe the top newsmaker of the year in City of Kawartha Lakes was Mayor Ric Magee. However,our readers say otherwise. Here are the Top 10 stories from 2011 according to reader popularity –sorry Mayor Magee,you didn’t make the list.

1. Pigeon Lake Blue-Green Algae Alert Does Not Affect Omemee Area: Does This Alert Affect You? –We ran this article along with a map to show tourists and residents where the blue-green algae was located,after headlines in local papers seemed to indicate Omemee was affected. We hope this article made a difference to our local tourism in 2011.
2.   Best Friend: Remembering Matt Courneya Omemee Murder Victim -  This tragedy will stay with many of us for years to come. We were honoured to give voice to the victim’s friends, while other media focussed on the perpetrators. An excellent article that must have been extremely difficult for the author to write. We were honoured to feature this piece.
3. Emily Provincial Park Omemee Limited Campsites Still Available – Emily Park was booked solid almost every weekend this past summer, reservations are being accepted for next May and June now. You can reach the reservations page easily through the link in this article.
4. Missing Matt - Omemee Youth Life Cut Short! This was the original article we ran,prior to receiving the article from Matt’s best friend.We tried to offer a different perspective than the local papers in our reporting of the incident.
5.  Bear Essentials Millbrook Invites You to Win a Green Toys™ Dump Truck! – We were pleased to run our first online contest this year This item brought entrants from as far as Victoria BC in addition to our local entrants. We are pleased to support local small businesses,by offering a variety of free and paid advertising options.
6.  Like Omemee Pigeon? Vote! –We expanded our reach by entering the Circle of Moms Top 25 Canadian Mom bloggers contest, although we entered the contest rather late in the day,we were pleased to receive the support of so many readers. Since we entered the contest, our full feed appears on Circle of Moms.This article tells a bit of the story behind the creation of the Omemee Pigeon eFlyer.By the way,we could use some votes on our answer –hint hint
7. Melancthon Mega Quarry Would Affect Ontario Water Supply: Environmental Assessment Demanded –The groundwater in the area is a source of drinking water for upwards of a million Ontarians. Toronto Star just revisited this story at the end of December. This is an issue that could affect the water supply in all Ontario,if this essential source is destroyed.
8.   Win Your Christmas Tree! We were very pleased to assist several farms and small businesses in establishing a web presence this year. Potash Creek Farms reported their best year ever. One visitor to their farm told us they found out about Potash Creek Farms through a link we placed on G+ Watch for an iPhone MovieMaker tutorial to come from a visitor
9. Mount Horeb United Church Garden Party - Great Annual Ham and Salad Supper! We are pleased to help local charitable organizations and churches get their news out. Mount Horeb United Church is just one of the many venues we submitted to Google maps to help people find their way to events easier.
10.  Hydro One Power Outage Affecting Over 1500 Omemee Area Homes We broke the news on this story,that was overlooked by Hydro One as being a major power outage for our area,because the outages in the rural area between Peterborough and Lindsay were not added together.  Luck would have it.we were by the phone and received the call regarding our farm property.

Looking Forward Into 2012

This coming year,we are looking forward to establishing more regular features in Omemee Pigeon eFlyer,and starting to upload our videos of events in the area as well. We will soon be offering sessions via Skype on a regular basis to assist other individuals across Canada and around the World  in setting up their own Social Media supported Free community eZines under the banner ‘Our News’ as an extension to our invitation only private press club. If you would like to set up a community eZine,and get an invitation to the ‘Our News’ press club, email http://scr.im/omemee with the subject line ‘Our News’  You will receive an invitation along with a short questionnaire about your vision for your community news eZine. We look forward to hearing from you.

Suzanne