Chea Evans, Editor and Reporter of The Charlotte Bridge.
Susan called the meeting to order at 8:30.
Susan announced the Spin A Thon was a lot of fun and enough money was raised to buy one AED. There are plans to do this for Charlotte and Hinesburg in the future. Fundraising ideas are welcome!
On April 22 at noon,The Hinesburg Library will have a celebration for the installation of a solar panel and the bike station.
May 1 is the COTS walk. Talk to Carrie Fenn if interested in getting a club team for this event. The walk begins at 2:00 and is an actual tour of the shelters utilized by COTS.
On April 21 at noon, a Zoom talk by The Rotary Club of Plymouth, New Hampshire will be conducted by Stanley Sloane. He will lead a talk on the Russian invasion.
Carrie indicated there are five RYLA applications in total, the interviews will take place soon.
Diana Vachon shared that Green Up Day will have some prizes again this year and proposed our club donate a $100 prize for the event.
Denis collected the happy fines.
Carrie introducd Chea Evans.
Chea thanked our club for having her come speak with us. She grew up in Charlotte and attended CVU. Having studied fiction in college, she started an advice blog called Touche.
Once she moved back to Vermont she began a blog from a dog’s point of view for the Shelburne and Charlotte News and then served as Editor at both those papers. Chea became uncomfortable with the constraints for the Charlotte News and quit. Several board members of the Charlotte News had similar points of view so started up the non profit The Charlotte Bridge. The Bridge is an online emailed newsletter type publication.
She spoke to her experience of “reporting” on her town and community and living there as well and the challenges that come with it.
Finding her stories is an organic process. If someone in the community asks her a question, she may wonder the same thing and then she decides to write about it.
Sometimes she is offered gossip and may also research and write those stories. Curiousity and nosiness are keys to this role!
The day to day happenings in a town are what affect us, bigger news organizations do not delve into our community at that level. This community has three newspapers and she believes this helps her stay true to her mission.
She holds herself accountable. It’s important to keeping it honest and truthful. The format is online via email to 1200 recipients and her open rate is 70%. A company called Substack is the platform used. She operates on total financial transparency with the donations.
Susan presented a book to Chea going to The Charlotte Library, “I Never Thought of it That Way” by Monica Guzman.
Susan adjourned the meeting at 8:30.