State of the Voice, April 2013

Chris Davis, Publisher, Pincher Creek Voice

We`re excited about the changes and growth happening to our little enterprise here at the Pincher Creek Voice.

New office
The Pincher Creek Voice/Pincher Media has a new office in the Ranchland Mall, located on the south side of the mall across from Mrs. P's restaurant.  Our phone number remains the same (403-904-2666).  The office is officially open Mondays through Sundays from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm, and we welcome visitors, so drop in and let us know what's going on during those hours.

We've been asked why we're only open six days a week, for a total of 30 (official) hours.  The answer is simple.  After 4 pm is when most of our news gathering happens, as that tends to be when the rest of you hold your events.   Once we're done our relaxing day at the office (which is often for much longer than our official hours) we have to go to work...

This move coincided with the slow news period surround the Easter holidays, fortunately for us as we move into a much busier spring news cycle now and the move was a fairly disruptive process.

Growing staff
Toni Lucas has joined the Pincher Creek Voice staff full-time, and is handling advertising, among other things. Toni has been helping with the Voice since its inception, and her increased presence is a blessing to the enterprise.  We anticipate adding more part-time reporting staff in the near future.  Our readers can expect even more extensive local news coverage from us going forward.

Growing revenue
Our advertising and promotional profits have increased dramatically when compared to the same period last year, an encouraging situation for us as we head towards our third year of this enterprise.

Readership
Our readership continues to grow, slowly but steadily.  At the present time this website receives approximately 8000 "unique" visitors a month, which equates to roughly 4000 readers. Readership has actually been down from our normal levels over the last two or three weeks, but that is a common phenomenon when we're in a slow news cycle, as we have been during the weeks before and after Easter, when there are fewer sporting and social events than usual.

Other stuff we do:

Photos and video
Having a storefront office means we are now better able to fulfill requests for photo reprints and video packages.  We charge $10 for a photo reprint.  Prices for videos start at $20 for a DVD (just under 2 hours of content per DVD).  We also offer USB keys with photo and video collections at very reasonable rates.

Audio restoration
Our audio restoration services include cassette or vinyl to CD/USB.  We can digitally "clean" and repair your old cassettes and records, including old 78's and acetates.  This can be as simple as removing unwanted tape hiss and slight scratchy record noises to full forensic restorations.  I have over 20 years of audio restoration experience.

Live Music/DJ Service/Sound Support
We are now booking for the summer and fall of 2013 for live music (featuring yours truly on 12-string) , DJ service, and sound support.  Summer dates are filling up fast.

Flea Markets
We will be hosting Flea Markets at the Ranchland Mall on Saturdays beginning on May 4 from 9 am to 2 pm.  If successful they will continue through the summer, every Saturday with the exception of dates booked by Betty Hepner's Craft Markets, which will continue as usual.  Vendors of all types are encouraged to book a table ($10/table).

What's going on?
As always, let us know and we'll do our best to let everyone else know.

Contact us at 403-904-2666 or via email at pinchercreekvoice@gmail.com.