We surveyed and you responded

From the Editor

What a treat it was for the IMAGE team to see the results of our readers’ survey and especially all of the lovely comments! We profusely thank all of those who took the time to answer the questions and provide feedback.

Congratulations to the two winners of the Working Title Kitchen gift certificates, Barbara Aldworth and Kimberley Nicholls, and a big thank you to Leanne Moussa for supporting IMAGE with the generous donation.

While there were no big surprises out of the survey—for the most part you have told us to carry-on with the great work—we have noted a few areas where we could make changes or improvements. I note in particular one person’s comment that they would like to see more diversity reflected in our pages.

About half of you do not live in single family homes, and almost 30% pick up the paper at various public locations, which confirms that we need to bolster our efforts to ensure that IMAGE is accessible to all Sandy Hillers, including the transient student community.

Despite being in the digital age, results were clear that our print edition should remain our focus. While many of you do obtain your news online, with respect to IMAGE, readers clearly prefer the experience of flipping through real pages. Should we eventually decide to make use of social media, Meta (Facebook) would probably be the preferred platform (but that’s not our priority!).

As editor I was very curious about how our recent efforts to include more French content were being received. Not surprisingly, francophones love it (almost 50% said they were satisfied and 12% want more!), but that content misses about 27% of you who cannot read French.

With respect to the rest of the content, at least 30% of you want more coverage of these topics: heritage; development and planning; community events; community organizations; environment; interviews with neighbours; and restaurant reviews.

Less popular content includes news from local schools (of interest mainly to those with school-aged children), and the politicians’ columns. We have conveyed to our MP and MPP that readers would like news that is more relevant to our neighbourhood, but we will continue to accept their submissions as these are paid advertisements, for which we are very grateful.

Speaking of advertising, it works: 87% of you look at the ads and 85% make an effort to support the businesses advertised in IMAGE. And the amount of advertising appears just right.

As I mentioned, the positive comments really boosted our very small team of volunteers and I want to end this note with my favourite:

I just absolutely love IMAGE. I always look forward to its arrival and wish it were more frequent. I’m so busy, I depend on IMAGE to keep me informed on what is going on in the neighbourhood. It is my guilty pleasure to sit down with the paper and a cup of coffee or glass of wine and read it cover to cover to catch up with my neighbours and neighbourhood.

And that, my dear readers, is what IMAGE is all about—not just information, but connection and community.

Christine Aubry