By Guy Page
I love hearing from our readers and supporters. This morning (Saturday) I received two emails that touched and moved me. I share them, edited for privacy, with you all.
The first was from a longtime reader and supporter who was having trouble with her Stripe account and wanted to know what she’d given and when. I wrote back:
As I read the records on my end, you gave a one-time $108 Sustaining Subscriber Contribution via Stripe in November (THANK YOU THANK YOU!). If you want to contribute on a monthly basis also (wow and thank you again!) I think your best bet is to sign up here for the $9/monthly contribution.
Thank you especially for your encouraging words that “we need you more than ever.” Lately I am realizing that the “you” in “we need you more than ever” is a plural that refers to our whole team – me, my indispensable copy editor Tim Page, reporter Mike Bielawski, and social media director Paul Bean – as well as the score of other regular contributors (Mike Donoghue, Aaron Warner, Rob Roper, Allison Despathy, etc. etc. etc.). We are all nose to the grindstone, believing in our mission and our roles in it. I will do this as long as I can (5-10-20 years?) but I will soon collect my first social security check. So that clock is ticking and God alone knows when the alarm will go off and the next phase of my very blessed life begins. Part of my job now is to ensure that the Chronicle will continue, bigger and better.
I hope the Chronicle will ‘make a difference’ to some kind of return to sanity in Vermont. I know we will bear witness daily to what’s going right and wrong and through commentaries and comments section suggest how to do it better. And help the people trying to help. That’s our calling and mission.
Minutes later, I read this email from a Chronicle commenter who asked me what else she can do to make life better in Vermont. What a wonderful question! She wrote:
I seriously am tired of flapping my gums, as my father used to say, or tapping my fingers on a keyboard. I want to show these legislators that they are affecting real people. I just don’t know how or what to do.
I’m open to suggestions. I am tired of being useless and voiceless. I’m tired of representatives like ____ and ____ who are clueless as the latter is and evil as the former is. Sorry, I don’t mean to dump on you. I’m just a roll up my sleeves and get things done kind of person. I can only flap my gums for so long before I need to get busy.
I will not go gentle into that good night.
Well said. The poet Dylan Thomas (photo, top right) would be pleased. And Amen.
I encourage both of these longtime readers and supporters – and everyone else reading this right now who feels the same way: Become Your Own Media. If your media isn’t doing the job, do it yourself! Not everyone can report the news (although it’s not as hard as you might think), but EVERYONE can share it. EVERYONE can (to repeat an imperative coined by Rob Roper) Become Your Own Media. With Paul Bean now doing a bang-up job posting our news and commentary social media, it’s easier than ever. Here’s what you do:
- Sign up for free accounts on both platforms, follow the Chronicle Facebook and X/Twitter pages, and share.
- Share directly from www.Vermontdailychronicle.com.
- Forward your emailed news edition to a group of BCC’d friends on email.
This all costs you no money. Nor need it be limited to the Chronicle. It does take time and effort and courage. But if you are “tired of being useless and voiceless,” then gird up your loins and share your truth. That’s what motivated me to start the Chronicle seven years ago. Many Vermonters already have. You can do it too.
Your Partner in Free Speech Forever,
Guy Page, Editor
P.S. – And whether you BYOM or not, please support VDC by becoming a Contributing Subscriber. We live, grow, or die on your generosity.