January Newsletter and a Welcome!
An introduction to The Waltonian, recent news, upcoming events, and a request for feedback
A brief agenda for today’s newsletter:
Introduction
Recent News
Upcoming Events
Request for Feedback
Hello again, and thank you for signing up for this newsletter. Most of you signed up during our Walton Advent Calendar series, and a few since then (welcome!), but either way we thought we could do a better job explaining what this is. A re-introduction is in order:
What is this?
The Waltonian is a newsletter about Walton, NY. We're here to celebrate our community and to learn more about our village and town.
This newsletter is written by Chris Ogden, with the help of my fellow Waltonians. (We welcome contributions from the community! So far: my sister, Beth, was instrumental in getting our Walton Advent Calendar posts out to you, and we've also had a guest post from Brianna Schmitz).
I am writing this newsletter because Walton means the world to me, and I want to take stock of everything that makes this community so special while helping face the many challenges we have.
Another of my motivations for creating this newsletter was a change in how I (and others my age) read the news:
Reading habits have largely shifted to digital devices. I believe this is particularly true of younger generations, and I think it's important for people of all ages to be informed and involved in their community. (We’re starting with a newsletter because email is inherently digital, supports mobile layouts by default, and comes with distribution built in.)
The Reporter is an invaluable resource (you should subscribe right now if you haven't already because $41.50 for a one-year subscription, print plus digital, is a fabulous deal!), but because I find most of my news through friends on social media online these days, I'm missing some of the most relevant news: local news. (I should note here that I’m aware that The Reporter has a Facebook page; it’s not so much their social media presence but Facebook’s algorithmic feed that prevents me from seeing relevant news. More on that in a future issue.) I plan to highlight and link to the most important articles from The Reporter and other regional news sources here at The Waltonian, which will hopefully help get me into the habit of reading our local newspaper again. I'll benefit from being more informed, and hopefully you will too.
There are other reasons for this newsletter, but those are the ones shaping my thoughts today, so we’ll stop there for now.
Recently
A video of the January 7th Village Board Meeting is now online.
Lonely Planet named the Catskills one of their top ten regional destinations for world travel in 2019. The Catskills are second on the list, following Piedmont, Italy.
The Catskills (grouped together with the Hudson Valley) also made Airbnb’s top destinations list for 2019. The article cites a 100% year-over-year increase in bookings on the platform, and an even higher increase in searches. (If you have a potential short-term rental property, there’s no time like the present to get it fixed up and listed on Airbnb or a similar vacation rentals site.)
Upcoming
The Monday Night Volleyball group is looking for more players. 7:00-9:00 at the Townsend Elementary School most Mondays. Cost is $5 for the year. Join the Facebook group for more information.
Molto Espresso will be closed temporarily while they move to a new location (right next door). Their last day at their current location will be this Saturday.
WCS will be hosting a forum concerning the search for a new high school principal on Thursday, January 31st, from 6:00-8:00.
Your input
I'd love to get your feedback about this newsletter. You can reply directly to this email with any input you might have. Please do so whenever you have an idea for how we can improve this newsletter.
I have two questions for all of you today:
What do you want out of this newsletter? We want to keep things interesting, helpful, and relevant. Should we include more events? Would you enjoy reading short essays about how we can build vibrant communities? What else should we include here?
What is a question you have about our community? Is there something about our town that you’d love to know more about? Maybe you'd like to better understand how local government works. Or maybe you need some help finding a certain statistic. We'd like to help.
Just reply to this email with any thoughts you might have.
That’s all for today! Thanks for joining us!