It’s almost here, the day we celebrate romantic love of the heart. For me that’s reserved for my wife. Happy Valentine’s Day Jean. The cards we trade will be the only ones we give or receive, even as we hold our sons dear in our hearts. But I have to admit, the heart of this publisher also holds a special place for our hometown Reader Leaders.
Who are our Reader Leaders? What is a Reader Leader? It all started when we launched Newtown Square Friends & Neighbors in print and online at NewtownSquareMag.com over six years ago. A Reader Leader started out as our magazine team’s term for any reader who let us know they had begun to really look forward to receiving a new issue in the mail each month soon after we launched our hometown magazine in 2018. They talked it up to
friends and neighbors, and they knew well that our advertising Sponsors made it all possible. But after a few years of impact in our community, Reader Leaders got to another level. They fully understood how our unique brand of social-media-in-print was truly Bringing People Together in Newtown Square. And with bold loyal gratitude for their hometown magazine, Reader Leaders happily voted with their wallets to show outright favoritism for businesses whose ads are seen on these pages. They still do because they clearly recognize why the advertising Sponsors of Newtown
Square have invested in our community to make our hometown magazine possible. And our advertising Sponsors do it to show us just how important the residents of Newtown Square are to the success of their business. Reader Leaders return that loyalty. And by that loyalty these friends and neighbors of ours, are leading our community towards the necessary formula for our free hometown magazine’s mission to be Bringing People Together on our pages. People just like you.
Now in our seventh year of publication, Reader Leaders are too many to count. And so this month, this February issue, is dedicated to our Reader Leaders – our magazine’s Valentines who so often contribute to making our magazine possible, just like our advertising Sponsors. We truly appreciate you. We value your support every month and your contribution to every new issue of your hometown magazine.
People often ask me how we choose our Newtown Square resident cover feature, or who will be our Student of the Month, or how we came by that feel-good story that cannot be easily forgotten after reading it in the hometown magazine. I tell those who ask that it all comes from Readers Leaders, through their emails. That’s the start of it, often resulting with a feature article you read in print or online at NewtownSquare.com.
And after several years now, some Reader Leaders have lasting impact. Their reader leadership has gone even one step further: They help us add new advertising Sponsors whose financial support helps us grow our page count, while those advertising businesses gain monthly visibility as a hometown Sponsor in front of both their existing local customers and thousands of potential new customers who are anxious to return their hometown loyalty.
Be a Reader Leader! Nominate residents from our community and community organizations to be featured in your hometown magazine. And use your influence with the business leaders you know well and do business with often, to help grow our magazine page count as a new advertising Sponsor so we can publish even more feature articles each month by having more pages supported by businesses that will sponsor our hometown. And if a business you introduce me to does become a new Sponsor of Newtown Square, I will personally contact you and ask you to recommend a
Newtown Square resident of your choosing to be featured in our hometown magazine and on the cover in an upcoming issue.