The Village Voice – Revisited by John Lomoro.

History: This commentary is based upon memory and archives that I have at hand- past editions of The Village Voice - Back in 1974 as part of a marketing venture to promote lot sales in village Mont Cascades a large format "broadside newspaper" was published featuring the lifestyle, amenities and cleaner air alternatives in Mont Cascades to the urban option.  It was the innovation of Bob Urichuck that produced it.  It later evolved to become what was known as "The Village Voice".  Now more like a community paper it featured the various construction starts and activities of the villagers living and playing in Mont Cascades.  The newspaper even included advertising by local suppliers of materials and services of interest to Mont Cascade residents.  The Newspaper was more and more handled by volunteers as the layout and content developed was resident authored.

Over time translation/printing and mailing costs rose; submissions of content waned and volunteers to edit, layout and manage the printing process and mail out became scarce.  Deadline after deadline passed and fewer and fewer editions appeared.  It is safe to say that this combination of expenditure of money and volunteer resources killed this method of communications.  A more recent method of providing information for the residents became the Mont Cascades Web site - http://www.villagemontcascades.ca .  However since this is strictly a passive system it is also less than desirable in terms of getting information out to the residents.  It does serve as a repository of information but due to the fact it needs to be queried by a resident and he/she may have to go through several listings to find new "stuff". It fails to keep people up to date despite the best efforts of the webmaster to keep the web site up to date.  Keeping the website up to date does NOT mean that people are aware of any changes that have been made to the site.

So.....A new initiative by the MCPOA will be to use an internet technology of “list serv” whereby our community of interest can have information “pushed” in their direction – with their consent. This is very different than the overwhelming inflow of junk mail without your consent to your email inbox. We have created our start mailing list made up from both the member response via the invoice return form used for our AGM and other email lists that have/were created for item specific “mail outs” in the past. Everyone receiving this messaging notice has the option to “opt out” should they so desire but we do encourage everyone who wishes to stay informed about the matters of interest re their property(ies) to remain opted in.

As with all other initiatives, this one – with your participation will get better. Any and all comments are welcomed that will improve this new messaging system.

Also worth noting – this messaging system does not replace our website rather it reinforces it by using it (the web site) as the repository of the detailed information about which each message sent will relate. In other words the website will now use the messaging system to help you get to the website pages refreshed by new updates. No longer will you have to hunt for changes you will be taken to them automatically via the hyperlinks embedded in the message board – The Village Voice.

We will be exploring ways and means of enriching the website with your contributions so get your ideas together and tell us what you think.

Thank you, to those who went boldly before – it is upon your shoulders we are standing:

The following is a list (perhaps incomplete – for that I apologize) of volunteer residents still here and some moved on who worked hard on various formats of The Village Voice to keep us informed over the last thirty years.

And recognition must go out to all who contributed content , stuffed envelopes, licked stamps and delivered/mailed the editions