2024 has truly been an incredible year. I’ve grown the Tandridge Independent brand by developing and strengthening relationships with my team, my columnists, my advertisers, our readers, our MP and the local residents, and made a whole host of new friendships too.
Making time to listen to people’s stories is a real passion of mine, and it’s through doing this that I’ve met some amazing characters and visited new places in the district.
And of course, supporting and promoting new and existing local businesses, as well as providing a platform for our residents to have their say, has always been a priority of the paper.
One of our local businesses I have had a lot of fun with is Godstone Farm. CEO Nicola Henderson always comes up with really innovative collaborative ideas and she is always supportive of any idea I have, no matter how quirky it is! We also sponsored the Caterham Pumas U15 Kings football team for the 2023/24 season – we were really proud to see them run out with our name and logo on their shirts!
I’ve enjoyed giving talks to a variety of different audiences this year, including The Hawthorns School, Caterham Rotary and Oxted School. I definitely had nerves before the latter one, as it was where I went to school and I kept picturing my headteacher walking into the hall before house assembly!
I’ve been to many memorable events, too. Meeting Dame Kelly Holmes at Caterham School was inspirational, as was attending the International Women’s Day event at the Houses of Parliament. We also had a great night of glitz and glamour at the 2024 Surrey Awards, held at Sandown Park Racecourse in May.
I’ve also had to step outside my comfort zone in many ways, including embracing social media platforms and even zip-wiring across the Kent cliffs!
In September we celebrated our fifth year of the paper – what a journey it’s been! We’ve been through the pandemic, made big changes, dealt with criticism and climbed over hurdles to bring our community their newspaper.
Of course, creating a monthly newspaper isn’t always easy, but the day-to-day hard work is rewarded when we see the paper on coffee tables, in our libraries and in racks and newspaper bins, but most especially when we see people sitting with a drink and reading the latest issue.
So, it’s on into 2025 we go, and we’ve got some fantastic ideas on the way, which we’ll be sharing with you very soon!
I wish you all a very happy Christmas and a wonderful New Year with your loved ones.
