Look what we’ve gone and done

Well, what can I say? Today was a big day for us. Joining up with CuencaHighLife is possibly the biggest thing we have done since we launched this little newspaper almost a year and a half ago.

I still remember when THE VEGETABLE dis-PATCH changed its name to THE CUENCA DISPATCH. Some people were upset that we had not only changed the name but went to a larger size format. I can imagine this merger will bring on its own share of anxiety for some.

But we are excited beyond imagination with the possibilities of what we will be doing. Joining up with CuencaHighLife is going to help us do what’s most important to us: get more news, that isn’t hostile, to you our readers. We’re going to do that by moving to a larger Sunday edition, with more in-depth stories that build upon what you’re already reading every day in CuencaHighLife.

We’re also going to be adding in new sections to the paper like Arts and Entertainment, Travel and feature articles about interesting Ecuadorians and expats. We’ll still have sections on World News, U.S. News and Canadian News….we won’t forget our roots!

Some of you will ask why we couldn’t have done this on our own. The simple answer is, sometimes two is better than one. And this is one of those times. What CuencaHighLife does everyday is pretty amazing. Heck, we read it every day. Couldn’t get by without it.They do what we don’t. And we do what they don’t. Combined, we are going to do so much more. And frankly, doing this on our own would never equal the product that will be coming out of the new company.

This all started about six months ago when we worked with the folks at CuencaHighLife to help Supermaxi launch its 4th of July celebration. The interaction between our two groups worked really well, considering we were competitors. And we could both see synergies. So, we started to talk about a “partnership” that would allow us to share things back and forth between the publications. And we did that for a while and thought, what
could we be if we joined together?

Now, we are here and we know what we can be: the primary English media marketing company in Cuenca. We will be able to off er online services, print and online advertising, marketing plan development and even event creation and coordination.

The principles, David Morrill, Jonathan Mogrovejo and myself, will still be around. David will be the Editor, Jonathan will handle the technical and back-end systems and become the General Manager of the business, and I will more or less do what I do now, guide the professional sales people to succeed.

And I think I’ll have the easiest role of all, because this thing is going to be so great it will sell itself!

I’m just sayin’.