Old Ottawa South

REPORT FROM THE OSCAR NEWSPAPER

Old Ottawa South Community Association AGM . November 2, 2004

Overview/Editorial:

As editor of the OSCAR I’m pleased to announce that we had a very successful past year. We received tremendous support from our advertisers, received wonderful stories and photos from our contributors, and as a result, the OSCAR continued to grow and provide OOS with a voice to discuss pertinent issues and share ideas. Because of the strong advertising support, the OSCAR generated a small surplus that helped cover the costs of production, computer upgrades and will help celebrate our 30th anniversary. We look forward to carrying this past year’s success forward into another great year of reporting the news of OOS.

The OSCAR newspaper is produced and delivered ten times a year (with the exception of the months of July and August). The success of the OSCAR is attributable to its volunteer writers and photographers. The OSCAR continues to solicit contributions from a wide spectrum of Old Ottawa South residents, and the search continues for more writers/photographers to contribute to the OSCAR.

The staff at the OSCAR thank everyone who has taken the time to contribute articles and photos to the newspaper. If you have story ideas for upcoming issues, please call and let us know at 730-1045.

This year, the newspaper’s computer was upgraded to allow for desktop publishing. As a result of the conversion to desktop publishing, the online version of the OSCAR is now available in PDF format, allowing for the publishing of photographs on the Internet. Since the move to PDF both current and former residents of OOS, who have moved to other parts of the country, have contacted us to express their appreciation.

In 2004, the OSCAR celebrates its 30th birthday. To honour the occasion, the OSCAR is running a writing and drawing contest. Details of the contest will be announced in the upcoming December issue. There will be a children’s and adult’s division, as well as a fiction and non-fiction section. The surplus money that we have generated from advertising will be used to fund the contest and the prizes. The winning submissions will be published in the OSCAR. It is our small way of investing in content. Submissions will be judged by a panel of community members. We plan to announce the winners at a special 30th anniversary ceremony.

Our accounts receivables are now in good shape, with just a few outstanding payments that have been due for 60 days or more. Our outstanding payments stand virtually at zero at the moment, other than one advertiser that has gone under. That outstanding debt of less than $500 will be written off as bad debt at year end.

The OSCAR is currently enjoying strong support from local businesses, as well as other institutions and organizations. At this particular time, we are receiving quite a bit of advertising dollars from the real estate industry. The advertising revenue generated is enough to cover all of the OSCAR’s expenses, including computer upgrades and printing costs.

We encourage readers of the OSCAR to frequent the Old Ottawa South businesses that support the OSCAR. The OSCAR operates solely from advertising dollars. So far this year, we have a surplus that we will be re-investing in our editorial by running a writing/drawing contest (see above).

We have been informed that the private publisher of the News, a privately run for-profit newspaper, has decided to exit the Old Ottawa South area because it was unable to solicit enough support here. The News, therefore, has reportedly discontinued its Old Ottawa South/Glebe version of the paper.

The OSCAR is distributed to its delivery coordinators on Fridays (close to the first of the month of publication). The coordinators then distribute the newspapers to individual delivers who go door-to-door with the newspaper.

All of our routes have volunteer distributors and area coordinators. This year, we have continued our ongoing relationship with the Mayfair and the Dairy Queen, our two sponsors, who support our volunteer distributors. Throughout the year, we provide our distributors with Mayfair movie passes and coupons for use at the Dairy Queen.