10 Peculiar Things About Editing A Community Magazine

Horticultural shows, squabbling parish councils, dog poo complaints, a reliance on Clipart. It's local journalism at its rawest.

For five years I've been a volunteer editor of a small community magazine. It began as something to keep me busy, now it's something I can't seem to escape from. In five years I've seen, read, and been involved in a lot of strange, villagey things. Yep, I'm lifting the lid on simple village life.

1. You will edit a complaint letter about dog poo and then search Google for 'dog poo clipart'

In small villages where not too much happens, people like to fill their time by complaining about many things; faulty street lights, speeding traffic. But rogue bits of dog poo scattered all over the path can cause quite the uproad.

2. You might be called upon to publish a letter where one villager compares another villager to a 'foreign dictator'

Because of 'freedom of speech' and 'village politics', if you receive a letter like this you have to go ahead and publish it, and await any backlash that may follow.

3. You might get caught up in the middle of a W.I row

Don't let the feel-good WI-based comedy Calendar Girls fool you. The Women's Institute can be a ferocious lot when it comes to a particularly heated letter of resignation.

4. You'll get multiple emails from one person because they don't know how to use their new iPad

There's something about technology that confuses some village folk. They're more than happy to embrace it but they have no idea how to use it. This results in four empty emails, a fifth with what you want, followed by a sixth apologising for said errors. But don't be surprised if they COME AND KNOCK ON YOUR DOOR to explain the errors to you.

5. You will be CC'ed into countless emails between a disgruntled villager and the district council

Just because you edit the magazine it doesn't necessarily mean you care about renegade weeds growing up through the kerbs, or poorly tarmaced roads down a cul-de-sac you don't live in and thus don't care about.

6. You'll surprise yourself and actually begin to care about horticultural show results

Or alternatively you'll start to wonder why you're spending so much of your spare time worrying about the font for 'Best Onion'.

7. You'll always be asked by the locals why you don't come to more village events

New Years Eve in the school hall? a cake competition in the village hall? A quiz in the cricket pavilion? Wow, I'd really love to but I'm going to be busy. For all of those. Thanks though.

8. The rare time you do venture out to a village event, you fee like a local celebrity.

You think you hear people mutter your name as you walk in, you expect people to swamp you with questions and articles. But of course, no one, apart from your mum and dad, know who you are.

9. You will get REALLY annoyed when someone's late with their content

Despite reminding everyone about the impending deadline, someone will still be late. And it'll surprise and upset you even more that you've begun to care so much about the carpet bowls club dates and parish council minutes.

10. You'll have to endure an annual meeting with the rest of 'the team' to discuss yearly figures

Yourself, the co-editor, treasurer and chairman will meet in a pub. Spreadsheets will be handed out, adverts will be talked about, the printing costs will be discussed. It'll take hours and worst of all, you'll have to buy your own drink.

But in the end, it only takes up a couple of days every other month, you've got the editing process down to a fine art now and you couldn't imagine not doing it, or who'd even take over.