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The free community magazine for Eglingham Parish

North Charlton, South Charlton, Eglingham & everywhere in between.

On this page you can find….

….the latest copy of the magazine

….promotions

….a section “About us”

….downloadable back issues of the magazine

….contact details and submission guidelines

….how we put it together

….a potted history of how it all came about

Download the latest Issue here!

Winter 2024

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A good read

If you are searching around for things to read during these strange times, Hear Abouts may be able to help.

Two of our original contributors were Hayheck and Michael Stafford. They wrote funny and engaging columns about life in our parish – and further afield.

Rather than gather metaphorical dust in our computer archives we have brought the first year’s worth together in a “pull out and keep” anthology. Or it would be except it’s digital only!

Click here or on image to open a copy

About us

Hear Abouts was created following the 2005 Parish Plan consultations. It is a completely independent organisation and is now governed by a Constitution based on a Charity Commission model. Our aims are:

To promote and strengthen the community life of Eglingham Civil Parish (“the Parish”)by producing and delivering free to every household, in the Parish, a news magazine with information and articles relevant to the Parish, without distinction of political, religious or other opinion. The organisation to be not for profit and to remain independent of any political or commercial enterprise.

For many years the Editorial Team was led by Andy Gray as editor.

Since the summer of 2024 the magazine has a new editorial team, led by

Margaret Bell and Frances Buckingham         

Distribution is co-ordinated by Liz Grant and individual deliverers are scattered through the parish.

The magazine is now produced 4 times per year.

The intention is that it is written by the community for the community but we have to actively encourage contributors, of whom we have many regulars.

We always welcome constructive feedback and most importantly material for publishing.

2024 Edition Downloads

Summer 2024 Autumn 2024 Winter 2024

Back Issues

Click on a date - opens in a new window

Dec/Jan 19/20 Nov 2019 Oct 2019 Sept 2019 July/Aug 2019 Jun 2019

May 2019 Apr 2019 Mar 2019 Feb 2019 Dec/Jan 2018/2019 Nov 2018

Oct 2018 Sept 2018 July/Aug 2018 Jun 2018 May 2018 Apr 2018 Mar 2018

Feb 2018 Dec 2017/Jan 2018 Nov 2017 Oct 2017 Sept 2017 Jul/Aug 2017 Jun 2017

May 2017 Apr 2017 Mar 2017 Feb 2017 Dec 2016 Nov 2016 Oct 2016  Sept 2016

Contact

Contact Margaret or Frances by email on hearabouts24@gmail.com

Submission Guidelines

Hear Abouts is all about you the reader within our Parish. It is written by yourselves (or by those just beyond our borders) and without those submissions there would be no Hear Abouts.

Just a few things to note while submitting content to us which helps us out though.

  • Please email all content to the email address hearabouts24@gmail.com

  • Please send content typed in an attached document file (eg Word). Please name the file with the article title.

  • Pictures make things pretty! If you have an image to accompany the article, great! Pictures tell a thousand words! A good size image helps us deliver a quality print. So ideally images should be around 2000 pixels on the longest edge. Please remember to own or have permission to use the picture you send. Even as a non-profit we are liable to claims of using copyrighted images, even within our small print run.

How does 'Hear Abouts' happen?

Margaret, Frances and team members ask people for articles and write pieces themselves. There are regular contributors who submit items. We also have a monthly editorial meeting to generate ideas and articles. 

We offer a service to local groups whereby we will insert flyers and deliver those with the regular Hear Abouts.

Not on the physical distribution area and would like the next edition as a  digital copy in pdf format? Fill this in...

A potted history of the 'Hear Abouts' (by Geoff)

The Eglingham Parish Plan 2005 identified a desire to have a parish newsletter. At a village open meeting Geoff Osmond volunteered to be editor. The Parish Council backed the idea in principal but wanted to see that it could work before formalising support.

September 2006 saw the first edition. 150 copies were run off on a home printer which took over ten hours to print. Hand folded and hand stapled - 4 hours of utter boredom - then distributed by Liz Grant, Jean North, Mig Slater and others.

A plea in the second edition led to several meetings with potential helpers and an editorial team was formed; Marion Tonge - advertising, Tracy Coxon - graphic design, Bill Purvis - treasurer, me as editor and printer.

We tried all sorts of ideas; informative pieces, prize quizzes, competitions, letters column, travel pieces, recipes, for sale notices, as well as promoting local events and sharing local news.

Next 3 editions were on the home printer but this was never sustainable. Bill  located a potential grant giver, The Leader Gold Awards, and we got a grant for a heavy duty colour printer and a folding machine. This was a major step forward but it left us the problem of paying for ink and paper for a print run that had now increased to nearly 200 copies, a cost of around £85 per edition. Our constitution's aim was to deliver free to every household in the parish and surrounding hamlets and ideally to keep adverts in the newsletter to a minimum. But we had to generate some advertising revenue.

Marion Tonge, with the tenacity of a terrier, visited every small business in Alnwick to persuade them to take an advert. Unfortunately with such a small circulation many businesses did not feel it was viable to advertise with us. But Marion persisted and it brought in a small but vital stream of money. We applied to every organisiation we could think of for sponsorship. The Duke of Northumberland gave us £100, Alnwick's Rural Business Initiative could not give us direct funding but took a years worth of advertising in advance. We did printing for local groups on a "cost plus donation" basis which helped subsidise our running costs. We approached the Parish Council for funding and they generously gave us £300 for 2 years running, going a long way to securing our position.

We also received a big boost when the local ‘Footsteps in the Past’ project won Awards 4 All funding and chose us to print their leaflets. We had now expanded circulation to Brownieside, Old Bewick, and New Bewick, as they had seen the newsletter and asked to be included.

Additional to the editorial team, Liz Grant was co-ordinating the deliveries and had built up a group of volunteers to get the newsletters delivered using a cascade system.

Regular contributors were acquired and Hear Abouts became well established as part of our community fabric.

After 4 years the original team were showing signs of nervous exhaustion (well I was) and new blood was brought in. Andy Gray was persuaded to take on the editors role, Bill Purvis remained as Treasurer, I continued with production and printing services,  and Ian Grant and Malcolm Angus joined the team. More recently David Marshall has joined us to bring the perspective of the far flung corner of our parish. This renewed energy led to new features; the Parish Portrait proved very popular as did the regular Hayheck column. In keeping with our rural location Michael Stafford wrote a great farming column for a year. We also encourage new writers e.g. Ella Scott with her music reviews.