Sebastian Johnston-Lindsay, Abbigale Kernya, and Evan Robins (Take two)

Out of fear of boring you with prosaic waxing about the significance of our respective times at Arthur, we, the incumbent editors of Volume 58 will instead present you of a frank account of what we collectively accomplished, what we didn’t, and what we hope to going forward should the Staff Collective see fit to re-elect us.

WHAT WE GOT DONE

REWORKED THE STAFFING PLAN. As promised, we made a three editor arrangement work for (to our knowledge) the first time in Arthur history. By having Abbigale and Evan focus on connecting with staff and copy editing while Sebastian oversaw day-to-day financial and administrative tasks, we have created a work flow where all the editors maintain time and energy to write, while also getting all of the requisite tasks done.
Despite not hiring either copy editor or communications positions this year, we’ve proven to be doing just fine. Abbigale was already the sole copy editor of the prior volume, so if anything we now have more eyes on each piece given usually at least two editors will sign off before returning it to writers.
Moreover, Evan has found ways to streamline the design work and make it more consistent issue-to-issue and article-to-article. Writers are still free to make their own graphics, though she’s proven able to fill the gaps where necessary, and during the brief stint where we had access to our Instagram all posts were designed to be modular, thus precluding significant design experience to create them.
From a labour perspective we hired a significant number of people to work more hours than the year previous for a better hourly rate. This is all part and parcel of making Arthur as equitable an employer as we can.
(RE)STARTED A NEWSLETTER. For a while prior to our taking the reins, Arthur’s resident newsletter, The Courier, had been left somewhat neglected. After Bill C-18’s enforcement made it clear that Instagram was no longer going to be a feasible venue for promotion during the publishing year, we resolved to restart The Courier, which has thus far proved a massive success! Besides having several hundred active subscribers, we have a number of people who pay close attention to our weekly emails and engage with them in a way we could never have expected. All told, The Courier has proved an invaluable venue to promote Arthur and build community, and we’re pleased to say we think it’s become a staple of our editorship.
HOSTED A RADIO SHOW. After a brief absence, we brought Arthur back to the radio in the form of Radio Free Arthur, a weekly round-up/talk show that airs on 92.7FM and is archived to our Podcasts page. Besides being a real treat to make for all of us involved, RFA has been a great way for our readership to connect with Arthur, and we have no small number of people who apparently really like to listen to us talk nonsense?
POLISHED THE SUMMER SERIAL. We had a blast at Arthur this summer, with all three editors writing thousands upon thousands of words and spending many long, hot days in the office with the windows open and the fans going full blast. We did our best to make summer an event this year, themeing the transitional period between Volumes 57 and 58 as “Arthur’s Wilderness Sabbatical.” We had fun with it, introduced ourselves and our summer staff in silly ways, and all around drew a ton of positive engagement. Our summer journalist, Isla Gole, was all around a joy to work with and we are so grateful to have hired her.
BOLSTERED OUR INDEPENDENCE. As of writing this, Arthur, for the first time in several years, is the sole owner of her own website. Having spent the better part of this Volume resolving ongoing issues with our web manager, we finally have ownership over Arthur’s domain, and our independence along with it.
WON AN AWARD. We said last year that we wanted to forge a newspaper which was capable of being award-winning, and this year has vindicated that. We came away from NASH 86 having won the JHM Award for Best Online Media Presence.

WHAT WE DIDN’T DO (WHOOPS)

BEAT THE POLYCULE ACCUSATIONS. Several persons of terminally online persuasion have accused us of sleeping together, or else being involved in mutual mastubatory activities! These claims bear no truth, but boy do we think they’re funny!
CLEAN THE OFFICE? We did, technically, clean the office. However, as such things tend to do, it immediately rebounded to its prior state of undress. Yes, we found a lovely wooden coffee table in the garbage. Yes, we got rid of a good amount of clutter. No, we did not (as friend of the masthead, Will Pearson of Peterborough Currents, loves to remind us) shampoo the carpets. For shame.

WHAT WE STILL HAVE TO DO (or, “WHY YOU SHOULD VOTE FOR US”)

GO PROPERTY BROTHERS ON THE ARTHUR OFFICE. We’re going to fucking do it this time guys, we swear, and I don’t care what Sebastian says but when we’re done with the play there’ll be NO shoes on that damn carpet. When we make this godforsaken budget there will be a line that gives Evan the $10,000 she needs to buy us some good chairs which actually have all of their parts still attached and don’t cause any lower back injuries.
Vote us in and we will shampoo the damn carpet. We’ll spend the summer doing Butch lesbian carpentry shit. We’ll sand and re-stain the coffee table. We’ll buy an area rug. We’ll get some nice cabinetry for a change. Hell, we’ll replace our carpet with tatami mats if Matt Jarvis lets us.
PLOUGH THE UBYSSEY. We mean this in a figurative (though not euphemistic, we stress) way. We were nominated for four (4)!!! CUP John H. Macdonald student journalism awards last year, and we would like to keep up that momentum.
Of the four categories in which we were nominated, we only won one (1) award. As much as we’re very happy with that, we sincerely believe that Arthur has the mettle to go further and aim higher. We’re never going to make chasing awards our top priority, but rather our aim is to continue to foster journalistic and creative excellence at Arthur, which—we hope—will translate into our little rag batting in leagues much bigger than itself. For the time being, however, we’re officially an award-winning newspaper, and you can bet your ass we’re not going to shut up about it anytime soon.
GROOM MORE WRITERS. As we already mentioned, we had an excellent staff this year, who collectively published dozens and dozens of articles of which we are very proud. However, as this is an editorial platform, we need to translate this momentum into future plans!
This year we hired a number of (relatively) young staff members (compared to Sebastian, at least). We are hoping that many of our staff will reapply this coming volume, and in so doing continue to gain valuable experience writing for Arthur next year.
It is our hope that we can create an environment where staff writers are encouraged to develop year over year, which in turn will contribute to the long-term quality of Arthur as a masthead.
DO EVERYTHING WE DID BUT AGAIN AND BETTER. Ultimately, our hope is that our stewardship of Arthur this year speaks for itself. We did some things well, there are other areas in which can improve, and all three of us have learned a lot this year—not just about this job, but about ourselves.
We’ve been honoured to serve as editors this past volume, and it would be our most sincere pleasure to continue to do so. We already have tons of ideas banked for the summer serial, Issue 0, and another year of Arthur shenanigans. As such, if you’ll have us, we’d love to be the ones at the helm.