We can’t let 50 issues pass without letting MARTIN say a bit about the magazine he founded and join the celebrations for this the 50th issue.
L IGHT the hilltop beacons, join hands around the world and crank up Spandau Ballet’s Gold – it’s Reconnect’s 50th anniversary issue! As one of the founding team, and as editor/publisher for the two years or so before Scott took over at the end of 2016, I was asked recently if I was surprised it was still going strong 50 issues, and a little over eight years, later. Well, I feel proud to have played a part in its creation, certainly. And I’m delighted to have handed the controls over to someone who I have no doubt will produce another 50 wonderful issues. But no, not really surprised. When I sat down with Pete Hardy and Robin Currie back in early 2009 to plan the first issue, there was little doubt in my mind that it would be the first of many. A green living magazine for this area was hardly a new concept: in fact, Pete and I had previously published Reconnect’s forerunner, Connect (see what we did there?). To begin at the beginning, Connect was launched by Mike and Dee Brodie, who were based in Exeter: it carried a ‘positive living magazine’ tagline and featured a strong focus on therapies and personal development. When Pete and I bought it, we kept the wellbeing central theme but broadened its content to take in other aspects of local green living, including a rapidly developing local food movement and a relatively new area of interest called ‘alternative energy’. The blend worked perfectly. People loved it. After three years or so of continued success and growth, Connect became a little unwieldy and difficult for the two of us to handle, so we sold the project to a larger company – only to watch sadly as it faltered and slowly faded away… So, after a couple of years, and much nagging from the wonderful Robin Currie (whose contribution to things I paid tribute to when he died late last year), we decided to launch Reconnect. This gave us the opportunity to create and work with a new business model: dramatic technical advancements in the production process meant we could afford better paper and full colour; the dramatic growth of interest in sustainable living provided us with a virtually infinite supply of editorial material; and new sustainable businesses allowed us to build a strong commercial base. But the single most important aspect of this new, improved green living magazine was its very specific geographical base: Connect covered the whole of Devon and Cornwall (the result of public demand from our Cornish friends!), but Reconnect would be written by, focus on, run advertisements for, list events organised by and be entirely written edited and even printed by The People of Exeter and South Devon. This local focus brought with it a number of practical advantages: it simplified editorial policy (if it ain’t South Devon, it ain’t going in); it made the advertising profile simpler too – any green business or wellbeing therapist in South Devon just HAD to be in it; and distribution – the simple, physical job of delivering seriously heavy boxes full of magazines to shops, libraries, art galleries and natural health centres – was again concentrated in this one manageable area, which meant we could handle most of it ourselves (keeping down the cost and ensuring we could keep an eye on exactly where and how well it was going). There was, though, one other powerful virtue of our oh-so-local approach; something that binds together Reconnect in much the same way as it holds together society – community. By ignoring the temptation to include material from outside the area, no matter how worthy, interesting or exciting it might be, readers’ and advertisers’ sense of belonging is heightened; the shared experience is richer. Community isn’t just about geography – it’s really about people and relationships. By picking up a copy of Reconnect, by flipping through its pages, and responding in any small way to any small part of the wealth of material inside, the reader becomes part of something; part of a community that recognises, and lives by, a set of values and beliefs. Everyone who’s a part of it contributes to its continuation and growth – a strong statement about continuity and integrity in a world of self- destructive consumerism. There are many aspects of Reconnect, and the part it’s played in the community over the years, of which I’m very proud. But that simple coverline ‘Powered by people’, and the truth behind it, pretty much says it all.