“Let’s start a newsletter!”
How it all started in December 1999.
Having bought a finca close to Camposol, we discovered that many of our new friends had skills to offer and new businesses were starting up everywhere. Many of us were new to the area and we all wanted to know where to buy various things and where to go for a good meal etc. Our idea was to produce a newsletter once a month and distribute it at the Camposol car-boot sale on the first Sunday of each month. Jo was the ‘computer person’ so she set about designing the newsletter and we had fifty copies printed for the first ‘edition’.
We soon increased the number of copies of the Costa Cálida Chronicle, as the newsletter became known and we began to charge people to advertise in the paper. The money received for adverts paid for the printing and for the first four years we put everything back into the paper, using any money to print as many copies as we could.
The first charity in the Brit community, PALS (Protection and Life Saving), was formed after a small child drowned in one of the swimming pools on Camposol A and Noah’s ARC was formed shortly afterwards, so we offered to put a free article in the Chronicle each month to let people know what events were coming up and what the charity had spent any monies on. We now print free articles each month for over 20 charities and organizations in the area. We raise over 1,000€ each year for the RBL Poppy Appeal and we print articles that are relevant to living in Spain, some of which are sent in by our regular contributors and we keep a good mix of information for our readers and advertisers alike.
The Chronicle has gone from strength to strength. We are the only magazine that covers the whole of the Costa Cálida, from Los Alcazares and La Manga, across to Cartagena and the smaller villages of Fuente Alamo and Las Palas to Mazarrón and up to Northwest Murcia including Mula, Bullas, Cehegin, Calasparra and Caravaca de la Cruz. We still personally deliver some of the magazines as we believe in keeping in contact with not only our advertisers and readers, but also with our distributors. They are all important to us and we are aware where people like to find the Chronicle.
We are more than competitive with our pricing and to help our advertisers, have not increased the price of advertising since 2005. We have our own advert design team and they have worked hard with changes to the Costa Cálida Chronicle and to the newly designed website, which provides an extra free service for our advertisers and includes our online Business Directory.
Martine runs the office on Camposol B helping customers with advert renewals and providing excellent customer service. She is always there to help our other sales personnel to achieve their goals and to help in any way that she can.
During the last 20 years, there have been many ups and downs, but we have always maintained to keep the Costa Cálida Chronicle at the forefront of our lives and those of our readers and advertisers. Here’s to another 20 years!