The Month in Review - December 2023
Looming back at the previous month
A Look Back at a Great Month!
One of the activities I want to undertake in this newsletter is to take time to look back at the growth of this project and bring forward new ways you can help support this effort.
If there is one thing I have learned about growing this newsletter, it is that this project is filling an unmet need; good, honest and quality analysis of the events that are shaping our local civic life. The growth of this project has exceeded expectations and while that growth is good — getting new people in the conversation isn’t a bad thing — it does mean we are all looking at this project from a different perspective.
One of these different perspectives is that we have all learned about this newsletter at different times, so whether this is your first time interacting with Civic Capacity, or your 100th, we are going to take a look back at the month and go over some great ways you can interact with this effort.
Also thanks to our collective efforts, this project is growing. First off, there always seems to be something happening and this project had 24 separate editions go out, which is much better than the orginal goal of one post of every three days. Furthermore, our free subscriber list grew by 4% and those generous individuals who make a financial contribution to our effort grew by 12%! In other words, more and more individuals are finding value in this project and that is heartwarming! Thank you! If you have not become a paid subscriber to our effort, please consider it. With your paid subscription, you have access to all back issues of our newsletter.
Our Most Popular Post from December
The most read post this project published last month came later in the month as we broke the news of a legal resolution that was filed that brought the long-contested legal fights over the Tavern Building to a close.
Since that time, the new owners of the building, the Troy Historic Preservation Alliance, has been working to prepare plans and raise funds for the stabliization of the building which will lead to the opening of West Main Street, which has now been closed for going on seven months.
One of the difficult parts of talking about this story was the different angles and turns this story has taken over the past four years. I am sure there are questions you have regarding the building and if you leave your question about this saga, please leave it in the comment section. This publication will work to get answers to your questions.
Sponsorship Packages Available for Civic Capacity
Looking at the readership of Civic Capacity, it is clear that we are creating a community of loyal readers that are becoming more engaged with their community; over the past month we have averaged over 300 readers a day to our newsletter. If you own or are part of a small business and would like to become a sponor of Civic Capacity, we have developed a month-long sponorship package. If you are interested, please send me an email at william.lutz17@gmail.com and we can get the conversation started.
Help Grow our Newsletter
One of the things I am really impressed with about the Substack platform is that they are always developing new tools to help grow newsletters. The good people at Substack have recently developed a referral program. Individuals that are sucessfully referring new subscribers to the newsletter are elgible to earn rewards. You can learn more here. Of course, one of the easiest actions you can take to grow this effort is simply share it with your friends and neighbors.
Thanks for reading!
September was an amazingly successful month for the Civic Capacity Newsletter and I am grateful for all of your support! If you ever have any comments or questions, please feel free to drop me a note at william.lutz17@gmail.com.