It has been a long year, and after this week’s newspaper hits newsstands, the Meaford Independent team is taking its annual break.
For a small rural community newspaper, opportunities to take a break are few, so for the past decade the Meaford Independent team has taken advantage of the late December holiday season to shut down for two weeks to allow for some rest, and time with friends and family.
Like most years, 2024 has been a mixed bag of good news and bad.
We have heard much in this community and across the nation this year about the often crippling increases to our cost of living in recent years. From food insecurity to a serious lack of affordable housing, the pressures on households has continued to grow. Entering this holiday season we have heard about the drastic increases in the use of food banks, and the struggles that many are experiencing.
The holiday season can add to those financial pressures, and as you read this column many are feeling that holiday season pressure. Whether it’s stressing about not having the funds to purchase Christmas gifts, or agonizing over how to afford a turkey for Christmas dinner, the struggle is real for many, and it is only getting worse.
Adding to the financial pressures that most of us have experienced in recent years, we learned last month that Meaford’s already more expensive than most water and wastewater services are expected to cost even more in the years to come, much more in fact, and that is a concern to any of us who use the municipal water system.
It has also been a year of far too many opioid alerts issued by Grey Bruce Public Health. With 26 such alerts issued this year, it has been sad indeed because each of those opioid alerts has been prompted by yet more overdoses, some of them deadly, and that is sad news for those struggling with addictions, and it is sad news for the communities in Grey-Bruce.
While much of the local news in 2024 has been depressing, from opioid alerts to a spike in property crimes over the summer, to a frustrating lack of affordable housing, there has of course been plenty of good news over the past year.
This year has also been the sesquicentennial year for the former Town of Meaford, and so it has been a year of celebration in this community.
The sesquicentennial aside, community events like the Scarecrow Invasion, Summerfest, and Christmas on the Bay have offered fun distractions from the many issues facing all of us.
We have also seen new restaurants open in this community over the past year, perhaps most notably, Station 87 in the old fire hall behind Meaford Hall, which, from everything I have heard from friends who have visited the new restaurant, is a fantastic gastronomical experience surrounded by a bit of local history.
As I mentioned, 2024 has been a mixed bag of good and bad news, and that feels like par for the course in any year. No doubt 2025 will provide us with plenty of both good and bad news as well.
For those concerned about not having any local news to consume over the next two weeks, fear not. While we are taking our annual break, as I have done in the past years I will still be updating our website with any important news that happens over the holiday period – no rest for the wicked my grandmother used to say.
To our readers, I’d like to thank you for another year of support and engagement with this newspaper through letters, email messages, and informal chats on the sidewalk. Community newspapers have been disappearing at an alarming rate over the past couple of decades, and many communities that once had a community weekly now long for those days. I hear from such folks with regularity, folks who miss having a local newspaper, and some that are angered that their local councils now have nobody watching and reporting on behalf of the people.
While this is a festive time of year, it is also often a tragic time of year, with the combination of festive imbibing along with at times nasty winter weather resulting in fatal collisions on our roads and highways. I hope that all of our readers make the smart choice over the holiday season by not drinking and driving. Call a taxi, call a friend, or walk the few blocks home, but don’t get behind the wheel if you have been drinking, it’s just not worth the risk to yourself, and more importantly to others.
Whatever you might be celebrating in the coming days, or if you celebrate nothing at all, I hope that the traditional holiday season brings you joy.
Happy holidays, see you in 2025.
