Everything starts with an idea! And as many of you will know, we love an idea! We were running an online magazine called AboutMyArea when we decided to create Thinklocal Magazine back in December 2013!

By the beginning of 2014 we had plans written and ideas all over the office, we knew we wanted to be a community content driven magazine giving our readers something to look forward to each month, we knew but we didn’t quite know how we were going to do it!! BUT thankfully a plan came together and in early March we started work on our first edition…. three weeks later our magazines were going through 3600 letterboxes in St Neots. We couldn’t believe it!!
The next month came and went and so on, we kept to our first ideas and stayed true, we wanted this magazine to be worth something to our readers. Thankfully for us it grew and grew, and we were seriously enjoying ourselves, meeting local people, chatting also behind screens and keyboards to lots of people and getting the magazine printed each month and delivered.

Over the years we have met some wonderful people along the way and have been involved in lots of local organisations including the first ‘Visit St Neots’ website, we worked along side the then town centre manager, to create the first vision on the website. We worked with St Neots Town Centre Initiative on the Promotions and Tourism group, encouraging local groups to put monthly articles in our magazines. We also circumnavigated the Covid pandemic and went online for some months so that we could continue producing a magazine for our readers!

The magazine has continued to grow but that is because of many other factors apart from us. The local businesses, schools, clubs, groups and organisations that contribute each month, our designer, David Hodges, who has worked with us since the beginning, the vast team at XL press who have printed each and everyone of your magazines that come through the door and not forgetting our delivery agents, who, come rain or shine, go out at the end of each month and ensure you get your monthly delivery.

It certainly takes a team of people to produce, design, print and deliver and in our eyes, we have the best.

From 3,600 magazines in our first ever edition, we have produced 12,750 magazines this month and we want to continue to grow over the coming years.
Thank you to each and everyone of you readers for sending us complimentary emails, even asking when their magazine is arriving, for supporting us and everyone in our magazines.

We want to continue to bring you your magazine, helping out local businesses, schools, clubs, groups and organisations. So, let’s keep Thinking Local for a very long time.

Oh, and we hope you like our picture above taken at Bushmead Primary School when we went to celebrate our 10th Anniversary- what a wonderful school, the children are a credit to all the teachers there.

Joanne and Lorraine

PS – We are so excited!!!!!!!!!! Take a look at our massive 10th Anniversary Prize Draw (see page 41). You could win an incredible prize worth well over £650 in gifts and vouchers from lots of local businesses in the area.

Tony Smith from XL Press

What can I say for the ThinkLocal Magazine 10th Anniversary, simply just amazing. We have travelled this path with you for so many years and yet, it doesn’t seem that long. We have loved watching the Magazine grow, as well as the town. The circulation has steadily increased from 3600 back in 2014 and now sitting at over 12,600 copies every month! We have been so lucky to have been there with you right from the beginning. Everything that has been asked, we have been here to support, and we will continue to do so for yourselves and the town.

Both of you have done a wonderful job in keeping everything going year after year. Even after lockdowns and a pandemic! We admire how you kept going, picked it up and started it when it was forced to stop it for a while.

Having been born and bred in St Neots, the Town has a special place in my heart, and I love it when local people do well. We are grateful to see the good that the magazine does for the local area and are proud to see the support that the magazine has given to promoting local businesses. Many thanks to the both of you, the designers and to each person that has delivered a magazine through a door…dare I say 10 more years?!

David Hodges – White Rocket Creative

Since starting to work with the team at Thinklocal, since way back in 2017. Taking over the responsibility for the creative elements and producing the magazine in issue 40, there have been 2 new iterations of the design, firstly a refresh in December of 2017 (issue 48). Then a larger brand and magazine update in September 2021 (issue 90). Next taking the magazine online with the Thinklocal website in January 2022 (www.thinklocalmagazine.co,uk).

It is always a great time working with Joanne and Lorraine, putting together each edition of the magazine. A fun, but hectic couple of days, supporting the local advertisers with their artwork. Setting the content, with a great range of articles and local content. Developing supporting digital content for facebook and the website. To get Thinklocal out to as many people as possible and spread the word for the community in and around St Neots.

I look forward to many more editions of the magazine and to developing the content in print and digital with the team in the future.