I LOVE SUBMISSIONS.

We are a small operation here at Bancroft This Week and as much as I would like to get to each and every event, it's not always possible. And that's part of why I love submissions.

All winter the insanely dedicated hockey parents sent in article after article of awesome, exciting local hockey coverage. I learned a lot from their reporting and they did a way better job than I could have done.

I also love the stories sent in each week from our NERDS and in the fall we had the NOS crew from the NHHS. These kids are in the midst of an incredibly interesting learning adventure and each week they write about what they did and they send it in.

Not only do I love reading about their journey but it's a great skill for these students to learn.

We have the Bancroft Library and the Haliburton County Public Library sending in columns each week that inspire us to read and interact with our local centres of learning.

And now the Art Gallery of Bancroft is taking us on a journey through time as we approach their 30th anniversary.

All of this stuff is great. I love it and readers love it.

I also appreciate the pictures that people drop off from events that they go to. We recently ran a picture snapped in South Africa of some students who travelled with a copy of this paper.

Silly or serious-our pictures are great.

Your letters are also a big part of this paper and I always enjoy reading and running them.

Sometimes when I run a story I expect letters. Sometimes I don't.

What comes in is always a surprise.

And then there is our online entity BancroftThisWeek.com and we're active on Facebook and Twitter as well.

I watch our online statistics and interpret the heavy traffic for certain articles as a sign that we should keep running pieces like this.

I enjoy seeing which stories get shared and love when Facebook beeps at me-signaling a comment, an interaction, a sign that all the hard work is worth it.

Community papers are about community.

You influence what runs. You join the conversation.

You tell the story.

You are helping to make history happen and I just wanted to say thanks for the role you play in making this paper pretty great.