Despite not much really happening here, this Facebook group has grown in size over the past 18 months. There was no mission and there was no cause, but that will change in the coming weeks and months. With more than 850 members now—and many more non-members who check in regularly—it’s clear people in New Glarus care about local news and knowing more about our community.

Today we are taking the first step toward something bigger at New Glarus 360. If this project takes hold, we will eventually transition to a new website linked to multiple social media platforms so we can connect to all demographics and peoples in our community, something that hasn’t happened since before social media and mobile telephones were born.

Going forward, New Glarus 360 will place greater emphasis on two things:

Citizen journalism written BY members of our community FOR members of our community.

News and media aggregated from across the Internet about the greater New Glarus community.

What does that mean? It means anyone—a local organization wanting to tell people about your project, a sports team captain who wants to tell people about your team, or a citizen who witnessed something newsworthy—can submit factual news and feature stories. Citizen journalism is about telling the story of your own community, factually and clearly. When a journalist reports the news, opinions should be left to the people you interview, not the reporter. We have no agenda, except to publish the very best and relevant news about New Glarus. Soon we will publish guidelines so you can jump right in.

At the top of the page on the menu bar you can click “Featured” and you will be able to read news articles written by members of the community. They will appear in the order they are published. Below in the news feed you also find those stories, along with a healthy dose of news and content aggregated from across the Internet.

To accomplish our goals, we will use technology. This will include some of the nifty tools the Internet offers that allow us to present local news in ways New Glarus has never seen before. These tools include artificial intelligence (AI), video cameras, smartphones, drones, news aggregators and more. This is done to be thorough, factual, informative, and to keep our costs to a minimum so we can afford what we are doing. And it won’t happen overnight. But if it takes hold, it will be exciting.

Citizen journalism exists because traditional media can’t cover everything. Across the country, communities use it to ensure everything from school events to local government, from milestones to celebrations, gets documented. It gives everyday people a voice while helping everyone stay informed.

Our goal is simple: to create the most thorough, reliable source of news in our community. We want to cover New Glarus better than anyone else and give both residents and those who once called this place home a way to keep track of what’s happening here.

We plan to have a board of directors with people from the community to ensure we remain unbiased and factual. People can still comment about the items posted here, but as always, comments must remain civil. We will need more moderators, so if you are interested, please let us know. If you want to create content, please also let us know. Or don’t. That’s up to you. Just post your story. We will tell you if it doesn’t meet our guidelines and ask you to correct it if necessary. But everyone and anyone will have a chance to help report the news.

This is just the beginning, and you are part of it. New Glarus 360 will only succeed if the community makes it their own. Your stories matter. Your contributions matter. Together, we can create something that will serve New Glarus now and for years to come.

– Have a tip, story idea or announcement to share? Contact New Glarus 360 so we can cover more New Glarus local news and community stories that matter.

– Licensed stock photo