As we welcome in the new decade, we wanted to reflect on what was an extremely busy and very positive year for all of us here at The Local Answer, and look ahead to an exciting new year.

2019 marked our 10th Anniversary, which we celebrated with friends, family, clients and contributors on a glorious day at the Cheltenham Cricket Festival in July.

We were joined by over 100 guests, and thanks to plenty of generous donations we held a raffle full of great prizes which raised over £1,000 for our selected Charity of the Year, Cobalt.

Working with Cobalt this year has been a pleasure and a real highlight.

In September, we visited their base at Linton House, to meet the volunteers behind their card upcycling scheme. ‘The Big Sort’ is underway for 2020 from Thursday 2nd to Sunday 12th January, so instead of throwing away any unwanted Christmas cards, why not pop around and donate them for a good cause?

On the fundraising side, Lois and her boyfriend Jack ran the 10k Cheltenham Challenge in June and managed to raise over £1,300 between them – a great achievement that made the blood, sweat and tears of training worthwhile!

Our annual tombola at Gloucester Day also brought in just over £400, meaning the total raised for Cobalt in 2019 was a whopping £2,750 – thanks to everyone who contributed!

We also ran our TLA Charity Giveaway – asking our readers to nominate charities and non-profit organisations based in Gloucestershire to be in with a chance of winning £2,000.

It’s fair to say you responded, with over 1,200 nominations for 223 different organisations, highlighting just how many great charities and good causes there are throughout the county.

In the end the money was won by James Hopkins Trust, a Gloucester-based charity that supports children with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions, and their families, across Gloucestershire.

A big thanks here has to go to Sherbornes Solicitors, Café René, Albany Windows and Gloucester Carpet Outlet, whose amazing donations made the giveaway possible.

We’ve had some lovely interactions with our readers throughout the year, not least with our photography competition.

Each year we put out a call for photos from readers to feature on our front cover, and every time you manage to surprise and delight us with some stunning original photographs. Sorting through and choosing the best entries is always one of the more difficult, but enjoyable jobs.

Behind the scenes we’ve made some major developments, especially on our website.

We’ve introduced a new Business Directory – an easy-to-use guide for you to find the service or business you require. We’ve also launched our online What’s On section – a cost-effective way for local groups to advertise their events.

More recently we introduced our brand-new online Competitions page, which has already seen some top prizes on offer. Make sure to head to our website for a chance to win Sunday Lunch for four at Hotel du Vin amongst other great experiences.

On the magazine front, it’s estimated we’ve put out over 2.16 million copies in 2019 alone – testament to our hard-working distribution team. We’re proud that every single one of those copies is 100% recyclable and, along with our printer Precision Colour Printing Limited, we are committed to producing the best quality magazine possible every month.

Looking ahead, our 2020 Vision – if you’ll excuse the pun – is to continue to grow and develop.

Plans are already in place for a new Offers page for our website, where local companies will be able to promote discounts and vouchers to customers.

When we first started out in 2009 we were putting out 5,000 magazines a month – that’s grown to 180,000 across the county and a website with an average of 20,000 views a month, and growing!

We’re still a family run, community driven company, focused on providing information and great stories from the worlds of sport and entertainment to our readers, whilst also giving local businesses a platform to thrive.

As always, we value your feedback and would love to hear how you think we’re doing and how we could improve The Local Answer magazine and website.

Why not get in touch with your views via admin@thelocalanswer.co.uk or leave us a Google Review?

Thanks to all our readers, advertisers and staff for a great year – here’s to the next 10!