Courier desparately seeking new community columnists....

I must declare my interest here: I was, as many of you will know, the community columnist for the Kent and Sussex Courier for several years up until a few months ago when they decided to abruptly not pay us any more whilst expecting us to do roughly twice as much work on a voluntary basis. I used to enjoy writing the column most weeks and tried to make it a bit more than just when the flower arrangement society was meeting by adding in some local interest tit bits and a little Tonbridge history and gossip. Around two thirds of the columnists dropped out at the same time as me, including some who had been writing their columns for nigh-on 15 years. So desparate to fill in the gaps (or columns to be precise) have the Courier become that they have approached some one very senior in the Tonbridge Civic Society to ask if they could find someone to write a Tonbridge column since it is such an important community role. If it's that important then why don't you stop arseing about and pay someone to do it instead of going cap in hand to people who, frankly, have more important things to do for the community than write your column. You, being a commercial organisation, just want to sell newspapers to a community which you seem to be doing your best to allienate. You're part of the newspaper group which, among others, publishes the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard and hundreds of prime regional titles. So you can afford to cough up the paltry ten or twenty quid a week for these community columns, you've shot yourselves in the foot and now it's time to get real before you lose even more of your ever dwindling readership....