“We see a lot of shite getting handed out here; I’ve never seen someone give out so many copies so fast”. This was the feedback from a Hillhead subway employee bright and early this morning as The Bell team braved an eye-wateringly early start to hand out free copies of our inaugural print edition to commuters.
Yes, our first (but not last!) foray into print has landed in Glasgow — and in 12 or so hours, we’ve already shifted 700 copies in two distribution sessions. Yesterday evening, you could catch us around Central Station, where 400 copies were gone in just an hour. This morning’s stint saw another 300 passed into the hands of the public.
We met some paid subscribers who came especially to say hi and pick up the edition (much appreciated!). Others were completely new to The Bell but were enthused about our mission once we explained what we were doing. If you’ve got hold of a copy, snap a picture and tag us on socials or send it along to editor@glasgowbell.co.uk. It motivates us to keep at it!
If you’ve yet to grab The Bell in print, we’ll give you a sneak peak: inside is a selection of our best and favourite stories, from a profile examining the tragedy of Glasgow’s worst rated takeaway, to infiltrating a group of teens who’ve turned a Cowlairs wasteland into a secret society. Seeing these physically in the hot little hands of Glasgow’s public is a thrill beyond words.
We’ll be hitting the streets again on Thursday, or more specifically the Buchanan Galleries steps, at lunchtime. If you want a copy, come find us then! Better yet, grab two and pass one onto someone you know who’s yet to sign up to The Bell. We’re on week four of our campaign to get 1,000 new paying members by 15 November and we’re just a hair away from hitting that big 400.
In which case: just 600 more to go. If (when?) we reach that goal, then we’ll enter the Pledge Zone. That’s when we actually have to make good on the five pledges we’ve committed to carrying out to make Glasgow better, as shaped by our readers.
The team all have their pet pledges: Calum is excited about meeting even more readers via at least three in-person events a year; Beth is buzzing at the prospect of training up the city’s young talent via a new internship programme; and Robbie, our resident expert audio producer, is keen to get his hands on a potential permanent Bell podcast. These pledges exist to inform, educate, and, (fingers crossed!) employ people in our city.
We’re already trialling what these pledges could look like. Our campaign opened with a packed out Drygate Brewery event, and today we’ve dropped episode two of our taster podcast, Saved By The Bell (listen here).
It goes behind the scenes of our coverage of last week’s bomb hoax, which disrupted the city’s schools, and digs into just what exactly all these headlines about ‘nationalising’ Glasgow’s buses actually means (spoiler: not nationalisation). We’ll keep dropping an episode a week until 15 November.
We want the podcast to stick around for good and to make the rest of these pledges happen. If you do too, well there’s a very easy way to ensure that: upgrade your free subscription to a paid one. We know you want to. You know you want to. You’ve been languishing on our free list long enough.
Look, we’ll even offer you a deal. Yeah, you can pay full price (and we’d love that), but you can also claim a £40 discount off an annual subscription if that swings it. If you’re still tentative, take up our £2.99 a month offer for the next eight weeks and try us out. Get behind something good and join up now.
