What next for The Knot? pt. 2

I’ve always seen a future where The Knot lives in print form as a free paper, well designed, easy to read, not full of advertorials - distributed to local businesses, university campuses and football stadiums in Stoke and North Staffs.

A paper packed with good, hearty, wholesome informative content with a front page that makes you proud to be from Stoke. Journalism that champions and challenges. A paper that exists in print and online that is genuinely useful for this region.

I’ve even see a future where The Knot becomes a place. A local coffee shop and bakery bearing the paper’s name. A place that people can come and connect, share stories, debate regeneration or simply get a good coffee and a sourdough loaf.

I don’t want to give up this vision, just because it’s hard to do it round ‘ere. But I have to be honest, I’m tired and can’t do this alone.

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I’m sitting here at Monk and Smuggler in Stafford writing with a sense of familiarity. Déjà vu.

It was about this time last year when I wrote “What next for The Knot?” - the article that led to an outpouring of support from readers of The Knot and the extended North Staffordshire community.

Loud and clear the message was. “Don’t go”. “We love The Knot”. Reading in between the lines, I heard more than that - “this community needs you”. One reader put it plainly to me,

“The Knot is the only local news I read”

A year on and we have continued to serve the North Staffs region with our positively-minded news stories and what’s on. Recently we’ve welcomed more paid supporters with some of our writing sneaking behind a paywall to encourage more of you to join us. To new and old paid subscribers. Thank you.

We’ve covered immigration with honesty and hope, we tell you where to get good coffee (although we did miss some spots I’m told, including BlueBird Kingway in Stoke) and we give you good news and what’s on every week.

Inevitably though, here I am again. Sitting in a coffee shop in Staffordshire, wondering… where do we go from here? (Also, I forgot to put this place on the list. The coffee is electric and the venue in the outbuildings of the church is quaint and peaceful. I really like it here.)

The question for me now isn’t “will The Knot live on?” it’s more

“How will The Knot live on?”

I feel a responsibility for The Knot to remain in service of Stoke and North Staffordshire and I still see a big opportunity to be the upstart news outlet that replaces the legacy institutions that are no longer serving us.

Yet, I have to admit I feel isolated on this mission and have for a while. Since becoming a dad, I have less time and energy to devote to The Knot, alongside other paying opportunities that support me and my family, I find The Knot inevitably slips to the bottom of my to-do list.

Truthfully too, my passion and energy has waned to more of a slow burn. I’m no longer running up and down Piccadilly interviewing people on the streets, or arguing with them about why Stoke isn’t actually sh*t and they’re just saying that on autopilot. My passion for regeneration and cultural change puts out heat, but the flames don’t fan so high.

Partly this is because my energy has never really been matched by another. Besides Helen and the writers we have paid, I’ve had no partnership in the responsibility for owning and directing The Knot’s future. Truthfully, in my time building The Knot I’ve been let down many times. I’ve had many excited conversations with people and businesses about what we could do. Offers of support, resources or money. It pains me to say this when I try to be so positive about our region and its people, there have been many broken promises. Many follow up emails unanswered, many offers not followed through. I fear, I’ve felt first hand why lots of entrepreneurial people choose to leave this area and why few new businesses survive here. Resources are scarce, elbows become sharp.

Once again, the very reason I believe The Knot needs to exist, becomes the very reason as to why it’s hard to exist.

That leaves me, the sole founder of The Knot, alongside the brilliant Helen who does all the writing - a little bit of an island in Staffordshire - trying to make this work, and again, with a sense of Déjà vu. - wondering how will The Knot, not just survive, but thrive?

That’s the question I come here with today. Not how will The Knot survive, not how will it drib out an existence? How will it thrive? How will we reach the ~600,000 people of North Staffordshire? How will we participate in cultural change by completely transforming how we share and receive news and information? How will we give quality independent journalism to this region?

How can we achieve this dream? That’s the question I want to honestly poise to you, the readers. You are the people who I can truly rely on. You’re the ones that pay to support us and continue to champion us. There are no broken promises here.

The Knot runs on energy. It runs on people who write, create, champion and advocate us. It runs on entrepreneurial minds like me, who are mad enough to believe that The Knot can be the number 1 independent news outlet in North Staffordshire. Those mad enough to actually commit time and money to that cause. It’s these people The Knot needs.

That’s who I’m searching for. Helen and I can keep The Knot alive. We can continue bringing The Knot’s writing to ~3,000 people a week. Yet, if we want to do more than that. If we want to do something special, something exceptional for our region, we need more. More people. More time. More resources to fuel The Knot forward.

This is an open call out. I’m looking for individuals who are keen to be part of The Knot, in the same way I am. I don’t mean volunteers. I mean owners, directors. People who are willing to take on the responsibility of bringing our mission to life in Staffordshire. This is not a call out for writers. It’s a call out for owners.

Practically, I believe we’d amplify our growth by partnering with a couple more business owners, or entrepreneurs like me. People who have some time and resources to support The Knot’s growth. Individuals who would benefit from being involved. Perhaps you run a local business and being involved in The Knot would be a brilliant way to meet more people. Perhaps aligning yourself and your business to The Knot would mutually grow everyone in the right direction. I don’t know who you are, but I trust you are out there and that you may be reading.

I’m open. Open to who I may connect with and how a relationship might evolve. I only want to connect with serious people who are willing to dedicate time and resources to grow The Knot into Stoke and North Staffs number 1 independent news outlet. Risk takers, change makers, socially minded business people who see the real reason why something like The Knot must exist.

I believe you’re out there, if you are. Reply to this or email me direct at james@theknot.group and let’s change the narrative on Stoke and North Staffs together.

To our readers who support us with your eyeballs and your subscription, thank you. We continue to write The Knot for you. Share us, support us, if you haven’t become a paid subscriber yet and are in a position to do so, please consider it.

We’ll be back with more good news on Monday.

Cheers,

James x