This past weekend I went to Minneapolis with a small group of Chimes staff to attend the Best of the Midwest ACP Journalism Conference. It was an enriching experience that helped us to shake off the weariness of winter and get excited all over again for what we are doing on Chimes.

It’s quite the thing to see members of your staff get excited about what they’re doing. As a senior I’m getting tired. Tired of the homework and classes. The routine that goes on in its monotonous march that seems as though it will never end. This conference was just the thing I needed to break things up and to spark some of that old excitement I had at the beginning of the year. And I think the three staff members I went with would agree.

It’s because of the sessions we went to and the journalism professionals we talked to that we will be making some changes to this publication. We have learned some new tactics and have taken a few tips that we hope to use to better serve our readers and audience: you.

We want to give you better stories and layouts. We want to find ways to get you the information about your community that you should know as well as the information you didn’t know you wanted to know. We want to present this information to you in new, interesting and engaging ways.

So if you see changes to your weekly issues of Chimes, that’s why. If you see conversations and topics that were usually left untouched, we want to challenge why they shouldn’t be touched. If the pages look different from what you used to know, it’s because we want to reach you in new, hopefully better ways.

If you like what you see, let us know! If you don’t like what you see, still let us know! We are serving you, so we want to hear from you on how we’re doing. Let us know if we’re getting it right as well as if you think we’re doing it wrong, and why. We want feedback. We want to moderate conversations. We want to tell your stories. We need your help to do that.