Got News Network

WhoWe Are:

We are a collection of professional individuals and local business owners who have been searching for a one-stop, easy to use resource for literal, unbiased, and current news about what is happening around us in our own community. In our search for this entity, we discovered that we were not alone, a good number of the general population of Williams Lake and surrounding area residents and fellow business owners were starving for the same thing.

We pooled our resources, did our research and created what the people told us they wanted.

We at Got News Network promise to listen and constantly improve.

The Internet and advertising landscape changes constantly, we automatically adapt.

Cailin Cousins, Publisher

As the Publisher of Got News Network I oversee the operations for all of the news websites.

I manage the sales and editorial staff, coordinate team schedules, assign and/or arrange articles, organize graphic design content for the websites, and contribute to site programming. Additionally, I conduct research and development to ensure the sites are utilizing the most current technology and are meeting consumer demands and monitor website visitor statistics. I design advertisements, am responsible for the marketing of the website, including online as well as printed advertising materials. As often as possible, I attend community events --- taking photos and helping to create a social network for the websites.

My background includes twelve years of real estate, marketing and franchise coordinating, creating worldwide online catalogues and developing client management systems for realtors. I have an extensive background in personnel management in the answering service and emergency call centre industry and was the Editor of a magazine where I did ad and editorial layout, ad sales, as well as coordinating the printing and distribution of the publication.

I taught computer and graphic related courses at a community college. My husband and I have owned and operated a successful web design firm for nine years, with hundreds of clients from Canada and the US.

Our first news website, welcometowilliamslake.ca, was a concept that came from the Fire Storm in Kelowna in 2003, when a local news website provided real-time news and photographs that were very helpful and garnered International attention. When we moved to Williams Lake from Kelowna, we quickly realized the opportunities for something similar here. We conducted thorough research, talked to business owners and the general public to determine what they would like to see more of locally, and began building the site and investigating partners to bring on board with us in 2004.

LeRae Haynes, Chief Editor

I am the chief editor of Got News Network and the main writer for the project. I was editor/assistant editor for the Cariboo Advisor newspaper for almost three years, contributing 8-12 stories per week, and proofreading and editing the paper on production day. I had the very great pleasure of interviewing hundreds of people throughout the community, as well as throughout Canada and the US, for comments on an enormous range of topics.

Besides four years of university in English and Communications, I bring a range of writing experience from the past 30 years to the websites, including a newspaper humour column, various short stories, articles, professional correspondence, plays and songs.

The interview process is one that I enjoy immensely -- drawing people out and encouraging them to tell their story, or talk about their business, discuss their politics, or describe the vision they have for their non-profit organization. In the past several years I have made great contacts in the community, establishing relationships of trust, accuracy and reliability. I have a readership; people that enjoy my feature story writing style, as well as my editorials.

My role at Got News Network is to provide feature stories for the websites: business profiles, human-interest stories, sports pieces, community events and more. I also help put together breaking news pieces, making sure that they are accurate, detailed and well written. I attend community events whenever possible and take photos for the site.

Once a month I take a great deal of pleasure in addressing the self-employment class at Community Futures, facilitated by Nancy Robinson. I've done so for the past two years, first in my role as the Cariboo Advisor Editor and now as Chief Editor of Got News Network.

Joe Cousins, Technical Advisor/Programmer

I am an 'Iidea man' and problem solver, who is always up to the challenge of finding a solution to an encountered problem or devising ways to accomplish something better.

I have had experience running C&J Business Services with my wife, Cailin since 2002, building websites and CMS portals and teaching an E-commerce course at Vancouver Career College in Kelowna.

Having been in Kelowna for the 2003 firestorms, I saw how efficient an online news source could be. During the firestorms castanet.net became the 'go-to' place for information regarding the fires because of their timeliness and efficiency at getting the news out to those that needed it the quickest.

After moving to Williams Lake, it became obvious that there were large holes in the information and news supply in town. The papers only come out weekly and the radio has only so much airtime alotted for "local news and events". When the wel;cometowilliamslake.ca project went live in August of 2009, the top story on one of the local news websites was still one of an incident that ocurred on New Years Day.

I realized that finding partners with media experience and contacts would make this project more viable. We started with "WelcomeToWilliamsLake.ca" but soon realized that there were many small communities in BC that had the same issues with their news sources.

Realizing this caused us to expand the original idea to include possible expansion to other communities in the future.

Got News Network P.O. Box 2526 Williams Lake, BC V2G 4P2 (250) 398-NEWS