E-zine Extravaganza!

E-Zine

What is a hobby? This was the dilemma the class stumbled upon when trying to think of a theme for our e-zine. Some argued it was anything that interested you and occupied your leisure time. Others said it was a craft where you worked towards a goal (preferably in a shed?). Web definitions varied and it was all just too broad to use for our e-zine. We needed to narrow the search down. Hamilton has a bad rep for being a “hole”. I want our e-zine to try and change this perception. Is our general aim to try and make life more exciting for us Hamiltonians, by providing, encouraging or inspiring ourselves to do fun, out-there things? Well that was my hopes anyway. Will knitting achieve these goals? I think not. Should we be restricted to hobbies that only take place in sheds? Does the Hamilton public really want to hear about hobbies that don’t revolve around sports or arts? Maybe Hamilton just isn’t ready for the exciting times we have in store for them!!! We had a looksey at existing sites of this nature that focus on Hamilton and there was nothing too exciting. There is definitely a niche we just need to sort our audience and angle. The main issue we’ve been having is that the Hamilton audience is so diverse. Where do we restrict our hobbies to? Do we need to reduce our audience to Hamilton youth/students/teenagers/old folk? Should it just be Hamilton city, the Waikato, North Island or the whole of New Zealand that can access these hobbies? We’ve been through many class debates trying to sort out the answers to these questions. Many of us have had our precious ideas brutally trampled on as part of the refining process for the greater good. What also needed to be defined was what information exactly we would be providing on these hobbies. Would we do how-to guides, reviews, profiles, road tests? Hopefully it will turn out to be a mixture. Sounds like a lot when you remember we only have a few more weeks to do it all! Add to that the pressure of trying to make it timeless so our e-zine won’t date with months. Arrrgh! Thank goodness it will be a team effort as I would have been totally overwhelmed long ago!