A quarter-century of community reporting

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/11/2017 (2850 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Starting as a volunteer-run monthly newsletter in October 1992, the Headingley Headliner (now The Headliner) is celebrating 25 years.

The paper’s first editor and publisher, Mavis Taillieu, of Headingley, said the impetus for creating a community-based newspaper came from the local excitement over Headingley’s succession from Winnipeg and establishment as a municipality in 1992.

She said the Headingley Headliner began as the Phoenix Community Club’s newsletter but soon evolved into a more comprehensive and frequent publication.

“I thought that perhaps we should make it relevant for the whole community,” Taillieu said.

She was joined in her efforts by Headingley residents Karen Glavin, Bonnie Leullier and Gloria Wohlers. The quartet volunteered their time to gather, edit and write content, sell advertising and lay out the newsletter.

Taillieu was editor, Glavin was responsible for advertising and layout, Leullier looked after community club, school and municipal news, and Wohlers was in charge of church news and feature stories. Taillieu’s husband Wilf and Glavin’s husband Gary were members of the RM of Headingley’s first council so they had to remain impartial over municipal council issues.

While Taillieu had gained writing experience as a guest writer on Morris’ Scratching River Post, the work involved in publishing a newsletter, then a newspaper was overwhelming.

“It was a learning experience,” she recalled. “It was very time-consuming.”

One of the publication’s most popular and controversial sections was ‘Mave’s Raves’ which was a general humour column. Local residents were able to write in with their complaints or compliments. Another regular feature was ‘Street Beats’, which featured five local residents interviewed on a specific topic.

“It had to be local. People like to see themselves, their family and friends in the paper,” Taillieu said. “We wanted to make it fun and make it local.”

Local residents contributed columns on a voluntary basis.

“It was very loose in terms of content because it was all voluntary,” Taillieu said.

Glavin remembers worrying about how to type in and put together the various sections of the paper, which was printed at a shop in Charleswood.

She also recalls asking local businesses to advertise.

“I went knocking door to door.”

Leullier said the Headingley Headliner was well-received by the community.

The four women worked as the core group for close to four years when Taillieu decided to turn the Headingley Headliner into a biweekly, then a weekly paper. She was joined by journalist Tom Ayers and Leullier stayed on to look after advertising. Jean Roy, who then lived in Elie, was hired as a sales representative.

“We needed more money and knew we must be weekly to be an MCNA (Manitoba Community Newspaper Association) member,” Taillieu said.

When the Headingley Headliner became an MCNA publication, it became eligible to run national and provincial advertising campaigns. As well as taking the paper weekly, Taillieu also expanded its coverage area into the surrounding municipalities of St. Francois Xavier, Macdonald and Cartier, boosting circulation to about 4,800.

“We needed to show that we had a good product,” she said. “MCNA ads were our bread and butter. They helped out immensely.”

The new company moved into an office on Portage Avenue, then to Bridge Road. Ayers, who had been working as a Winnipeg Sun reporter, helped to set up the newsroom and the paper’s computer systems.

He said he was invited to join the Headingley Headliner’s staff, and saw it as an opportunity to cover a large area outside Winnipeg.

“Mavis had an exciting vision for a new paper,” he said. “Her excitement was infectious.”

While the staff used computer software to lay out the paper at their Headingley office, printing was done in Portage la Prairie. Taillieu followed a weekly routine of driving into Portage before 6 a.m. every Friday, picking up the papers from the printer and dropping bundles off at the Canada Post office in Portage and a Charleswood post office. Her route also included stops at Elie, Fannystelle and Starbuck to drop off papers.

“I had my route and they knew when I was coming,” she said. Despite having to drive through all types of weather conditions, Taillieu said “we never, ever once missed a deadline.”
Ayers, who now works at the Halifax Chronicle Herald, said he enjoyed his time on the Headingley Headiner.

“It was an amazing group of people to work with,” he said.

He said covering the Headingley Correctional Institute riot in 1996 and the Flood of the Century in 1997 were two highlights.

The paper’s staff participated in local events such as Elie’s Straw Daze, in which they had a float.

Leullier also remembered a light-hearted April Fool’s joke in which the front page headline was “Headliner buys Free Press.”

“People loved it. It was a great experience at all levels,” she said.

Taillieu has a collection of MCNA awards that the Headingley Headliner won from 1996 to 2000. She said they worked especially hard on their annual Christmas issue.

Taillieu sold the paper to Transcontinental Media in Winnipeg in 2000, which in 2004 sold the paper, along with sister publications The Herald, The Lance, The Metro and The Times, to FP Canadian Newspapers, parent company of the Winnipeg Free Press. The Headliner’s sales and editorial offices are now located in the Free Press building at 1355 Mountain Ave. In Winnipeg.

“It was a going concern. It was an award-winning paper,” she said.

Taillieu entered provincial politics and served as MLA for Morris from 2003 to 2013. Roy, Leullier and Ayers remained working on The Headliner for a few years after the sale.

“I was the first one in and the last one out,” Leullier joked.

The four women now look back and wonder how they managed to create a successful and continuing business venture from a monthly community club newsletter.

“We used to gather around Mavis’ table,” Glavin said. “Those were good times.”