By BRYAN CLAPPER
bryan@offthewater.com

Thank you for reading the first issue of Off the Water’s second year. We have an exciting year planned for our readers, and I can’t wait to get started.

Off the Water was launched in April 2009 as a monthly newspaper with a unique mission: to deliver free news to tourists and seasonal and permanent residents of the Lake Michigan shore.

With this issue, we’re relaunching for 2010 with a new mission: to continue to provide the same high-quality event and news coverage, keep the product free for readers, and do it each and every week.

The southwest Michigan lakeshore region is incredibly unique. When we launched the first Off the Water last year, our focus was on highlighting the things that bring and keep people here, whether it’s the beach, the fruit, the wine or the beautiful small towns.

In the coming weeks and months, you’ll find local news and features from throughout the region, from Michigan City and Michiana Shores to St. Joseph, Benton Harbor, Coloma and all points in between. We hope you’ll keep reading.

Off the Water is the seventh regular publication for us. Leader Publications produces two daily newspapers (the Niles Daily Star and the Dowagiac Daily News), two other weekly newspapers (the Edwardsburg Argus and the Cassopolis Vigilant), two free weekly shoppers guides (the East and West zones of The Leader), and our staff of 47 journalists, marketing consultants, press operators and customer service representatives live and work in the communities we serve. We’re proud to call southwest Michigan and northern Indiana home, and we’re proud of our products, the first of which was started nearly 140 years ago.

In order to ensure consistent quality going forward, we’ve increased our staff, adding another regular reporter and bringing in an editor with experience in weekly newspapers in high-traffic tourism areas.

Our focus this year is not only on delivering the same high-quality features and human interest stories as our inaugural season, but also increasing our news coverage of the area to provide full-time residents of southwest Michigan another source for local news.

As we did last year, we’re always looking for story ideas. Feel free to send our editor, Katie Johnson, an e-mail with any story ideas you have. She can be reached at katie@offthewater.com.

And, as always, you can follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/offthewater and visit our Web site at www.offthewater.com.

Bryan Clapper is the publisher of Off the Water and Leader Publications.