We want you, our readers, to help us take the pulse of this community.

We are starting a community focus group, a small band of folks who can tell us what they like about the paper — and even what they don’t like.

We are open to folks of all ages, backgrounds, walks of life, races and religions. We do want to keep the group small, perhaps five to six at most. We hope the group will help guide us toward becoming a better community newspaper.

We also will let the group know how the newspaper and journalism works. 

What we would like is for those folks who are interested in being a part of our community group to let us know why they would be a good candidate. Send us a short biography and 100 words on why you want to take part. 

While we certainly would love for everyone involved to be a fan of the paper, that’s not the point. We’re looking to get and hear all kinds of views. We also would like for the group to meet regularly and we promise we will be gracious and accommodating hosts.

Even in the age of social media and with news spreading at unforeseen speed, we believe the local newspaper — in print or online — is an essential part of any community. There are few other sources to find out what is going on and why it is happening. 

We’re hoping you can help us along in our quest to make that happen. Let us know at pat.donahue@gaflnews.com and we will try to put together our community focus group in the short term.