September 2011’s Page 2 – Editorials from Lucas, Andrew & Marc

Lucas Duguid – Publisher

I was born and raised in Brantford. I went to public school, high school and college here. I started my career, met my wife, started a family, launched my agency, created a bakery, and now a newspaper in Brantford. This town has given me everything. Now it’s my time to give back.

While promoting Tweetstock I told anyone who would listen that “it’s time to introduce Brantford to the world”. I was half right. What I needed to say was that it’s time to introduce Brantford to Brantford. Between five Tweestocks, two election campaigns, and a brief stint in high heels, I have had the pleasure of meeting many great and wonderful people from Brantford, Brant County and Six Nations. 

It occurred to me that each and every person I met had a great story to tell. What better way to turn strangers into friends than by sharing a little bit about one another. Through this sharing and telling of stories we are discovering we have far more in common with one another than we thought.

There is no question that as a community we have taken some pretty tough shots to the body and in a lot of ways our backs still aren’t straight, and we don’t stand as tall as we should. It’s time that each of us begin to re-write the narrative of what it means to be from this community. No more cynicism. No more apathy. This is our town and this is our time.

Andrew Macklin – Editor-in-Chief

Brantford was never a city I had much interest in. I didn’t like it while I was growing up. I didn’t like it during my university years either, spending as much time in London as possible while I was a student at Western.

My attitude towards this community changed for me in early 2003 when I first started at Rogers TV. I started to understand the qualities of Brantford and Brant County, and some of the incredible things that were being done by our people here, and in cities across Canada. I began to realize that there are people from this community who want to make things better, and who aren’t afraid to provide the blood, sweat, and tears to make that a reality.

People in Brant are passionate about what they do. They work hard and play hard in every facet of life. It often causes people to have head-on collisions with other people in their lives but, every so often, it results in something great for this community. It’s that head on approach that attracts me to this community now.

Now, 8 ½ years after my first encounter with the character of this community, I am still constantly overwhelmed by the incredible lengths people will go to in order to make Brantford, Brant County, and Six Nations such incredible places to live. I am proud to know that, as a part of this incredible team we call The Advocate, I will have a new opportunity to help tell these stories.

Marc Laferriere – Content & Social Media Strategist

I always come back home.

I was born here but in a sometimes tumultuous and sometimes exciting 30 years I’ve also lived in many other places.

I liked them all too. K-W is fun, Moncton is so friendly, Ottawa is filled with family, and when I left Thunder Bay, I left a bit of my heart there as well.

I sure liked all those place but I loved my home and I always wanted to come back.

I fell in love with Brantford as a kid in Eagle Place who spent far too much time at Second Wave listening to music and conversation. I fell in love with Brantford in high school meeting friends I’d keep for life. I meet new friends here every year and for that I am indebted and grateful. 

I fell in love with Brant County on childhood Sunday drives my grandparents insisted on. I fell deeper in love with the County spending time there as a political candidate, a social worker, and on some of the most incredible dates with my partner, Rebekah.

I was introduced to Six Nations by my grandmother who taught there. Her affection for that community became easily shared. As a child I became pen pals with kids on the reserve and since then I’ve literally seen gardens grow between our people. So much has changed, yet the narrative of our community can be slow to catch up. Far too often you hear there is nothing to do here. That changes now. In our community there is never nothing going on. At The Advocate we’re excited to prove it.