The Gazette is going to be included in a book with the title - Passion over Pay, which certainly describes our situation.

By Pepper Parr

March 16th, 2017

BURLINGTON, ON

They want to write a book about us; well not just us – they want to include us in a book to be titled Passion over Pay – which certainly applies to the Burlington Gazette and its publisher.

The people taking on this task did their initial funding through Indigogo – they did better than the Gazette did when they went looking for financial support.

The purpose of the book – which will be in a coffee table format and sold on line – is to tell the story of those people who put their passion over pay for projects that exist for the benefit of others.

They will do interviews and we will make certain that we tell the world that Burlington is the best mid-size city in Canada and that the city sold a chunk of the land along the edge of the lake for a pittance – ending forever the chance to create a Waterfront Trail that would be really complete.

There will be something about the trials and tribulations about publishing in this city and taking on the challenge of drawing an audience away from print to the web site where we are able to publish instantly and do not have much in the way of space limitations.

We will look for a way to tell the really marvellous story about the citizens group that are behind the Terry Fox monument in Spencer Smith Park and tell the story about the park itself as well.

Someone recommend the Gazette as a Passion over Pay possibility and we said sure, why not.

The they, is a couple of buddies from back in college.  Ben Firn and Mark Bennett are the driving force behind this initiative;

Ben Firn and Mark Bennett; one is a New Zealander and the other collects trivia. Which does which?

Since College both found homes in the start-up world. They kept in touch and partly because of their shared affinity for part-time projects and side hustles they came up with this idea.

The original press run isn’t going to get them on the New York Times list of Best Sellers unless the Gazette buys a couple of cartons and hands them out to all those bureaucrats we write about – city council for sure – right?

We will keep you posted.