2023 THE YEAR THAT WAS
By Thulane Madalane
As the Chief Executive Officer of Timeless News I want to take the deeper look at the year 2023. We started the year with a clearly defined plan of growing the brand Timeless News to other districts apart from Nkangala District in Mpumalanga,which has been our traditional base since 2018, even though Timeless News was incepted in 2013 and it was operating in Lebowakgomo in the area of Capricorn District in Limpopo,On the 5th December 2023 we officially turned 10 years in the business, One of our first assignments as the publication was to cover the death of Nelson Mandela, which we did successfully some of our collegues in the business travelled to Qumbu to witness the burial of the doyen of democratic South Africa. Lets go back to our plan for 2023, we managed to expand Timeless News to Sekhukhune District, Ehlanzeni District focusing in the area of Bushbuckridge and Mopani District equally important focusing in the area of Maruleng. It was not an easy task because it demanded lot of behind scene negotiations with our clients because our business survive on consistent readership and advertising. We are leaping into the new year with a huge task of servicing three more districts which are fairly new to us and will require us to work tirelessly in ensuring that we service those basis adequately. We also need to grow our online presence in the next 18 months to Fifty thousand users on all our platforms, the other important milestone that we reached as the publication was to establish an interim board, which is comprised of men and women who bring wealth of experience and expertise that will help in leading us into the right direction. Let me be the first to admit that we lost some of our key staff members due to financial difficulties that we endured however we soldiered on with the little staff members that we had. One of the lessons that we learned is that we needed to create processes and systems that will help us to grow, for instance we need to hire specialists in certain departments like digital marketing specialist, finance, sales and expand our newsroom with qualified and quality journalists in order for the business to reach it’s full potential. One of our achievements this includes running an advertorial for German based Non-profit organization called DOOIY which taught communities in the Western Cape how to make washing machine using buckets and plungers and fire extenquisher using dishwasher and plastic bottles.We also hosted a live radio and Television Dialogue on water scarcity in Sekhukhune District and the dialogue was a joint venture of media houses in Sekhukhune District which was complimented by Sekhukhune FM, Tubatse FM and Limpopo Publishing Media TV, the dialogue was successful because it had more than 10 panelists from different political parties and we had an amazing audience of more than 200 people from various municipalities in Sekhukhune, we hope to take this initiative to other districts where we conduct our business.Timeless News Foundation on the other hand collaborated with various stakeholders to introduce quarterly awards known Matsebong Secondary School Top Achiever Awards, our intention of introducing these awards is to improve the matric results at this school which has been doing badly over the past years.The Headmaster of the school Mr Solly Lentsoane has indicated that since the inception of these awards in the previous quarter the results of the school has improved drastically ,” our preliminary examinations results have emulated our mid-year results, grade 8 results were dropped by 1 percent, grade 9 got 23 percent increase, grade 10 got 14 percent increase, grade 11 got 7 percent increase and grade 12 got 16 percent increase. My promise to everyone here, is that our final matric results will not go below the Provincial Department of Education threshold of 75%” said Lentsoane. As the foundation we want to help the school to achieve 100 % pass rate in the next 18 months.These awards were made possible by the selfless involvement Mr Nkopodi Mashabela of QUEENS MASSIVE HIRE and Mr Herman Ntjana of Black Sky. Timeless News Foundation also collaborated with local pastors in visiting Jane Furse Police Station to share the word of God to awaiting trialists every Tuesday and cooking meals for nyaope addicts every Wednesday, we hope and believe that we will continue with these noble initiatives in 2024 on a bigger scale. We are not going into new year hoping to make it but we are going into new year with a clearly defined plan that is going to enhance and the brand Timeless News. Let me close the year by wishing our clients and readers a happy and prosperous new year and lastly let’s tap into the wise words of OG Mandino the author of THE GREATEST SALESMAN IN THE WORLD, “My actions are ruled by appetite, passion, prejudice, greed, love, fear, environment, habit, and the worst of these tyrants is habit. Therefore, I must be a slave to habit let me be a slave to good habits. My bad habits must be destroyed and new furrows prepared for good seed
Another of nature’s laws, only a habit can subdue another habit.Thus a new and good habit is born, for when an act becomes easy through constant repetition it becomes a pleasure to perform and if it is a pleasure to perform it is man’s nature to perform it often. When I perform it often it becomes a habit and I become its slave and since it is a good habit this is my will.
I will greet this day with love in my heart.I will laud mine enemies and they will become friends; I will encourage my friends and they will become brothers. Always will I dig for reasons to applaud; never will I scratch for excuses to gossip. When I am tempted to criticize I will bite on my tongue; when I am moved to praise I will shout from the roofs. ”
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