March 11, 2024: welcome back!

Greetings Poolies,

It's been a while, hasn't it? After relaunching the Lakeview Aquatic Consultants newsletter on MailerLite back in September 2022, I just didn't keep up with it.

I don't know about you, but commercial email correspondence is the bane of my existence. I am constantly telling my husband to unsubscribe from every marketing email that seems to end up in his inbox, and I keep my own inboxes on a very trim newsletter diet. How could I ask you to be any different and keep sending out a newsletter I didn't really believe in? (BTW, this recent article spells out my feelings exactly.)

SubStack and many other "personal email" subscription services really hit their stride in 2023. I have a problem with supporting anyone willing to platform Nazis, so here you find me on Ghost. I have no plans to create a subscription model and charge for content, but I needed a service that functioned more like a microsite where the content isn't completely lost to the sands of time.

I've always known that I don't "own my audience" on Facebook or Instagram; however, Bill C-18 in Canada has really pushed me to make changes to Lakeview Aquatic Consultants Ltd. and how we do business.

If you're not in Canada you won't know this, but effective June 2023, Bill C-18 makes it literally impossible to reshare any news article on Meta-owned platforms such as Facebook or Instagram. We are not just talking about hard political news, but any webpage linked to a known news agency is blocked. It's impossible to overstate how much this has impacted the daily lives of Canadians and changed how they (we) consume and reshare media.

However, 9 months in, it looks like this total ban is here to stay. That's a real problem when a part of your bailiwick is staying on top of industry trends and sharing new articles and notes. So that's bought me back to YouTube where I've been recording news commentary on the Aquatic Industry Insider.

I recognize that not everyone is into YouTube. If you ask my husband, he'd just like something he can send to the printer (why?!) Not wanting to simply link to new YouTube content as a lazy redistribution method, I've decided to create weekly news & notes posts (newsletter) that can all be found in one place.

Thanks for being here after our not-so-brief hiatus!

Katie Crysdale
Lakeview Aquatic Consultants