The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

•T he I FP • H al to n H ill s •T hu rs d ay , M ay 2 , 2 01 3 8 Georgetown Hearing Clinic is committed to your individual hearing needs. Find out how we can help. The GEORGETOWN HEARING CLINIC Call today to book your appointment. 905-873-6642 99 Sinclair Avenue, Suite 210 Serving the community of Halton Hills and surrounding areas since 1992 Cory Soal Hearing Instrument Practitioner Made Musician, and Fittings www.siemens.com/aquaris Enjoy the sound of life. With the wonder that lets sound in and keeps the elements out. Setting new standards with its unique design, Aquaris™ is the most robust*, truly waterproof hearing instrument available. Impervious to dust, perspiration and humidity, it sits snugly on your ear, delivering outstanding natural sound while keeping the rigors of daily life out. *IP68 Co py rig ht © 2 01 3 Si em en s H ea rin g In st ru m en ts In c. A ll rig ht s re se rv ed . 9 Okay, you're looking at the new design of The Independent & Free Press. And the most exciting part for me, is this page. You see, it's 'my' page, a page I'll be oc- cupying on a full-time basis. When you pick up The Independent & Free Press, and you want to read me, well, more specifi - cally my column, I'll will be right here, occupying this space on Page 8-- not moved around, just here. Monday morning, in celebration of our new look, we had a bit of a party in the offi ce. Now I'm not a real party animal at 9 a.m., but being a journalist, one thing is a constant-- if there's free coffee and/or food/cake or muffi ns-- well, I'm in like a dirty shirt. I wouldn't say I can be 'bought', but I can most cer- tainly be convinced to stick around for a bit. Our general manager Steve Foreman was joined by retail sales manager Cindi Camp- bell, oh, right, and managing editor John McGhie (he's my boss, so I had to mention his name or he'd start to pout again) as the three of them took turns showing us the 'new' look in the Power Point presentation. (Ed's note: It's a scowl not a pout!) Now before I go any further, the re- design of the news- paper is more than this page becoming 'Ted's Page,' (but we all know that's the most important as- pect-- at least it is in my world.) Oh, and did I mention our new Pub- lisher/VP Dana Robbins was here, too? Yup, the big guy dropped by to oversee Steve's presentation, and give us a pat on the back to say 'good work kids'. Personally I fi gured he came along just to see me receive my page, you know, the 'passing of the page ceremony.' Sadly, it didn't happen. I think the gang just got too excited about the cake-cutting with the free coffee, and forgot that part. But I wasn't hurt or upset. Much.. Dana did say, "Well Ted, it seems you now have some 'real estate'." I was gonna explain to him that I al- ready had some real estate, you know, Brown Farm and all, but then I realized maybe he was referring to this page. Dana brought along Meriel Bradley, the Director of Digital Operations for Metroland South, which is the division we here at The Independent & Free Press are a part of. Meriel will oversee Metroland South's digital services, you know, online ads, editorial, and photos, oh yeah, and me. These days, digital seems to be the main focus of the newspaper business. We've found our website, like many others across the GTA, is one of the fi rst places our readers go when they want to fi nd out what's happening-- like now! For the past year or so, when I've arrived at an ac- cident or fi re scene, the fi rst thing I've done is take an over- view shot of the scene with my smart phone. I email it to the editor's desk, and he has it online in seconds, under 'Breaking News.' When I get back with the 'good images' it's been online for several minutes, hours even. And editorial is just one as- pect of our digital prowess. Online ads are becoming more the norm, reaching out to our readers at any time of the day. Now being a little long in the tooth, many people my age tend to reject change. And I've had my times doing just that. We've all heard the old, 'Well, we've done it that way for the past 30 years, and it's still working okay.' But sometimes we have to step back and take a look at the big picture. And I'm doing just that. The Independent & Free Press news- paper is not going away, rather keeping pace with the times. We are working at getting the news-- and of course the advertising-- out to all our readers, in many ways, shapes and forms. And if doing that means we have to un- dergo a few changes, then so be it. Of course, they'd better not touch 'my page.' A Ted Bit Welcome to the new and exciting 'Ted's Page' TED BROWN --Ted Brown can be reached at tbrown@theifp.ca "Well, Ted, it seems you now have some 'real estate'." --Publisher Dana Robbins