The Pender Post is taking a significant step forward this month, with the unveiling of our new website, a modernized update to our online presence for the benefit of our valued readers.
Unveiled in conjunction with our June 2025 issue, The Pender Post homepage now features access to a vastly improved and expanded archives section, and immediate access to the monthly calendar of the events that matter to the Pender Islands and their growing community.
It is a significant step forward in our mission to provide – as the founders of The Pender Post Society wrote more than 50 years ago – a reminder of events about to take place, and a “chronicle of things lately past”.
Back in 1971, a group of Pender Island residents got together to solve a problem that had been plaguing the increasingly active affairs of the community: improving communication between their clubs, guilds and social groups.
The first edition of The Pender Post introduced itself with an article titled A Bow to the Reader.
“Under this merely functional name,” it begins – as they did not seem entirely enchanted with the placeholder title selected.
“[T]his little sheet of news comes to your hand to serve the most utilitarian of purposes open to any publication – to tell you, in the first place what is ‘going on’.”
The date of this missive, Vol. 1, No. 1 of The Pender Post, was April 10, 1971. Fifty-four years and 662 issues later, our alliterative name has survived. And our mission remains the same.
It is the game – as they say – that has changed. The number of people who hold an interest in life on the Pender Islands has grown, their days are busier than ever, and the circles in which they travel are much grander.
While that inaugural issue was two pages of hand-typed notes, reprinted and delivered to 300-some residents of North and South Pender Islands, this latest offering is a more robust (and accessible) account of life on the islands, and is available to anyone, anywhere.
Sprinkled in with the beloved staples of our archives and calendar of events will be new benefits, including a complete digital copy of the celebrated magazine for online subscribers, a place to share special features, and a home for any online advancements that may come down the line.
Whether you are receiving this message from a copy of our physical magazine – available for home delivery or purchase at several news stands across the islands – or online, we are all sharing a historic moment.
Whether you are reading the pages of our magazine from a sunny nook on your patio, on your phone from the deck of a ferry, or otherwise online while visiting family in another province, The Pender Post is here for you.
Now, with a new powerful tool with which to accomplish our decades-old mandate of telling you, in the first place, what is “going on”.