Going analogue – papers

Back in January, we announced that we’d just sent the third issue of the At the Grassroots paper off to be printed and that distribution would soon be starting: Papers – a way to reach out to people 7.1.26. Not long after that post went online, the papers came back from our friends at Oxford GreenPrint and we started the distribution pretty much straight away. We’re pleased to tell you that it’s going well and we’ve already shifted over half the print run. It wasn’t the biggest number of papers we’ve ever had printed because we wanted to see how this one would go before committing to getting more papers printed for the next issue.

To date, the distribution has been a mix of taking them to venues sympathetic to what we’re doing and leaving small bundles for their patrons, plus attending events. The events we’ve been to so far were the Veganuary Fest at the Amphitheatre and Waterfront Square on Saturday January 31 and the Unity March and Rally at College Green today (14.2). We’ve got a few more venues we want to approach and then, we hope to shift what’s left at the Bristol Radical History Festival 2026 at M Shed on Saturday 25 April.

After that, we hope we’ll have no papers left and that we’ll be in the process of getting the fourth issue of the paper together. The aim is to have this ready and printed by the end of the spring and to start distributing it throughout the summer and into the autumn. As we’ve mentioned in previous posts on here, while we get a decent number of views for our posts here on Substack, it’s from an audience scattered across the globe. We really do want to start building a more local following in Bristol, Bath and the surrounding settlements.

One main reason for wanting to build a local following is that we want to promote The Directory which is a resource listing a range of grassroots, community focused projects across the region we cover. Once we get a few people on board to help maintain and build it, we’d love to get it printed. Obviously, that’s one heck of an ambitious project but, sometimes it’s worth aiming high. The paper plays an important role in promoting this resource.

As we’ve mentioned previously, we don’t want to be in a position where we’re relying heavily on Substack to get our message across. That platform is changing and it feels that smaller voices such as At the Grassroots are getting de-prioritised when it comes to the reach we have. Also, with the corporate stranglehold on the Internet continuing to tighten, the threat to any dissident voices continues to grow. This is why we need to retain analogue means of getting the word out such as papers.

Also, we can sense the start of people turning away from being constantly online, wanting instead to slow down and return to face to face communication and reading printed material. Print is far from dead. If the enthusiasm people showed at the Unity March and Rally today (14.2) for getting hold of a printed paper is anything to go by, print definitely has a future. As you can see from this archive – Papers – we’ve been fans of print for many years:)

The more help we can get with the distribution, the bigger the print run we’re prepared to commit to. Just getting a couple more people on board would make a difference. We’re serious about running with analogue methods of spreading the word such as papers, not least because it’s one way we can bypass the corporate stranglehold on how we communicate with each other. If you’re in Bristol, Bath or any of the surrounding settlements and can help out with the distribution of the next issue of the At the Grassroots paper, we’d love to hear from you:)