As the 100th issue of Pulse Beat is published, we look back at how the magazine came to be
BY: Ashley Robinson, editor
The Pulse Beat, yes THE Pulse Beat, launched not long after the Manitoba Pulse Growers Association (MPGA) was formed in 1984. Shortly after the association came into existence, the board realized they needed a way to keep their members up-to-date on what was happening – so a newsletter was born.
Directors would write articles. These articles included updates on meetings that directors had attended and other day-to-day happenings within the organization. It was laid out as a paper newsletter and mailed out to members.
“I was somewhat connected with the office because there was essentially me and the manager/executive director when I started, and that was it. We did all the brainstorming. The text was provided to me. Then I was responsible for editing, proofing, and overseeing production through to mailing,” Shannon Beddome-Lorenz, former publisher of Pulse Beat, says about the early days of the publication.
As the years passed, the newsletter morphed into a magazine focusing more on issues facing growers day-to-day on their farms, and in the mid-2000’s, ‘The’ was dropped with Pulse Beat taking on its current moniker.
“There was a lot of attention spent on (Pulse Beat). Looking at it and thinking to make sure that it was up to date, and more modern and not just the old paper or the old magazine type thing,” says former Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers (MPSG) executive director Francois Labelle. “They wanted to remain relevant and attentive to people, and that type of thing.”
Labelle himself was a founding director of MPGA, which later became MPSG. As a farmer in the Carman, Man. area he has been around for the majority of the association’s 40 years – first as an executive member on the board and then as executive director for six years up until his retirement in 2020. He has had a front row seat to how Pulse Beat changed over the years.
“I really like the evolution that it went through – that it became much more in-depth information that was current to the growers. You know production as well as some marketing and some issue-based things, like markets in different parts of the world, etc.,” he says.
Modifications to Pulse Beat were made based on feedback from members and as changes happened within the association. As the magazine switched to focus on issues-based content, MPSG staff took a more proactive role in content creation, taking over writing stories from directors.
“Some of those discussions weren’t simple, because a lot of it was put together in the latter years by staff. As we had increased staff, there was more effort from a lot of different people, and therefore a lot of different ideas or inputs,” Labelle adds.
The MPSG staff was very supportive of the magazine and did a lot of work to get it done. According to Labelle, they saw it as important to share information about the work they and the organization were doing.
“It was such a collaboration of ideas. It was just a fun project to be part of. The staff was great. Everybody respected meeting our deadlines to produce the magazine, which made my job so much easier,” Beddome-Lorenz explains.
As the publication releases its 100th edition, the staff continues to support the magazine, writing numerous articles for each issue. Since Labelle retired in 2020, he still supports and reads the magazine regularly.
“I’m not surprised – I think one of the reasons why it survived so long is the value of it. Value to get the message to the growers. As well there was value in the advertisers being involved in it. If they wouldn’t have seen the value in it, they wouldn’t have advertised, and they wouldn’t have gotten to where it is today,” he says.
There have been some hiccups over the years. To keep a magazine running as long as Pulse Beat has been requires monetary support from advertisers. While industry support from advertisers has been good over the years, there were occasions when advertisers weren’t impressed with stories or information printed.
“We’re not making things up,” Labelle explains. “We’re putting out facts. And if somebody had a product that wasn’t working for the growers and we let them know, that was a fact of life, and we dealt with it.”
The number of issues per year has also fluctuated over the years. At one point, the summer issue was dropped as MPSG members said they never had time to read it. The number of issues per year has varied based on feedback from farmers, going from four to three to the current two issues per year.
At the end of the day, MPSG member support is what keeps Pulse Beat going. Through comments from members about reading it and sharing what they want to read, the magazine continues to be printed.
“The interesting thing about The Pulse Beat is we always, when you ran across growers, they always talked about The Pulse Beat,” Labelle says. “The grower says, ‘Oh, I get the magazine, and I really like that. Keep it going. We read it cover to cover.’ A lot of these farms have the family involved, and then (issues) would get passed down through the family, so that everybody would get a chance to look at it and read it.”