Inside this issue and on our website right now you’ll find our annual Chippewa Valley Year in Review Quiz. It covers everything from civic news and development to arts, food, and sports. Here in print it’s fun, but at VolumeOne.org/yearinreview2015 you’ll find an interactive version that really puts your local (and random) knowledge to the test, offers up additional tidbits of info, and awards you sharable badges at various levels of success (or failure). So if you consider yourself a true local, I’d suggest you get online to check it out.

When our editors gathered ‘round to assemble the notable news of the last year for the quiz, it not only became clear just how great 2015 was for the Chippewa Valley community, but that we have another stellar year already teed up for 2016. If you pay any amount of attention to what’s been happening lately and what’s planned to happen soon, you’re aware the Chippewa Valley is becoming a more interesting place to live by the day. Sure, it was good before, but man, the pace at which new ideas are being put into action right now is likely unmatched since the Chippewa Valley’s logging days. New restaurants, stores, breweries, trails, hotels, events and more are popping up left and right. The community is investing in itself and momentum is taking hold.

While all this activity is exciting, it certainly begs a question of sustainability. How do we make sure as many of these initiatives as possible come out successful? It’s easy to sit back and toss full responsibility of success or failure upon those most intimately involved with these efforts, but when it comes to local businesses the fact is it’s everyone’s responsibility to help make a good idea work. It takes effort on the part of all of us who live here to offer our support. We all must spread the word, shop, dine, or simply be open to change.  So if you’re seeing things you like, get out there and support them now more than ever. But not only that, invite your out-of-town friends and family to come here to see and experience everything that’s happening. They’ll spend a few bucks while they’re in town and who knows, maybe they’ll even decide to move here and make a difference themselves.

Collectively, with our support or lack there of, we can choose whether these new ideas flourish or languish. And it’s whether 2015’s batch of good ideas sustain themselves that will determine the amount of good ideas we see going into the coming years. And in that way, we all have power to decide the headlines of 2016.