This week I’m pleased to announce a well-deserved promotion, the arrival of a talented new reporter and an exciting expansion of our company. All are related!

First, the expansion: Dartmouth Week and DartmouthVillageSoup.com – a new sister operation to Wareham Week and WarehamVillageSoup.com – will debut on May 8.

Based on the model established in Wareham 5½ years ago and expanded to Marion, Mattapoisett and Rochester with Sippican Week and SippicanVillageSoup.com almost four years ago, DartmouthVillageSoup will feature daily local news and community conversation online. Dartmouth Week will be a free, weekly digest of that local news.

With an office on Route 6 in Dartmouth staffed by two full-time, professional journalists focused exclusively on the news and people of the Town of Dartmouth, the new operation will strive to serve Dartmouth community as well as our current papers and websites serve the communities we currently cover.

In other words, we think we’re on to something here in Wareham and next door in the tri-town – something that can be happily “exported” to other communities of roughly similar size.

In a world in which many people talk about "the death of newspapers," our papers – bright, lively, professional, tightly focused on the local community, and free – are read by people of all ages and supported by local businesses.Want your breaking news on line? That’s where we have it, along with opportunities for the community to discuss and contribute.

All of which leads me to the staff changes in Wareham . . .

Wareham Week editor Nick Walecka has moved to Dartmouth to begin his work as editor of Dartmouth Week and DartmouthVillageSoup. A graduate of UMass Dartmouth whose pre-Wareham journalism experience frequently took him to Dartmouth, Nick is a natural member of the Dartmouth “launch team.”

Taking the helm at Wareham Week is Bill Whelan – already well-known about town as Wareham Week’s reporter since December of 2013.

A Long Island native and graduate of Boston University, Bill came to Wareham after working as a reporter for a Long Island newspaper, and has been learning everything Wareham ever since.

He’s taken a particular interest in covering town government. In fact, he took the editor’s job on the condition that he could continue to cover the Board of Selectmen himself!

In his words: “I’m excited to get the opportunity to grow professionally while staying in Wareham. I look forward to continuing to work with the same people who have helped me so much in my first year and a half on the job.”

Stepping into Bill’s big reporting shoes is a woman who shows promise of filling them – with photos.

Carolyn Bick was born in Texas and, as what she describes as a "military brat," grew up in a variety of locations in the Midwest and on the East Coast.

A graduate of Oberlin College, she holds master’s degrees in photojournalism and news broadcasting from Boston University.

Most recently, Carolyn had been doing a lot of freelance photojournalism work for Boston.com, the Christian Science Monitor and other media outlets.

She has moved to Wareham and arrived ready to hit the ground running. As I write this, she is out at Swifts Beach with notebook and camera chronicling the Buzzards Bay Coalition’s “Itty Bitty Bay Explorers” adventure.

Please welcome Carolyn, join me in congratulating Bill, and keep the news tips, photos and feedback of all sorts coming our way!