Lucinda Staniland, new editor at The Yoga Lunchbox.
by Kara-Leah Grant
Almost six years ago I put an ad in Student Job Search for a Personal Assistant who could help me run The Yoga Lunchbox.
The winning applicant was Lucinda Staniland, a young university student who loved yoga. She had a beautiful, open-hearted way about her and was eager to learn. I hired her on the spot, and began the process of teaching her all about WordPress, Mailchimp, Social Media, and mentoring her in the process of writing articles.
Over the last six years, Lucinda has supported me in publishing The Yoga Lunchbox. She’s uploaded and formatted articles, written articles, handled advertising inquiries, run social media and put together Yoga Teacher Training Guides.
Along the way, she’s learned about WordPress, Mailchimp, Google Analytics, TubePress, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Google Docs. Nobody knows The Yoga Lunchbox like Lucinda does, except me!
In the last six months, Lucinda has been taking on greater and greater responsibility. First she took over Social Media Strategy, and made huge improvements on our Facebook interactions and engagement.
More recently, she’s taken over all advertising and has been doing an excellent job of making sure we look after all our sponsors and advertisers, plus identifying new opportunities to support the New Zealand and Australian yoga community through our Best of Guides.
Now, I’m proud to announce that as of March 1st, I’m promoting Lucinda to Editor of The Yoga Lunchbox.
This means she’ll be in charge of the day-to-day running of the website including the budget, editorial direction, liaising with guest authors, and ensuring we publish 1 or 2 excellent weekly articles. I’ll be taking a step back into the Publisher role.
The reason for this is two-fold.
One, I’ve been pouring my heart in The Yoga Lunchbox for eight years now, and while I still adore yoga, I’m ready for a new venture – Heart of Tribe, my retreats business.
And two, I want to be in a position to sell The Yoga Lunchbox if the right person comes along.
The profitability of the website has increased in the last year which makes it a more appealing sales prospect. But, when we explored selling the website a year or so ago, the big hurdle most buyers faced was how to run the website without me at the helm.
Now, the website will already be running smoothly without me at the helm. A prospective buyer would be able to take over the website, and know that everything would continue to flow smoothly even with a change of ownership.
In practical terms, Lucinda’s promotion means very little will change for you, the loyal readers. We’ll still be publishing the same personable, grounded, raw and real content. We’ll still be showcasing what’s going on in the New Zealand and (increasingly) Australian Yoga Scene.
In fact, I suspect the website is going to get much better under Lucinda’s editorial direction as she constantly looks for opportunities to serve the NZ and Australian Yoga Community in better ways.
Plus I’ll still contribute the odd article here and there, and I will continue doing Skype Video Interviews with some of the world’s leading yogis. (Watch out for an interview with the beautiful Elena Brower coming in March.)
It almost feels like my teenager is finally ready to leave home… and I’m freed up to bring another child into the world – Heart of Tribe plus the new book I’m writing right now in Glenorchy, Love’s Shadows.
So it’s with much fondness and excitement that I get ready to hand the reins over to Lucinda.
May you receive and welcome her as much as you have me over the years.
I’ll hand over to Lucinda now to say a few words on her perspective on the yoga world, and where she sees The Yoga Lunchbox heading next.
Kia ora to The Yoga Lunchbox community,
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that yoga has changed my life. Since I started practicing yoga seven years ago my understanding of the world and my place in it has changed dramatically, and so have I, in large part because of my consistent home yoga practice.
I practice yoga every day, usually first thing in the morning. It’s not particularly glamorous or ‘advanced’, more often than not I’m still in my pyjamas, and I integrate a mixture of pranayama, asana, meditation and chanting into my practice.
I love the deeply honest and authentic voice that The Yoga Lunchbox contributes to the online yoga community. Personally, I feel like I need to hear this voice as often as possible, to keep me sane in a commercial and superficial world, a world into which even yoga can be co-opted.
The questions that The Yoga Lunchbox is so good at asking are the questions that are also in my heart: How can I make my way in a violent and busy world? How do I go about crafting a life that is authentically mine? How do I honour my humanity and our shared humanity? What does it mean to live a fully embodied life?
I’m looking forward to serving the NZ and Australian yoga community by continuing to publish relevant, powerful and challenging articles, and by making connections between students, teachers and studios. I believe that we all need waking up, preferably on a daily basis! And we all need constant reminders to keep asking the questions in our hearts.
The great value of The Yoga Lunchbox lies in it’s fierce devotion to telling the truth, whatever that truth may be. I’m honoured to be carrying that legacy on.
Nga mihi nui & namaste to you all,
Lucinda
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