Prince Albert has always had a bit of a reputation problem, and now one resident want to flip the script on that narrative to create something positive.
Mark Poppen started a public Facebook group a week ago called Positive PA. Poppen, who runs Funky Moose Digital along with several other ventures and co-hosts the podcast The Sit Down Podcast, came up with the idea after talking to podcast guests who were always really positive about Prince Albert.
“We hang out with musicians on a weekly basis and we have had several artists from PA, and we always come to the conclusion that, yeah, everybody’s always trash-talking PA but it’s actually a nice, nice city,” Poppen said.
“I’ve always thought of it that way. Of course, PA does have its problems, but I find that every city has its problems.”
Last week, he noticed a positive post from another Prince Albert resident about “pay it forward” to give a meal for an elderly couple. Poppen said many people in the comment section wanted to see more items like this about Prince Albert.
“Then a few people were like, ‘well, we should start a page or something.’ I got the feeling that the idea was there, but nobody really knew how to actually do that,” Poppen said.
Poppen’s background is in digital marketing so around 10 minutes later he created the Positive PA Facebook group, but wasn’t expecting a large response. The group quickly grew, and as of Aug. 13 has more than 1,800 members.
He said the immediate growth showed there is demand for a page with a more positive focus.
“I was like, well, maybe if we get 100 people, that would be great, you know,” Poppen said.
“We’re not quite at 2,000, but it’s very close.
“We all know on social media it’s easy to take jabs at each other and PA as a city. There’s also … WTF Prince Albert. I mean, that’s just all trash talk,”
He said he was not sure if he would describe Positive PA as the antidote to WTF Prince Albert.
“I don’t know if that’s the word I would use but I hope so,” Poppen said.
The general reaction to the page has shown Poppen that it was a great idea.
“I’ve seen a lot of people who are happy to see positivity on social media,” he explained. “It’s easy to trash talk on social media because it’s kind of anonymous, so I figured, let’s see what happens. The worst thing that could happen is nobody shows up and I shut down the group, it takes 10 minutes.”
Posts on the page included general positive messages and experiences in Prince Albert, posts of Prince Albert history and people on why they love living in Prince Albert.
“When I started it, I didn’t really have a vision or anything. It was more like positive messages, great. Then all these messages show up and like, oh, yeah, I guess that’s positive too.”
Earlier this week Poppen wrote a welcome message that explained some of the origins of Positive PA and introduced his administrators of the page.
“There’s only real one real hard rule and that’s keep it positive,” he explained.
“There are a couple here and there that kind of package a complaint into something positive where people are like? ‘Oh, it would be nice if we had such and such in the city’ and it’s like, well, why don’t we focus on what we already have in the city instead?”
The page has been around for almost one week. Poppen said his vision is for the concept to spread to other communities.
He saw a post about the page by Prince Albert musician L.J. Tyson, and commenters were saying there needs to be a similar page for La Ronge.
The concept is already taking off further south. A Regina resident out to Poppen after a friend of hers saw the page. She started Positive YQR to promote Regina shortly after.
If the Positive PA is an antidote to pages like WTF Prince Albert, Poppen wants to see more and more of these positive pages growing in Saskatchewan.
“Just like the WTF pages. I hope this is going to catch on with people starting to create their own positive Facebook groups.”
Poppens’s final message was the message of the Facebook group.
“Keep it positive,” he said.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
