Mamamia welcomes 2 new team members.

It’s a big week at Mamamia HQ. We have a new News Editor.  We’ve never had one before but as news become an increasingly important part of MM’s daily offering, it became apparent that we needed to find a kick-arse news head. Sort of thing.

Rick Morton will be familiar to many regular readers – indeed you maybe be one of the thousands of people who have commented or shared his hugely popular and viral posts which have included 17 arguments about gay marriage and why they’re bollocks and 10 things you need to understand about asylum seekers.

Rick started his career as a cadet journalist at the Gold Coast Bulletin in the police scanner room where he learned quickly the pressures of time, deadlines and collating facts fast.

His time at the Bulletin saw him covering crime, politics, general news and feature writing. He was the first journalist with the news of the Lacey Brother murders on the Gold Coast and was shortlisted for the News Awards Young Journalist of the Year.

Rick also spent some time in his hometown, working for a small country newspaper during the Queensland state election where the seat of Beaudesert was being contested by both Pauline Hanson and Warwick Capper. Interesting times. He then worked in Queensland politics as a media advisor before being lured back to journalism (and preparing to move to Sydney) to become Mamamia’s News Editor.

Also joining us officially this month is my new PA and our office co-ordinator Natalia who started as an intern a few months ago and dazzled us so instantaneously with her organisational abilities that we offered her a full-time job.

Besides working at the office, Nat is currently studying a combined degree in law and journalism. One day she would love to be some kind of journalist/lawyer/author. Preferably all of the above. She has previously worked in retail and as a nanny and loves travelling, sailing and sleeping (when she has the time).

Needless to say, we are all doing high fives around the office. Exciting times.

But WHY do you need a news editor and a site manager for a personal blog, huh? HUH? Who do you think you are, you, you, you BLOGGER!

I’m so glad you asked.

As I flagged here, a couple of months ago, the transition from personal blog to website is almost complete and it’s going to be all hands on deck keyboard.

Oh yes. The new site –  Mamamia 3.0 –  is being delivered to us this week and we’ll begin offline testing for a week or two until we’re ready to go live. At which point we will all be mainlining chamomile tea or possibly Stillnox. Wait. Bad idea.

We’ve slowly been increasing our number of daily posts (did you notice?) and we’re now sometimes publishing as many as 5-6 stories per day. This may well increase further when the new site goes live.

So Rick and Nat. We’re thrilled they’re here. Rick will inject some exciting things into Mamamia including testosterone which is currently being provided around the office by Jason (Mamamia’s CEO who handles the tech and business sides of things) and our two male office dogs, Henry and Harry. Up against four hormonal women?

Good luck to them.