The week a Sprawlcast comes out is always chaotic for me.

It doesn't help that I often do one more interview than I should. This gets me into trouble. Last week, after the September episode (The Tycoons Reshaping Calgary-Area Transit) was all recorded and edited on Wednesday, I did "just one more" interview—famous last words!—and then set about tweaking my script on Thursday.

Soon I was reworking the whole thing. This was not good. I got lost in the weeds to the point where, when wife read my "improved" script that evening, she handed it back without finishing and said: "You've lost your throughline."

Not what you want to hear less than 36 hours before publishing!

I labelled that version WEEDS VERSION and tossed it, reverting to the original. But the original still had some factual errors that needed correcting, and there were some nuances from my WEEDS VERSION that I thought needed adding—for example, the fact that Councillor Gian-Carlo Carra agrees with Premier Danielle Smith on the province taking a strong role in intercity commuter rail.

That bit of information complicates the narrative, is interesting to me and would be surprising to many people. It's got to be in there!

So early Friday morning, I biked to CJSW to re-record sections of the podcast and fix mistakes. I left the station around 1:30 p.m. But simply having the audio wrapped up doesn't mean a Sprawlcast is complete.

There's still the transcript, which takes hours to lay out on the website, but is a crucial component of what we do, making each episode readable in addition to being listenable. And even when that's complete—often late into the night—there's still the newsletter to write.

In all of this there is the satisfaction of the whole package coming together, of a job well done. It's the latest in a run of solid episodes. I am proud of The Sprawl's recent body of work. It is focused and thorough, and pulls together a bunch of fragmented information in a way that is accessible and useful. People tell me that all the time.

But when, exhausted, I finally kick a new episode out the door, a window of opportunity opens. People are listening to it, reading it, talking about it! The Tycoons Reshaping Calgary-Area Transit was downloaded 6,000+ times in less than three days. Those are amazing numbers for a small, regional podcast.

Then I look at our crowdfunding numbers and realize that if The Sprawl is going to continue doing stories like these, we're going to need more than just downloads.

I put every bit of energy into getting that episode done. And now I gotta fundraise?!

You bet.

And here's where you come in. To keep digging into Calgary municipal issues and cover our costs, The Sprawl needs your support. We're aiming to get 100 new members in October.

I think this is totally doable. But I can't make this happen. Only you can, by pitching in to support our in-depth journalism!

I recently asked our members why they support The Sprawl. Here's some of what they said:

I don't intend to give up. But to keep digging into Calgary municipal issues, we need your support. So please sign up today so we can hit our October campaign target!

Thanks so much for your support. I really appreciate it.

Jeremy Klaszus is the founder and editor of The Sprawl.