Volunteer of the Year Nominations - due April 5th

Do you work for an Alberta magazine that is an AMPA member? Do you know someone who generously donates his/her time to help your magazine? Then fill out a nomination form for Volunteer of the year by April 5th, 2010.

The Volunteer of the Year award honours one person per year who has made an outstanding volunteer contribution to the Albertan magazine industry.

You may nominate as many candidates for the Volunteer of the Year award as you like. The recipient of the award is chosen by a committee of long-standing magazine professionals.

This award recognizes and honours volunteers in Alberta’s magazine industry who have:

• achieved and maintained an exemplary level of volunteerism in the industry;
• contributed critically to the success of an Alberta magazine(s);
• increased the perceived value of volunteerism within the magazine industry, particularly with employers;
• through their actions, encouraged and motivated others to volunteer for magazines;
• fostered greater awareness of the importance and relevance of Canadian and Albertan magazines across the country.

Recipients will be honoured at the National Volunteer Appreciation Reception held annually at MagNet, Magazines Canada’s June conference in Toronto. Magazines Canada will reimburse economy transportation, one hotel night at the conference venue, and four MagNet sessions for the award recipient; AMPA will reimburse one additional hotel night.

The deadline for nominations is Monday April 5, 2010.

Fax your nomination to or email to ampa@albertamagazines.com.

Contact the AMPA office at ampa@albertamagazines.com or with any questions.

farewell...

As my last moments at AMPA come to and end, I just wanted to say how great it's been working with such hard working and dedicated people! Go AMPA go! I've met some energetic, inspiring individuals and teams working in the magazine publishing biz...I will take that with me as I pursue my own artistic practice! Thanks for a great year and I'm sure I'll see you around town! :) stef

Paul Marck named Editor at Alberta Venture

Edmonton, Alberta (Mar. 16th 2010) – After a national search, veteran business journalist Paul Marck has joined the Venture Publishing team as editor of Alberta Venture magazine, effective with the April 2010 issue. Marck, who took the post February 24, replaces outgoing editor Michael McCullough, who is returning to his home-town of Vancouver.

Marck is well-known in the Alberta business community, having spent two decades at the Edmonton Journal, half of that time as a business writer. His writing has also appeared in the Calgary Herald and Financial Post, the Vancouver dailies and for his hometown paper, the Kitchener-Waterloo Record.

"To me, Alberta is an exciting, vibrant province with many stories of success, struggle and triumph yet to be told," says Marck. "Canada's energy independence, a great and growing portion of the country's agriculture and agri-food supply, and opportunities in forestry, manufacturing and higher education depend on Alberta."

Ruth Kelly, publisher and editor-in-chief adds, "We are delighted to have an editor with such depth of knowledge of our Alberta business community join us, particularly as those businesses turn to our publications for advice and direction to help steer them through the economic turnaround."


Published monthly, Alberta Venture is Alberta's most widely read business magazine and discusses the latest trends, issues and intricacies of Alberta's thriving business community. Alberta Venture is known for signature editorial packages such as the Venture 100 + Next 100 (Alberta's top companies by revenue), the Fast Growth 50 (Alberta's fastest growing companies) and Alberta's Best Workplaces.





For further information or interviews, please contact:

Paul Marck
Editor, Alberta Venture
Venture Publishing Inc.
pmarck@albertaventure.com

Related Links:

- There's a New Guy in Alberta Venture's Chair
- Alberta Venture magazine

Alberta Magazines Conference re-cap on Masthead

The Alberta Magazines Conference welcomed over 200 industry professionals last week at the largest conference of its kind in western Canada....read more at Masthead:

http://www.mastheadonline.com/news/2010/20100316909.shtml

Patrick Walsh's Tips for Rich Editorial in Cash-Poor Times

Last Friday, at the Alberta Magazine Conference, editor Patrick Walsh shared his experience and insights in a workshop that explored cost-effective ways to generate editorial content under financial constraints.
“It’s always a creative challenge,” he said. Walsh is currently the editor of Outdoor Canada and president of the National Magazine Awards Foundation. He used to edit Masthead, the magazine industry trade journal. Here are some of his key points:

• Have the right mindset. Essentially think like a publisher, a reader, an art director and editor so you’re always keeping in mind financial constraints, editorial excellence and the reader’s desire for strong voice.
• Be a good manager by getting staff contributors onside with your cost-saving means. Try to plan ahead in advance and get buy-in from your staff to pick up extra work as well as stepping up to do editorial yourself.
• Brainstorm until it pours. Exhaust all available resources and get your staff involved.
• Do-it-yourself. Walsh says he does one major feature a year for his own magazine. However, he warns to be careful to not overdo it so the magazine can keep a diversity of voices.
• Use pick-up photos or found art. He suggests taking photos and banking them for use later. If you’re out covering stories that have similar concepts to what you do each year, take your own photos instead of paying for them. Utilize in-house talent for graphics like maps and charts and try to discover these skills among your staff during brainstorming.
• Buy in bulk. Bundle studio shoots or pay retainers and set a fee for a certain number of issues. Freelancers are happy because they are guaranteed income and this tends to be cheaper for the magazine than prorating the assignments. This is particularly useful for regular departments, columns and web stories.
• Create vanity projects. Essentially, let others do the work for you. Collect and package content that you cull from “experts and consultants.” People want to see their name in print so you can easily get them to comment on your topic (via email forms or interviews) and then you edit and shape the content.
• Plagiarize yourself. Recycle and resue previously published creative. This is more so in terms of images you’ve shot and paid for. Try to keep a database of images that can or likely will be used again in another context.
• Go online. Work the web for more time-sensitive stories or consider your blogs as overflow for where you don’t have room or space in the magazine to do such articles.
• Stretch it out. Work closely with your art director to play around with enlarging the photos, typography and illustration if you’re in a crunch to fill space in a quick turnaround. Walsh also discussed how one of the fixes at Outdoor Canada to fill two extra pages was to turn a double-page spread opener for a feature into a TOC of sorts. PDFs of the following pages were shrunk to become images for each story in the feature package and page numbers were treated graphically.

No matter how each magazine chooses to adopt and use these tactics and solutions, Walsh reminds us to “always surprise readers with something every issue.”

Tom Gierasimczuk of up! magazine named Alberta's Editor of the Year

And the award goes to...!
Congratulations go out to Tom Gierasimczuk who was anointed Editor of the Year at the 2010 Alberta Magazines Conference on March 11, 2010.

Gierasimczuk is the founding Editor of up! magazine, WestJet's in-flight publication, now in its’ 5^th year of production. The magazine is coming off a big year, having earned National and Western Magazine Awards in addition to this honour.

“Being named Alberta Editor of the Year is just further validation that the stories we tell WestJet guests resonate with them, crafted as they are by some of the country's most talented storytellers," says Gierasimczuk.

In addition to launching several community newspapers, Tom also co-founded CityBites, Toronto’s food magazine. As well, Tom helped launch 360, a national corporate action sports and lifestyle magazine, where he was Editor for two years.

About the Editor of the Year Award
The Editor of the Year Award honours someone who has achieved standards of excellence in the creation of an Alberta magazine or magazines. Judges recognized individuals who demonstrates strong qualities of resourcefulness, collaboration and vision.

The panel of judges for the 2010 Editor of the Year award are: Jim Sutherland, former editor of Western Living, Dan Rubinstein, managing editor of Canadian Geographic and 2009 Editor of the Year recipient, and Lisa Manfield, contributing editor of Backbone magazine.

Congratulations to Tom and all of the Editor of the Year nominees!

We look forward to another year of outstanding editorial from Alberta magazine editors.

Editor of the Year...and the 2010 Alberta Magazines Conference is here!

We have been busy busy preparing for the 2010 Alberta Magazines Conference since September...so it's hard to believe that it's finally here!

Tonight, at the Alberta Magazines Celebration, we announce the winner of the Editor of the Year Award. Who will it be? Follow the Alberta Mags Twitter feed to find out. Dun dun dun!...

We will also be tweeting throughout the conference Thurs & Friday. So find out which magazines win the Alberta Magazines Showcase, what keynote Ina Saltz reveals about her background (Inside the Actors' Studio-style), and stay tuned for blogs about individual sessions.

We'd love to hear your feedback...so tweet with us, leave comments, write an email, whatevs (we like it all!).

Cheers,
-Anh

Fundraiser for RedPoint Media employee

March 12, 2010 following the 2010 Alberta Magazines Conference

Molly Malone's Irish Pub

As you may know, Avenue executive editor and Wednesday night lawnbowler on the Cobras team, recently had a devastating house fire. The result is that everything she owns has been destroyed - all her clothes, books, furniture, personal belongings etc. etc. She is homeless while her house gets gutted and repaired. To help Jenn get back on her feet, RedPoint Media will be hosting a Pub Night at Molly Malone's Irish Pub on Friday March 12 following AMPA's Alberta Magazines Conference.

Tickets are $20 and can be purchased from Stacy Haakonson by emailing
shaakonson@redpointmedia.ca

Your support is greatly appreciated. Hope to see you there.