CLÉLIE RICH NAMED 2010 MABC VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR
The Magazine Association of BC (MABC) honours Clélie Rich, senior member of the volunteer collective that runs ROOM magazine, as the MABC 2010 Volunteer of the Year. The award recognizes volunteer achievement by those who provide inspiration for bright up-and-comers and better the magazine industry through their involvement.
 
Rich’s contributions to ROOM—Canada's oldest journal of writing and art by, for, and about women—have been critical to its ongoing success. She spent several years with the magazine in the 1990s and returned in 2004 when the collective needed her institutional memory and organizational skills. Fellow ROOM collective member Melissa Edwards says the recognition is well deserved: “Clélie dedicates hundreds of hours each year to the education of young editors and the stabilization of ROOM, including making herself available to all collective members on Skype every Saturday morning to answer questions. The women she mentors go on to edit issues of ROOM themselves, and then to contribute their growing skills at paying jobs at other publishers in BC and across Canada.”
 
A past volunteer chair of the Federation of BC Writers, Rich also volunteers much of her time as a working board member of the Western Magazine Awards. Corey Van’t Haaff, WMA executive director, says, “There are few volunteers I am aware of who can match Clélie Rich’s dedication to task, perseverance and skill. Throughout it all, she remains professional, affable, engaged, thorough and delightfully available.”
 
Rich is also a published poet and freelance editor. She will be honoured at Magazines Canada’s Cross-Canada Volunteer Appreciation Reception in Toronto on June 9, during MagNet.

• Karen Green is in Monday and Wednesday, 604-684-8294 x 24, karen@rebuscreative.com
• Sarah Banting is in Tuesday and Thursday, 604-684-8294 x 26, sarah@rebuscreative.com

MAGAZINES WEST, WESTERN MAGAZINE AWARDS &
MABC ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Friday, June 17
Renaissance Vancouver Hotel Harbourside

Save the date for MABC's next professional development event. Details coming soon.

• The average circulation per issue of Canadian consumer magazines increased between 2002 and 2008, by 21% (to $74 million from $61 million).
• The average issue circulation of U.S. magazines in Canada declined to $7.3 million in 2008 from $8.7 million seven years earlier.
• In those same seven years, the number of Canadian consumer magazine titles increased by from 961 to 1,282.

MAGAZINES CANADA: THE BUSINESS OF DIGITAL – VANCOUVER
Tuesday, April 19
Morris J Wosk Centre for Dialogue, Room 470
580 West Hastings St., Vancouver

• The Digital Consumer: Will Shape the Brave New World
  Bryan Segal, vice-president, comScore
• Tablets, Apps and the Digital Subscription 3.0 Economy
  Steve Maich, publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Canadian Business
• Digital Revenue: Innovate and Diversify
  Kim Machado, digital consultant & former director at Rogers Media
• The Future is Social: What's Your Strategy?
  Kim Pittaway, journalist, editor and consultant
• Social and Search: How Social Sharing Is Impacting Search
  Martin Wong, chief marketing officer, SmarttNet
• Digital Doers: Innovation in the Publishing Landscape
  Kim Machado, digital consultant & former director at Rogers Media
• App It Up!: Lessons Learned in Mobile Publishing
  Tina Barnes, general manager, mobile, Postmedia Network Inc.
  Stephen Henrik, mobile audience development & distribution, The Globe & Mail
  Mod: Steve Maich, publisher & editor-in-chief, Canadian Business

MAGNET: CANADA'S MAGAZINE CONFERENCE
June 7–10
Courtyard Marriott, Toronto, ON

MagNet is Canada's national public policy, professional development and networking conference for magazine professionals. This internationally acclaimed event attracts participants from around the world with its targeted and dynamic programming.

The industry's top leaders, innovators, thinkers and visionaries congregate once a year in downtown Toronto to attend MagNet, produced collaboratively by Canada's key industry associations. Register online at http://magnet.magazinescanada.ca. Two travel-only bursaries are available to MABC members (see above).
 

SFU SUMMER PUBLISHING WORKSHOPS
June–August
SFU Harbour Centre, Vancouver

Magazine-related courses include:

• Developmental Editing: Fiction and Non-Fiction, July 19–20 
• Refresh, Reuse, Rewrite: Editorial Makeovers to (Ever)Green Your Online Mag/Blog, July 25 
• Elements of Editing for Magazines, July 25-26 
• Magazine Packaging with a Punch, July 26
• Marketing Magazines Online: Communicate More Effectively with Your Audience, July 27 
• Magazine Publishing: A Crash Course in the Basics, the Necessities, and the New Realities, July 28–29 
• Marketing Through Social Media, June 24–26 
• Digital Publishing 101, July 28  
• Digital Rebuild: Overhaul Your Digital Strategy, August 2–3

Visit the Summer Publishing Workshops site and explore the new, the revised, and the ever-popular returning workshops in June, July and August. Bursaries are available to MABC members (see above).

Member news

FRONT Magazine to publish final print issue this summer

After 22 years and 109 issues, Front Magazine will publish its final print issue this summer.
 
Front, a journal of contemporary art and ideas, is published by the Western Front Society. An editorial in the penultimate issue cites financial reasons for the closure: "The end of Canada Council funding for free magazines, followed by cuts to BC arts funding and the loss of BC gaming grants, has put a lot of fiscal pressure on the Western Front and many of the arts and cultural organizations that have advertised with us over the years."

Editor Reanna Alder looked back on Front's legacy and ahead to its future in an interview with The Fresh Sheet.
 
Do you have a favourite feature or issue you’ve worked on at Front? What was memorable about it?

Reanna Alder: One of my personal favourites has been the Art Mixtape, an occasional column in which we asked local curators and artists to put together a track list of artworks on a particular theme. I think they were hard to write, as short sections usually are, but I loved reading what people came up with.

Our editorial focus the last few years has been in circumnavigating artist statements and getting to stories, but in many ways we've reinvented our strategy every time. For the Spring issue I interviewed each artist by phone or Skype and just asked, "What should we know about your piece?" Talking to artists is a great way to get to the story, and a fun way to put together a magazine.

What would you hope Front’s legacy is as a print magazine?

Alder: The Western Front has been publishing Front Magazine for over 20 years and it has been such a different beast with each team that has edited it. Still, in each incarnation we've been host to, curated, reflected upon, initiated, gotten out of the way of, or otherwise enabled a staggering number of projects by local and international artists, writers, musicians and cultural producers. In that way we're part of a lot of other people's legacies.

The beauty of small publishing is that you can try things out and be a little wild. Ultimately, I hope people are inspired by that.

Can you share any hints about what we can expect from the Western Front’s continued online presence, as mentioned in the spring issue?

Alder: First and foremost, the Western Front is embarking on a yearlong project to make the magazine archives available in an online format. Beyond that, you'll have to read the summer issue.

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The theme of the final issue, "Reckless," will be a "tribute to the spirit of Front Magazine, to the founding force of the Western Front artist-run centre, and to the prevailing attitude of Vancouver's arts and culture scene." It will be available on newsstands in June and on zinio.com.

MABC Internship Initiative at Work: Vancouver Observer

While completing an internship at the Vancouver Observer that was funded by the MABC Internship Initiative, Zi-Ann Lum recently co-authored "South Asian at Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School with The Frenchies," part of a series VO launched in response to the controversial "Too Asian?" Maclean's article.

Publisher Linda Solomon writes, "I'm so proud of the work that Zi-Ann Lum did. She and another reporter spent two months talking with students in Vancouver's high schools to get their reactions to the article and to talk with them about how they see each other and themselves. 
She has also been very strong in helping us develop the City section of VO in general. Great all around!"
 

Pacific Rim Magazine recognized by Apple Awards

Pacific Rim Magazine has placed first in the General Interest Magazine category of the Apple Awards,
presented March 14 at the College Media Advisers convention in New York City. The Apple Awards
acknowledge the best publications that are produced by students at colleges and universities.

The College Media Advisers is an association of hundreds of journalism faculty and publication advisers who
work at U.S. colleges and universities. There is a small Canadian membership.

View the list of winners at http://nyc.collegemedia.org.
 

Member events