On portfolios

Not only did I finish re-working my CV/Resume this weekend, I also (finally) put my extended demo reel up on YouTube.

This is the demo I created just over a year ago as I was applying to certain journalism jobs. I had just discovered that my external hard drive, which I thought was safely in a friend's possession, had been stolen when her apartment was broken in to about a year before that. That hard drive not only contained my only high-quality copies of all the broadcast work I had done throughout school, it also had all the raw import footage I had captured. The plan, of course, was that some of this raw footage could be re-purposed for other works, like, for example, a demo reel.

Working under a time crunch, I found the next best thing. Our TV shows were consistently uploaded to YouTube by the department, so I entrepreneurially downloaded the pre-edited, pre-produced footage of each and every published show I had worked on and tried to make that work.

The end result, if I do say so myself, is pretty good! For my techies out there, the pre-packaged footage was shot on PD-170s (SD) and edited with Final Cut Pro. The demo reel itself was edited using Adobe Premiere. Any and all feedback is appreciated.

Enjoy!!

On the Walks

This year, I was able to attend two World Partnership Walks. The first, of course, was Montreal.

(The only picture I took of the 2010 World Partnership Walk in Montreal.)

What a cold, wet, dreary day it was! Still, our team put together a stellar event and over 1K people attended despite the rain - including some people I didn't expect to show due to the weather, like the Social Woman team! In terms of media, we had a pretty decent Walk Day turnout, considering, including an early morning in-studio interview by yours truly at LCN, a live noon news report on SRC and a live hit and day-after report on Radio-Canada Première Chaîne. Our local media sponsor, CTV Montreal, also had us on the evening news. Coverage leading up to the Walk included this piece I wrote for Stock the Warehouse, and a couple of articles for some community papers by media team member Tabish Bhimani.

We also live tweeted the event, which was loads of fun! I helped out with the stage stuff when things got confusing and congested and had a great time hanging out with my media assistant, Karen Fournier, our MC, Paul Karwatsky from CTV, and Eric Bindman, who, with his team from Fatherly Films, provided fantastic live LED screen coverage. Our lineup was great and it's just so unfortunate that all the excellent planning from a core team of nearly all newcomers to the Montreal Walk couldn't be properly executed due to the weather. Still, I think they had a great time, and I hope that they know that we're all really proud of their efforts - we can see that they did/would have paid off.

One week later, I made the trek to Ottawa, even though my bum knee never quite recovered from the Montreal Walk. (It still hasn't, which is very depressing.)

Ottawa had a large Walk site at Major's Hill Park, alongside the scenic Rideau Canal, with the Byward Market steps away, and with Parliament as a backdrop. It was, in one word: nice. Also, they had a beautiful, sunny, nearly scorching day! I will admit I was more than a little bit jealous. Plus, my friend's band, Three Times Lucky, was the main entertainment act, and boy did they rock it out! Or, should I say, blues it out? Either way, it was a fantastic Sunday day trip, and I'm very glad I went, even though I wasn't able to walk the Walk(s).

On a personal note, I would like to thank everyone who contributed to the cause, or supported me in my efforts for the World Partnership Walk. I not only reached my 1K fundraising goal, but you all rose to the challenge of doubling the amount in two weeks. That's right! I met my 2K fundraising goal! :D

I can't even begin to explain how great that makes me feel, and I've got all of you to thank for it. So... Thanks for putting a smile on my face and helping me put smiles on the faces of some of the poorest people in the world. Thanks to you, we're changing the world, one step at a time. Pat yourselves on the back!! You are now a poverty-fighting hero! :)

(Nursing my knee at the 2010 World Partnership Walk in Ottawa.)

On keeping busy

The month of April has come and gone, bringing us sun and flowers, then taking them away with freak snow and wind storms. Life goes on, no matter how busy you are, and I have been so busy that I haven't had time to Facebook, tweet or blog properly, though I've been trying really hard to keep everyone up to date.

My World Partnership Walk fundraising campaign has been going well, thanks to some very generous donations from some people who are very dear to me. Their kind words have helped boost my efforts, both on the personal front and on the not-for-profit professional front. I'm very excited about the involvement of local media in the 2010 Walk in Montreal and as soon as I officially can, I'll share some of their plans with you.

Meanwhile, two articles I have written in the past few months were finally published! The first one is available online, at The Ismaili.org. It touches on the Bridges That Unite exhibition that was held at Concordia University in March, and in 5 other cities before then, showcasing Canada's development work and 25-year partnership with Aga Khan Foundation Canada. You can read it here.

The other article I wrote appeared in The Ismaili Canada Magazine, which is distributed mainly to the Ismaili community in Canada periodically. It touches on women's role in development and how empowering the women in the developing world can help break the cycle of poverty. I've posted it below for your enjoyment.

Apart from writing, working on the Walk, and translating, I've been doing a fair amount of TV work! HBO Boxing, Versus Hockey broadcasts, CBCSports' coverage of the 2010 Canada Cup... It's been pretty much non-stop work in one field or another for me since my birthday. But hey, I'm not complaining! I am, however, very much looking forward to my mini-escape to Toronto from June 22 to 28. If you want to meet up while I'm in town, you know where to reach me! :)

And now, please excuse me as I go back to translating. Stay tuned...


Empowering women to break the cycle of poverty
By Naila Jinnah

How much do you make in a year? A typical Canadian family with two earning adults made approximately $100,000 before taxes in 2007. Imagine if that amount was cut in half. Could you offer your family the same quality of life on just one income?

In many developing countries, families have to rely on the inadequate salary of only one earner. These families work hard, but often do not see financial returns. In many rural regions, crops are consumed for subsistence rather than sold to the market. This reduces the revenues a family has available to ensure a higher quality of life.

The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) estimates that women represent 70 percent of the world’s poor. Statistically, women are more likely than men to be poor due to the discrimination they face in areas of education and employment.

So how can women be empowered to break out of the cycle of poverty?

There are short-term and long term approaches to this challenge. The Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED), an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), strives to provide economically viable solutions to poverty in the developing world by investing in entrepreneurship and offering financial services to those who are not usually eligible to receive them. These programs go beyond micro-lending into the area of private and for-profit enterprise. One example of AKFED’s investment ventures is Kenya’s
Frigoken Ltd.

Frigoken works with small-scale farmers to stimulate regional economies by providing business development services like price guarantees, quality control, training and seeds. This venture works on two levels. First, it enables entire farming villages in the coastal rural region of Mombasa to confidently invest in their crops, providing a higher and more stable source of income, and allowing families to educate their children. Second, it stimulates the national economy by providing factory jobs for trained workers who process and package the vegetables
for export.

Approximately 2,700 people work in the Frigoken factory. Most of them are women who are providing a valuable secondary income for their families. There is also an on location daycare service for the younger children. But often where agencies like AKDN are not active, employment opportunities for women remain limited.

Unskilled women with limited education are dispensable in the economic chain. In the city, these women are confined to low-paying and low-status jobs like domestic and cleaning services. Even in Canada, many immigrant families are stuck in low income lifestyles with no apparent way out. Single mothers here resort to night jobs in factories or mid-day shifts in the hospitality industry in order to accommodate their dual role as parents and earners.

The root of the poverty problem lies deeper. According to UNIFEM, women make up approximately 60 to 80 percent of the manufacturing workforce, a struggling industry in the
ongoing global economic crisis. How can they save their families from the desperation of poverty?

The solution is education. Offering proper educational services that are tailored to girls’ needs from early childhood through to adulthood is the key to breaking the cycle of poverty. Fortunately, children in Canada are provided with free, quality education until the age of 16
regardless of their backgrounds, providing hope for a better life for future generations.

But in developing countries, it’s not that simple.

Children living in cities are well serviced by primary and secondary schools. But in rural areas, educational facilities are less accessible. One common form of early childhood education is the madrasa, a religiously focussed pre-school. AKDN partners with villages in East Africa to build madrasas, allowing the community to unite and effectively run the schools. Along with providing financial support, the AKDN trains village women to be teachers, ensuring that a secular curriculum is taught for at least part of the day. This allows children from all backgrounds to attend and accommodates responsibilities at home.

Girls benefit the most from this arrangement; they can still tend to sick family members or help in the kitchen or farm before and after school. Since the teachers are local women who are paid by the village, the madrasa project also empowers women on a secondary level.

Most parents understand the value of education in providing a better future for their children but they cannot afford to lose their workforce for extended periods of time. Many girls drop out of school in their teens, while boys often finish high school. The issue lies in the sensitivity to girls’ physiological and practical needs, rather than cultural considerations. Many girls stop going to school when they reach puberty because schools do not have proper latrines tailored to women’s needs. Even when they do, the poverty is so extreme that girls cannot afford feminine hygiene products. Worse, many girls do not have spare undergarments and uniforms and must go home to wash and dry them, which disrupts the school day.

The Aga Khan School Improvement Programme (SIP) is one AKDN initiative that directly addresses this challenge by providing a forum for girls to discuss issues that are relevant only to them in a secure, private setting and make suggestions to the school on their educational experience. Programs like SIP invest in girls by providing them with the tools they need to escape poverty on a practical and educational level. It empowers girls to change their lives and livelihoods and opens up a wide array of possibilities for their future. Many
dream of being doctors and teachers.

In his speech at the commemoration of the 25th Anniversary of the madrasa programme in Mombasa, Kenya, in 2007, [The Aga Khan] noted that, ”… we sometimes give too little attention to the schools which prepare young children for life itself—in all of its holistic dimensions. And yet the evidence accumulates steadily showing that an investment made in the earliest, pre-school years can bring enormous dividends as a child proceeds from one level of education to another.”

Women perform 66 percent of the world’s work, produce 50 percent of the food, but earn only 10 percent of the income and own a meagre one percent of the property. With services that are sensitive to their issues, women have the opportunity to provide a higher quality of life for their families. With some support, these girls could one day lead the developing world out of the devastating cycle of poverty.

(First appeared in The Ismaili Canada Magazine, Issue 1, March 2010)

The Things You Miss The Most

This week, for the first time in a long time, I sat down and tried to write a real article. It was hard!!

I was helped by the fact that my piece would feel more like a column rather than a hard news story , but even then, I was reminded of how much work it takes to write a concise, easy-to-read article that is not a blog post.

I will admit that when I first started writing, I was a little bit afraid of the 600-800 words order... but I ended up going over!

The thing is... I usually just write. Even when I was doing more hard news reporting, I familiarized myself with the story, figured out what I wanted to say while I was still in transition from location to desk, and just sat down and wrote. Sometimes, I would have to pause half way and re-assess my intentions for the piece. I would take this time to make a few edits and trim a few superfluous words.

Then, I would probably tweak my lead a bit and keep writing until I got stuck on the ending, which is always the hardest part for me to write.

Sometimes, it just works. You just know. And it writes itself. But other times - like this weekend - it didn't. I knew I should wrap it up with a reference to my lead because it was just that kind of piece, but I still didn't feel confident that I had a killer last sentence.

Then I'd do one last read-through for copy-editing purposes, or hold off until the next day in the case of a really long paper/essay/piece with a looser deadline, and that's about it.

Dust off your hands, we're done!

I blame my prose insecurities on all the job applications I've been writing. The composition style is different, to be sure, and there are certain rules that you more or less have to follow. Writing an article isn't like writing a blog either... Here, I really can just spew out a mumbo-jumbo of thoughts. Form and flow don't really matter... the words just fall into place naturally.

Perhaps the lack of facts made the piece harder to write and a press conference story would have been easy-peasy. In fact, I think I could probably jump back into press conference story writing in a jiffy - and will be for the Vancouver Olympics! - because it's something you just don't forget.

Lead. 5 W. Tell us why we should care. Tell us what we can do/how to follow up. Background info that the editors can cut for space.

That's right, the inverted pyramid is pinned to the corkboard in my mind. Thanks, J-school profs!

But it wasn't applicable in this case, was it?

So... How did I do? I'd really love your feedback, so without further ado, here it is, as published yesterday on The Concordian.com:

The Things You Miss The Most
Going away and not keeping score

By Naila Jinnah

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where your BlackBerry or iPhone doesn’t work? What if you can’t get an Internet connection either? And to top it all off, the TV gets nothing but static!

While this may seem like an ideal scenario for many a sports widow, it’s not so cool for the sports fan.

I recently went to Cuba for a week (boo-hoo, I know!) and while it was relieving to spend some time away from the constant buzz of technology, I did occasionally wonder how the Montreal Canadiens were faring on their annual holiday road trip. And if Team Canada was kicking butt at the World Junior Championship in Saskatchewan. Oh, and hoping that no additional Canadian medal hopefuls had gotten injured in competitions leading up to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games.

It is indeed an exciting time for Canadian sports fans, but despite the high concentration of tourists from the True North Strong and Free, no one was talking hockey. There were lots of Habs shirts though, and I think I spotted a few Sens logos. And, in case you were wondering, no, I didn’t see a single Leafs’ fan.

With so many potential breaking sports stories during my time away, it was with great urgency that I turned on my BlackBerry as soon as the plane landed at Pierre Elliot Trudeau International Airport. After about a gazillion incoming message notifications – thankfully, I remembered to turn off my ringer – I immediately went searching for sports news. In times away from the computer, I have found great comfort in receiving my TSN Morning Newsletter on my phone. This was no exception.

One might assume that the first thing I would want to check was the outcome of the Habs games.

Well, you’re right.

However, after scrolling through the NHL scores, I realized that I was most interested in the other stories. The ones that usually make me go “Hmm” in the morning but only click on if the headline really captures my attention. The ones that, most of the time, I don’t necessarily care about reading through to the end and therefore stop paying attention to not long after the lead paragraph. These are the stories that intrigued me.

As it turns out, they were all human interest stories. The torchbearer getting knocked down by protesters in Guelph. Prime Minister Stephen Harper suspending the Canadian Parliament until after the Olympics. Not just the announcement of Team Canada’s men’s hockey roster for the Olympics, but also the reactions of those selected and those left aside. The NHL and the NHLPA actually working together for once to write to the International Ice Hockey Federation about Team Russia’s potential last minute roster changes for the Games. Tiger Woods being voted best athlete of the decade, despite the ongoing controversy in his personal life.

The truth is, most of these stories could make the front page of a newspaper or lead a newscast. There was nothing especially sporty about them, save for the fact that they involved athletic events or personalities. The stories were about politics, business, and law - stories with excitement, betrayal and hope.

They were stories about our lives.

At the beginning of this piece, you probably pictured me as a hockey-obsessed fan that can’t take the risk of disconnecting and unwinding. You probably thought that I was a Leaf-hater, that I don’t watch any news other than Sports 30 and that I can’t stand being without my BlackBerry.

While that last part is probably more accurate than I’d like it to be, the point is that we are all multifaceted people. Sometimes, we forget that there is more to sports than victories and medals, and indeed, that there is more to life than sports. Or rather, sports are just another facet of life.

When I understood that it wasn’t finding out the scores that matters the most but rather reading the stories about people, I realized how much you miss when you take off for a week. Obviously, you don’t get all the live excitement, but most importantly, you miss out on the subtleties of sport, and of life. You miss Tomas Plekanec losing a tooth. You miss the horror of the Olympic flame potentially going out when the torch hits the ground – and it’s all your fault!

What else do you miss? You miss all the things that I can’t tell you about because I wasn’t there when it happened. Did Cindy Klassen grimace and stretch her legs after failing to qualify for the 1,000m speed skating race? I’ll never know.

These are the things you miss the most when your smartphone can’t find a network, you can’t get online, and you can’t find static-free TV.

You miss the moments that help shape peoples’ lives.

-30-

On Indexing

When I decided to change my blog URL, I thought I had it made. I was finally ready to go from the unsophisticated, now defunct http://starshinediva.blogspot.com to the more professional http://nailaj.blogspot.com.

"NailaJ" also fit in with my "new" personal online branding as it matched my Twitter and Flickr handles. When I realized that I couldn't change my Flickr URL, I was disappointed, but I didn't think it was that big of a deal.

That's when I discovered the intricacies of search engine indexing.

Though I was always more or less aware of how sites got added to search engines, I forgot to take the lack of indexing into consideration when I switched URLs. I went from having having a respectable minimum amount of incoming traffic daily to almost no blog hits. For the longest time (give or take a week), I couldn't figure out why. (Not that I particularly value accidental 30-second clicks!)

That's when I noticed my keyword stats. Google and Yahoo! were no longer sending users my way (except for a couple of hits from Google.fi). Why? Well, even though I worked hard to establish my blog and presence online, indexing is still a primitive technology and couldn't see that I was still me, just... under another name and in a different place.

All my pride at my blog being the first search result for "Naila Jinnah"? Gone. Now, I've resorted to hoping that people will click on my Twitter feed, look under the bio, and stumble upon my blog, or find me through LinkedIn. It's no longer easy for employers to simply look me up. My social media/online branding credibility? Also greatly reduced.

Hopefully, my online involvement and activities will help boost my worth in Google's eyes and I'll return to my former blog glory... name recognition included.

Stay tuned...

PS: Maisonneuve re-posted my blog "On Hand Washing". How cool is that?

The story behind a Canadian Cyclist

Some months ago, I was asked to do a one-on-one interview with reporter Alain Gravel, host of Radio Canada's investigative reporting programme "Enquête". Gravel, as you may recall, is the reporter who broke the story of Quebec's biggest doping scandal. After many months of pushing, cyclist Geneviève Jeanson admitted to Gravel and his team that she had in fact taken drugs and had been doing so from a very young age.

The interview was published in Media Magazine, the publication put out by the Canadian Association of Journalists. Ironically, Gravel was, at the time of the interview, the president of the Fédération Professionelle des Journalistes du Québec.

This interview was particularly tough to write up, not because of the translation work required, but because of the sheer amount of content that the interview provided. Originally, I had planned on a 15 to 30 minute interview - MAX. Instead, I had just over an hour of tape to listen and sort through. Plus, the story itself was very complex, as there was a lot of back and forth before Gravel and his team were able to get a confession out of Jeanson. In fact, the story was so complicated that even Gravel had to think hard about the timing and sequence of the events leading up to his scoop. Not to mention that the story and the pursuit of the story were both very interesting and full of juicy details.

All in all, I was very satisfied with the article and with the editing job - with one exception. Near the end of the second page, the text mentions that "a Canadian cyclist had written about a marriage certificate" when it should instead say "Canadian Cyclist had written about a marriage certificate", meaning the industry magazine Canadian Cyclist.

Without further ado, here I am, on page 18!

Stay tuned for more goodies...

New Feature!

Of the written kind, I mean.

Here's the piece I wrote on the goalies of the Concordia University women's hockey team, the Stingers. It was published in today's edition of the Link.

Enjoy!

Passion brings Stingers goalies together

But a little competition is healthy for women's hockey teammates

By Naila Jinnah

On paper, Concordia Stingers goaltenders Meggy Hatin-Léveillée, Audrey Doyon-Lessard and Stephanie Peck don’t have much in common, apart from sharing a spot on the women’s hockey team.

A quick glance at the roster shows that the girls have different eligibility years, come from different CÉGEPs and are in programs that couldn’t be more different: honours psychology, exercise science and marketing respectively. But one look at these three masked warriors and all those differences come crashing to the ice.

Goalies are a special breed, a saying that rings especially true for collegiate teams. For years, these girls have been the only goaltenders on their team, left aside at practices while the rest of the players worked on drills. They have become more self-sufficient than their teammates, often learning on their own and from their own mistakes. They have been the starting goalie every game—by default. But CÉGEP brought not only a new level of play but also a new reality—competing for the starting spot with at least two other girls.

This is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, there is the risk of spending most of the season on the bench rather than on the ice. On the other hand, practices are a bit more fun when you have a companion to run goaltending drills with.

“With the three of us, practice is more fun, because it’s like a team of goalies!” said Hatin-Léveillée, laughing with her goaltending partners.

“Being goalie is a very special bond,” she added. “Aside from our field of study, we really understand each other, even if others don’t. We know we can rely on the other two to understand, so we don’t feel awkward or out of place.”

Hatin-Léveillée and Doyon-Lessard have been splitting the load for one season, but Peck joined the team this year. They were an instant fit.

“I totally felt welcome with them,” said rookie Peck. “I knew right away that they got along really well because it showed. It really makes a difference when you get along with your goalie partner.”

This year, the girls need to get along with someone else too. For the first time in four years, the Stingers have added a goalie coach to their staff. Dave Paré gets on the ice with the girls during practice and his feedback is definitely appreciated.

“Last year we couldn’t improve on anything because no one would tell us what the problems were,” Hatin-Léveillée said. “But this year, in practice, our coach tells us what we do and we can improve our game.”

“It makes us feel more part of a team and more important, in a way.”

“I think it shows that we just prioritize the goaltending and that it’s really important,” said Peck. “We need that kind of help and it’s good to have that kind of support.”

The girls also get a lot of support from each other—they spend a lot of time together and the comfortable chemistry that was established during training camp turned into friendly competition as the season started. At the beginning, Hatin-Léveillée and Doyon-Lessard were the goaltending duo of choice, and while Hatin-Léveillée got many starts, there was no clear-cut number one goalie. But on Oct. 28, 2007, Doyon-Lessard was injured in a game at Carleton University.

“I tried to cover the puck and was going forward, but the girl sort of skated on my head,” explained Doyon-Lessard.

She was diagnosed with a concussion, an injury that is particularly hard to recover from since it requires complete rest. After over two months on the injured reserve list, Doyon-Lessard finally made it back between the pipes on Jan. 6, 2008 for the championship game of the Theresa Humes tournament, replacing starter Hatin-Léveillée. The Stingers lost 7-0 to McGill.

“It was great for me to play,” Doyon-Lessard said after the game, “but I didn’t like the reason why I had to go in.”

Meanwhile, Peck was back at her usual seat in the stands. The third goalie is often lost in the rush, but she is just as much a member of the team as the other girls. Like Doyon-Lessard when she was injured, Peck needs to attend all practices and games, even if she’s not dressing for the latter. The average observer doesn’t notice her, but she is far from invisible to her teammates. And while the seats in the stands are mostly comfortable, it’s not Peck’s spot of choice.

“It’s really tough coming in as a third goalie,” she said. “People don’t understand unless they’ve lived it.”

“With goalies, there are only three spots, and two that dress,” said Hatin-Léveillée. “With players, there’s a lot more room to work with. They have twelve!”

“I’ve lived it,” she added, “and now Steph is going through it.”

“It’s a real learning experience,” Peck said. “It’s definitely going to make me better for it. Stronger. It’s humbling too, because you have to earn it. Everybody has to pay their dues.”

The bond between these three girls is apparent in their interactions on and off the ice, and their unofficial ranking on the roster is not of much concern to them.

“We try to stay together and keep it equal in practices,” Hatin-Léveillée said. “And come game time, for sure there’s going to be a goalie who plays and a goalie who doesn’t dress. I think that’s the only time that there’s a difference.”

“In practice, we don’t see number one, number two, number three. We don’t see a difference.”

But for Hatin-Léveillée, having a new partner in crime didn’t change the way she approached the game. Competition is important, but the girls each have a different role to play on the team. They push each other in positive ways.

“It’s never taken for granted,” Hatin-Léveillée said. “I’m not number one for sure. We have to work for it, earn it, and if I play a good game, more points for me!”

“It’s a competition, but at the same time it’s healthy, because we’re not bitching about it and we’re not being mean about it. We want our spot and we want to deserve it. If I don’t feel like I deserve it, I don’t want to be the one in nets.”

“It’s not like if someone has a bad game, you’re like ‘yes!’ You put the team first,” Peck agreed.

“We all can do it, and we all know that everyone here can stop the puck wherever it is,” said Hatin-Léveillée. “When it happens that we have bad games, we know it’s a mental thing. So we go up to each other and tell the other goalie to get back in there and to be strong mentally.”

The girls don’t really see each other outside of hockey, although that’s probably a good thing. With practice, workout sessions, school and homework, it’s hard to find time to relax, not to mention that non-hockey friends tend to get jealous.

“You’re with each other every day,” said Doyon-Lessard. “We see each other more than our family!”

It is this commitment to the game that enables the girls to make these sacrifices. Their love for hockey is apparent on and off the ice, and their passion brings them together just as it divides them.

“We have that thing in common that we love to come here to play hockey in the morning,” said Hatin-Léveillée.

“But like it or not, we’re here to play hockey, and we all want the same thing,” concluded Peck.

-30-

My first Montreal Gazette byline...

Sometimes, it takes a while for me to get stuff up on here. This time, I have an excuse... I was in Toronto when it happened.
And if that one doesn't work, blame it on the ear infection I got last Thursday. Yes, two weeks later.

Cutting to the chase... (an expression that makes no sense, if you ask me. Shouldn't you be cutting THE chase and getting to the point?)

I am now the proud owner of a Gazette byline. Sure, it's the West Island section, but that doesn't make it any less cool.

It's an article I wrote back in July, I believe, about the Lakeshore Camera Club celebrating their 50th anniversary. Here's the link: Camera Club is a wide-angle affair

Enjoy!