COVID-19 restrictions
Our
program has been switched to
publication
of articles by our scheduled speakers on their topic
Publication
dates
Tuesday September 22
Tuesday October 20
Tuesday November 17
Tuesday December 15 - Frances Itani
Tuesday January 19
Tuesday February 16
Tuesday
March 23 - Baico - Projects
Tuesday April 20 - Matt Wood
Tuesday May 18 - TBA
Tuesday, June 22 -TBA
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Baico
Publishing,
a traditional Canadian publisher
By Stephanie Bertrand-Akimov
Baico began operations in 1997 in Gatineau, Quebec. With the company
growing over the years, they took up a new location in
Canada’s
beautiful picturesque capital, Ottawa.
 The founder and
President, Raymond Coderre brings over 50 years of
invaluable experience in the printing
and book publishing industry.
Baico’s signature is accessibility to its
authors,
always being available to address any questions and or concerns. Also
Baico does not take their author’s copyrights.
In 2007, Stephanie
Bertrand joined Baico as a part-time administrative assistant. Now 14
years later Stephanie is Baico’s acting Vice-President.
 In March 2020,
Stephanie launched a new umbrella of Baico called
“Women who inspire”. This division of Baico is
dedicated to
women, to have them showcase their talents and inspire others to tell
their stories. A few weeks after the launch of “Women who
inspire” COVID-19 hit and we are dealing with an unexpected
lockdown. The lockdown having put a halt on the world and our business,
Baico preserved by pivoting with the changing times. Finding new safe
ways of doing business while keeping our personal professional touch.
In the past year Baico has published some amazing books by some
incredibly talented authors. The #IHAVENOWORDS project was released in
October 2020, as part of the Black Lives Matter movement. This project
was born out of Debbie Miller’s (photographer, police officer
and
author) resolve to be a part of a call to action. Debbie began having
deep conversations particularly, with black men in the community, black
police officers and mothers of Black sons. This collection of
emotionally charged conversations allowed her to understand their
feelings and capture images of acute pain, suffering and
profound
sadness and frustration that has beset the community. In this tapestry
of photographs and community quotes she tells their stories.
#IHAVENOWORDS is a call for us to all build a more equal and inclusive
society.
 Around the
same
time, Baico and the Ottawa Police Blues FC teamed up to
launch the “GROW A WRITER CONTEST!”. We want to
make a
positive imprint on the youth in our community and the purpose of the
“GROW A WRITER CONTEST” is to encourage children to
stay
creative and educated while staying safe during this pandemic, while
having a unique outlet to express themselves.
Grow A Writer 2020 was been an phenomenal success!!! 20+
stories
from children 8-14 years of age were picked to be part of a published
novel. Copies of “GROW A WRITER 2020” will be
available in
March, all proceeds will go back to the community in the form of an
educational scholarship. Baico and the Ottawa Police Blues FC have
decided to make the contest a yearly event. Stay tuned for more
information for “GROW A WRITER 2021”.
Although COVID-19 has made the past year one of uncertainly with
several obstacles, it has also made Baico evolve. With Raymond still
working out of our offices at 280 Albert Street with strict COVID-19
measures in place and Stephanie working from home, taking zoom
meetings, we are still here for our existing authors and any new
authors that might want to publish the work they finally had
the
time to write during the lockdown, and or just for any inquiry about
the publishing process.
Our outlook for 2021 is an exciting one with many new opportunities,
books and evolving ways of doing business.
- -
|
Report from
President
June Coxon
Media
Club Projects 2020-2021
Even though we haven’t been able to get togethe and
hold our
usual monthly in-person meetings since the arrival of COVID
19,
the Media Club of Ottawa has undertaken a number of projects, thanks to
partnership, members' participation and volunteers , some of whom are
students or students who have recently graduated. You can read about
them below.
Late in 2019 we were fortunate
to have a number of
student volunteers to work with us from the University of Ottawa.
Unfortunately COVID arrived before
the group could do too much for us (although they did do
some). I heard from two of them recently - Morgan Clark and Gnoc Ngyen
1.
Photo Exhibit
In 2019 Gnoc Ngyen did some research at the Ottawa Archives, looking
for photos
of CWPC members , and found photos of the following: E. Cora Hind,
Emily
Murphy, Nellie McClung, Francis Beynon, “Madelien”
Anne
Marie Huguenon (nee Gleason), June Callwood, Edith Josie, Christie
Blatchford, Kit Coleman, Roberta McAdams, Sarah Jeanette (1903),
Elizabeth Montizambert & Beatrice Naysmyth.
2.
Meetings with professors and teachers.
In 2019 Jayne Simms Dalmotas began meeting with small groups of
teachers and professors to discuss what the Media Club could offer
them. She had already met professors at Algonquin College and was
scheduled to meet for a second time with two teachers from Canterbury
High School (a local school of the arts) but the arrival of the
pandemic prevented that from happening. While in-person meetings have
been suspended, Jayne conducted one telephone interview with a Carleton
University professor and has continued contacts with Algonquin college
professors.
3.
Profiles of student award winners
Jayne was also interested in tracking down past student award winners,
to place their profiles on our website. An email contact with Julie
McCann, journalism professor at Algonquin College, has led to having a
student work with us on a six-week field placement.
Samantha
“Sam” Mcgowan started volunteering for us on March
8 and
has already put in 17 hours of work. In that time she has:
looked
for & found 8 Melba Lent Woelflé award winners and
sent me
the list of those. She has interviewed one of them, written a first
draft of profile & got two photos of her; she has
emailed
another award winner about setting up a day and time for an interview.
In
addition to locating past award winners and writing their profiles, the
student will assist with other research and writing projects.
She
has emailed one of our past presidents about an interviewing to update
her profile. She has also submitted various items
and will send
a report.
4.
Anthology: COVID-19 Chronicles
Within a month of the pandemic’s arrival, our Club partnered
with
the Ottawa Ethnic Media Forum (OEMF) thanks to an invitation from
Jagjeet Sharma, and co-produced a 103-page anthology called COVID-19
Chronicles, which was published in November 2019. Eight Media Club
members and former members plus last year’s Melba Lent
Woelflé Award winner contributed to the book, along with
writers
from other writing groups, including the OEMF, plus two out-of-province
writers. Just a small number of books were published, primarily for the
book contributors, but there’s a possibility of printing more
and
holding a book signing event once COVID restrictions allow such things.
----------------------------------------------------------------
The
Pandemic’s Lessons About Our Priorities
An article by Ottawa writer Mary Ellen Kot, who has attended a number
of our club’s meetings, appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on
March
8th. The almost one-page item, entitled The Pandemic’s
Lessons
About Our Priorities, appeared on the anniversary of the first
diagnosed COVID-19 case in Ottawa, one of “a range
of
viewpoints on the year that was, and what lies ahead,” that
the
Citizen presented.
|
Media
Club Projects (cont'd)
5.
Bookmarks
.
Morgan Clark is currently helping with the Club’s
bookmark
project that was started for us a number of years ago by yet another
student volunteer. We have a large number of bookmarks written - all
needing to be
edited and fact checked.
As of March 1 Morgan has edited and fact-checked the following
bookmarks:
Margaret Graham, Leonise Valois and Maisie Hurley (she started the
first Indigenous newspaper in Canada). The next bookmarks Morgan will
work on will be for: Rosaleen Dickson, Mary Ann Shadd Carey (considered
the first black journalist in Canada), Alice Freeman aka Faith Fenton
(early Canadian journalist).
Susan Hallett and Valerie Knowles edited the following
bookmarks:
Gertrude Balmer Watt, Robertine Barry, Mary Bibb, Gladys Arnold, and
the
history of the CWPC/Media Club.
The idea, you may recall, is to write, design and print bookmarks that
will feature a brief history of a woman journalist on one side and
information about the Media Club on the other side. Once printed they
will be given as gifts to our speakers and award winners, as well as to
school libraries and public libraries as a way to make our club better
known.
6.
Monthly publication of articles
Ever since March when COVID restrictions prevented us from holding
in-person meetings, those who would have been our guest speakers have
instead written something for Club members to read. In addition, a
number of our members and former members contributed one of their
written pieces to share. Each month one of these was sent by email to
those on our mailing list and they will all eventually appear on our
website.
Matt Wood, a 2002 Margaret Graham Award winner, who has kept in touch
with our Club since receiving the award, has sent an article for us to
read. Those on our mailing list will have received it on Tuesday, March
23, when under normal circumstances, we would have had a meeting
together at Ottawa City Hall..
7.
Media Club of Ottawa Website
Katelin Belliveau, last year's Melba Lent Woelflé Award
winner,
has volunteered to help with our Club’s website even though
she
has returned to her home in New Brunswick. She and Iris ten Holder have
been working together virtually to do this. The result is the facelift
you are seeing today: lighter colours, larger screen size and fonts
that are more suitable for web presentation. Even though some of us
still prefer to read in Times Roman, modern fonts give a nice and clean
impression and are easier to read on the screen.
As a result of the contacts Jayne initiated with Algonquin College, the
Media Club was invited to submit a client proposal to Professor Darin
Faber’s Interactive Media Management Program. The
Club’s
proposal was accepted and a team of student volunteers is going to
apply their knowledge to create a modern version,
more
appeallng to our young people.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEWS
......NEWS......NEWS......
Cyril Dabydeen
Receives Another
Award
Multi-award
winning poet and novelist Cyril Dabydeen who spoke to the Media Club
about poetry writing some time ago when we were still meeting at the
community centre near Elgin Street, has received another award. He has
been named Poet of Honour by the Word Masala Project.
The
Not-For-Profit Project, is a social enterprise focused on helping the
South-Asian Diasporic and expat authors and poets. Dabydeen has
written/edited 20 books and his work has appeared in more than 60
literary magazines and anthologies. He has read from his books
internationally - across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom
and Europe, and the Caribbean and Asia.
Dabydeen
was
Ottawa’s Poet Laureate from 1984-1987 and taught writing at
the
University of Ottawa for many years. You can read about Cyril Dabyden
and his writing numerous places, including peepaltreepresss.com. To
read more about the Masala project and his award go to (TBA)
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