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E n d Community paper
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Vo l u m e 2 , I s s u e 1 5 , A u g 5 , 2 0 1 1
West End soldier’s experiences taught him to value our freedoms
Of all possible careers, it’s the self-sacrificing ones – where being in harm’s way is not simply an occupational hazard but a certainty – that I respect the most. Growing up the son of a father who volunteered for the legendary Blackwatch HRH regiment during WWII, I certainly heard my share of war tales, some funny and others horrible. Of all the film genres I have gravitated toward since, it’s the war movies and incredibly realistic miniseries like Band of Brothers I watch most often. They represent real life moments of tragedy, true, but also showcase our better qualities: Respect, brotherhood, selflessness, commitment, patriotism and, yes, absolute sacrifice. So, not long after starting this paper, I contacted the Department of National Defense in Ottawa and started harassing them to locate an active soldier from the West End. Putting them on the cover would be my small way of thanking the many young men and women who put their lives on the line to ensure “freedom” is not just another random word, but actually counts for something. Two weeks ago, the call came. DND had located an NDG resident who has served with the Canadian Armed Forces overseas up to now… we had found our man. I met with 39-year old Master Warrant Officer Scott Doyle at NDG’s Café 92° last weekend and he was hard to miss when he walked in, his broad shoulders developed after 18 years in the Primary Reserves since volunteering at age 21. Why’d he do that, I was dying to know? I mean, at 21, the most ambitious pursuits of the majority of young people involve hooking up with partners and choosing which bar to hit the next weekend.
CONTINUED p.4
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Briefly Bram * Briefly Bram *
Sucked in yet again by the corporate 3D movie ruse As usual, when it comes to cinema, I often rely on my own experiences as a rabid cinephile… but I also often rely on my longtime friend Shlomo Schwartzberg to rage about the stupidity inherent in the system. And he touches on some salient points regarding the latest gimmick, 3D, in his Entertainment Entre-Nous column this issue. But I had to wade in as well, having just returned from Captain America, which the Odeon theatre in Cavendish Mall only made available in 3D. I can understand a smaller venue screening only one available version of a film in its second or third week. What I can’t tolerate is how badly ripped off we are by a gimmick that isn’t worth a buck extra, never mind three. Growing up, it was always a treat to watch a 3D film sporting those cheapie cardboard glasses with one red lens and another blue one. The effect was prehistoric, but you could usually count on one or two really cool effects where a spear or dagger came straight at your head. Years later, in the early 1980s at Epcot in Florida, I experienced monumental 3D wearing much superior quality glasses, with almost the entire film so authentically threedimensional that you were almost able to touch everything on screen. You certainly tried.
and in just a few years, she was gone from fashion designer and entrepreneur (Home Shopping Channel, no less) to one of our city’s top earners in real estate. I have been hoping to lure Anita onto these pages since day one and I am pleased and proud to finally welcome her, hopefully for a long time. Look for an upcoming feature on her latest project, a real West End success story, here in the pages of The Local Seeker. Don’t go down with the ship…. … Highly unlikely that would occur today, as ships are eons removed from the fragile sort that ruled the high seas in Titanic’s day. Yet how safe are you really on cruises? Read my piece that examines that very question and is based on a very personal experience of mine on a Carnival cruise a few years ago, later this issue.
When 3D resurfaced bigtime several years ago, it was available with just a few select films per year and the effects were still pretty cool. Now, however, the 3D genre has become so supersaturated that almost every film is presented that way and you often don’t have a choice between 3D and 2D, especially for action, horror and superhero flicks. And that means a movie now costs $13 per person, which is so grossly over inflated that we will gladly pay $10 if we have a choice rather than grumbling about it. I am convinced that when theatre execs planned their ruse, they looked toward the oil industry. We grumbled impotently at first, but who today wouldn’t happily pay $1.20 per liter for their gas. A real steal, huh? What REALLY got to me occurred at this evening’s screening. Cap throws his iconic shield in one scene and it comes straight at the camera… and then stops at the screen. I mean, in a 3D film, what better moment to fling that shield so close to your head that you actually duck! In the 1960s, wearing garbage cardboard glasses, that’s exactly what would have happened…. for a movie ticket that probably cost you a buck and a quarter.
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We are getting ripped off and if we continue buying into this propaganda, ticket prices will continue to rise as we get less and less for our buck. We don’t have a choice but to buy gas if we want to drive or heat our homes. We DO have a choice regarding which films we go to see and where. ‘Nuff said. Bidding welcome to home-grown house talent I wanted to welcome our latest advertiser, real estate agent and agency head Anita Benabou Rosenblatt. Anita is quite a superhero in the business The Local Seeker, West End Montreal Edition Volume 2, Number 15, Aug 5 2011 Founded by Julia Lucio and Mai-Liis Renaud 2010 Published by Local Seeker Media Group, Cornwall, Ontario The Local Seeker does not accept responsibility for errors, misprints or inaccuracies published within. The opinions and statements of our columnists are not to be presumed as the statements and opinions of The Local Seeker.
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AUG 5 (pg. 2)
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Tremblay fiddles while the infrastructure disintegrates
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Renovations of any kind?
As I prepared to write this issue’s column a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. Tons of concrete fell from the ceiling of the Ville Marie tunnel. Fortunately, it was a Sunday morning at 9:15 and there were no injuries. Any other morning of the week and there would have been a catastrophe. I don’t believe the stress that caused the ceiling to fall happened overnight; rather that proper inspection of the structure would have predicted it. But who has time to inspect infrastructure when you are busy dealing with bicycles, beaches, aquatic competitions and tramways? I think the Mayor has chosen a wrong vocation. He would make an excellent director of a theme park. As a Mayor he is incompetent. If we citizens of Montreal stand by and allow him to continue to run this city, however, we will one day have to share the blame when an overpass collapses on a weekday rather than a Sunday and kills countless people traveling to work. That’s just my opinion and, now, on to my chosen topic: Anything over a dollar a litre and gasoline turns to gougeoline Want to see gasoline prices continue to rise? You won’t have to do anything. From here to a dollar fifty a litre will not take long and from there the sky is the limit. All this is being done with the help of the governments who profit from every increase because of the tax structure. The more expensive the gas, the more taxes skimmed. The government would not stand by and watch the price of milk go up whenever the dairy industry felt like it. Milk is a necessity. So is gas. Most people drive to work and every time gas goes up their net earnings decrease. Even if you don’t drive you are affected by the price of gas. Everything that we purchase is shipped by truck from manufacturer to distributor to retailer. The cost of shipping increases the price consumers pay for all goods purchased. There needs to be a commission established that would allow or disallow any increase in the price of gas. Last week the price of a barrel of oil dropped while the price at the pump increased almost ten cents a liter in some places. It was predictable because it was the start of the construction industry holiday but definitely a perfect example of gouging. Two years ago a group of gas station operators in the Eastern Townships were convicted of price fixing. The investigators were naïve enough to think it only happens in the Eastern Townships. On Saturday I passed a Petrocan station with a pump price of $1.38.9 and arrived at an Ultramar station with a pump price of $1.30.4. When I asked the owner if he had just lowered the pump price, he joked that he hadn’t answered his phone all week so he couldn’t be instructed to raise his price. There is more truth than humour in that statement. But as I stated previously, don’t depend on the governments for help. It would be too easy to prove that there is collusion among the oil companies. I have a plan but you will have to wait for the next issue. It’s closing time.
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AUG 5 (pg. 3)
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Cover Stor y
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West End soldier’s experiences taught him to value our freedoms (cont’d from cover) He first explained that the Primary Reserves is a part-time job, in support of the regular army, and is in fact “the army’s footprint in the community. We are in fact located closer to Canada’s communities and some reserve units have been in existence longer than the regular forces.” He suggested visiting the armed forces website at army.gc.ca for anyone interested in learning more. An engineer with 34 Combat Engineering Regiment, the South Shore-born and raised Doyle joined the army for very practical reasons. “I wanted to do something different when I was young, but this also made sense. You end up working one or two weekends during the school year and take 6-9 weeks of courses during the summer”…. in exchange, he added, for pay, clothing, housing and food.” Yeah, I know… that was my reaction, as well: Where do we sign up? But is this for everyone? I looked at the well-muscled man and asked what basic training had been like. “It isn’t that hard per se physically, but is more about your mental attitude. It’s certainly a humbling experience.” Bear in mind that Doyle was also very much in shape from a young age, having played football for the St. Hubert Rebels for 14 years and rugby at Champlain CEGEP, before going on to Concordia to study history and political science. A softie who only worked out his texting fingers might have a much more challenging time of it. Then there’s the matter of serving in a conflict, again certainly not for everyone. In Doyle’s case, his experience in Afghanistan from 2008-2009 was voluntary. He had also served in Bosnia in 1999. It was interesting to discover that the interview on July 30 marked the day that the last Quebec soldier from southern kandahar was coming home. In kandahar, Doyle didn’t head to the front lines, but served a technical role using his engineering skills. “I was at NATO HQ and ensuring mobility was a huge priority for us. There was a lot of action on Highway I, a major supply route, and the insurgents were blowing up a lot of bridges, especially during the rainy season (when other routes were flooded). We had to bring bridges in and set them up. A lot of our work was done in the east, between kandahar and kabul.” As to whether he felt hostility from locals, Doyle candidly admitted that “certain people want to kill you and others couldn’t care less. Afghanistan has seen over three decades of turmoil, but most people there are like people here… they just want to get on with their lives, raise families, have food to eat and a roof over their heads. It’s just more dangerous for them there. The Canadian government has tried providing stability to the people there.” Canada’s armed forces are out of the south now, other than to help clean up, literally, while in kabul our soldiers are still there to help train the Afghan army to provide stability. The British and American militaries are handling the fighting, along with some other national armies, while the RCMP has some of its members on hand to help train the Afghan police force. As for his time in Bosnia , he was also there to utilize his engineering skills, as well as to patrol the region searching for unexploded landmines and such. The biggest dangers he faced as a soldier to date involved two rocket attacks against bases he was on. Someone he served with in Bosnia was later killed in Afghanistan, a terrible thing when it affects your “regimental family” that way.
Fun with Words
What lesson did this courageous young man learn most? “We can never take the life and freedom we have here in Canada for granted,” Doyle stated. “You run a small community paper here, right? In Afghanistan, doing that very thing might mark you for death.”
FANTASIA 2011 Still one weekend of great films Special screenings of the 1931 silent classic Phantom of the Opera, with live orchestra! See schedule at www.fantasiafestival.com
THE LOCAL SEEkER,
AUG 5 (pg. 4)
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Summer Rants on the World of Entertainment
Entertainment Entre Nous - Shlomo Schwartzberg
It’s hot and sticky outside so why not let loose a few rants/complains about various aspects of the world of entertainment? Enough with the 3-D, already: I really don’t get why so many movies have to be released in 3-D. I’m not talking about the relatively few movies shot in that format (the animated Up, or the critically acclaimed documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams) but rather about the Hollywood flicks (Captain America: The First Avenger, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2) where 3-D is added after the fact, when the movie has already been made. Truth be told, 3-D doesn’t add anything of value to the movie and functions only as an irritating distraction. Considering that 3-D movies cost about three bucks more than the perfectly fine 2-D versions, this is one Hollywood cash grab you need not buy into. Keep my TV show where it is, thank you: Whenever a TV show hits it stride, invariably the network decides to move it to a new time slot, in the hopes that it will bolster a weak, uninspiring lineup on another night. But that’s frustrating for those of us who like the show just where it is. This fall, CBS has shifted The Good Wife, one of TV’s finest dramas, to Sunday night at 9 pm from its previous slot of Tuesday at 10 pm, where it will compete against Desperate Housewives and Sunday Night Football. Moving shows doesn’t always doom them (The Big Bang Theory is doing just fine on its new day) but it is risky as even loyal viewers won't always follow their favourite programs to another point on the schedule. That’s what happened a few years back when FOX moved Boston Public from Mondays to the dead airwaves of Friday, where it was soon cancelled. Let’s hope The Good Wife survives its move. The Deluxe Album Version Scam: One of the new scams in the music industry is releasing a deluxe edition of an album, not long after its initial non-deluxe release. Those editions – The National’s High Violet, Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs - invariably contain bonus tracks, live performances or DVD footage that those of us who shelled out bucks for the album in the first place didn’t and won’t get, unless we spend more money on the ‘new’ disc. Offer us the choice between different editions in the first place and not after the fact, please. A graduate of Ryerson University’s School of Journalism, former West End Montrealer Shlomo Schwartzberg is a veteran film critic, has regularly reviewed films for various publications and lectures on film and TV studies. He was the director of programming for the Toronto Jewish Film Festival for seven years.
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AUG 5 (pg. 5)
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Secret Surroundings
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Café London Bus - From Britain with love by Jacqueline Treminio Since childhood, we are told to dream big and that nothing is out of one’s limits if you put your mind to it. As the years go by, we become less dreamers and more realists as ambitious ideas get shuffled back and forth, due to the demands of the 9-to-5 work routine. Rare are those whose wildest dreams come true, but for local business owner Jeannie Oh, giving up a secure corporate job to open a local coffee shop was well-worth the risk and wait. She wanted to offer locals a fresh, healthy food option that was lacking along Westmount’s Sainte-Catherine Street West. In August 2008, Oh opened Café London Bus in collaboration with a Britishborn business partner (since September 2010, Oh has become the sole owner): A dream made reality, the opportunity to run her own small business.
For those seeking a spot of English in the city, Café London Bus is situated within walking distance of Atwater metro and Plaza AlexisNihon. The café offers free wi-fi, which makes it an ideal spot for those seeking a comfortable study/work space away from the crowded cafés around the Guy-Concordia metro sector. “Café London Bus is affordable and friendly,” says Oh. “For under $20, a single (person) or couple can buy a delicious, tasty meal.” Named after the iconic British doubledecker buses that roam the streets of London, Café London Bus offers a variety of coffee, tea, pastry goodies and fresh home cooked meals at inexpensive prices that can satisfy any foodie and student budget. Everything is deliciously prepared on location by Oh and her small staff. In addition to the basic menu choices of sandwiches, salads and soups, the café has a special “frais du jour” menu with different meal options inspired by Oh’s interest in international cuisines. The café, however, would not be complete without an English touch.
afternoon tea. Artfully displayed on a white tablecloth linen and served on decorative antique bone china plates and in tea cups, the afternoon tea comes with a three-tiered tray of warm homemade s c o n e s , scrumptious c u c u m b e r sandwiches, shortbread cookies, sweet cakes and an assortment of fruits. Each tray is designed to feed 2-4 people and is delicately personalized by Jeannie Oh: She adds her unique touch to the visual presentation of the tray based on the colour and shape of the sweets and fruits. The beauty of this delicacy is that you don’t need to be the Queen of England to partake - young and older alike can gather to share a moment on any
occasion. Don’t know where to celebrate your next birthday or children’s party? Why not have an afternoon tea party at Café London Bus? Oh offers clients the option to reserve the café for tea party gatherings. As Oh describes it, English afternoon tea at Café London Bus is the “icing on the cake.”
Café London Bus 4126, Sainte-Catherine Street West
Every day, Café London Bus offers patrons an opportunity to experience “traditional” English culture by serving
THE LOCAL SEEkER,
AUG 5 (pg. 6)
Westmount, QC, H3Z 1P4 (514) 931-5571
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Cruisin’ for a bruisin’ ? Cruises are fun, inexpensive and accessible… but are they safe?
by Bram D. Eisenthal
T
hree winters ago, I took a one-week vacation with one of Carnival Cruise Line’s newer liners, Splendor. It was a leap of faith for a guy who loves to travel, but whose first cruise on Carnival’s Victory the year before ended with a horribly seasick night. I vowed never to cruise again – when you are heaving on a cruise ship, there really IS nowhere to go but down, I guess, if you seek relief. This time, we were a large group: Me, my girlfriend, her elderly parents, her sister, her teenaged daughter, her teenaged son and his girlfriend. It was a grand period in my life. A new job awaited me and I had recently completed the Canadian Red Cross’s Emergency Medical Responder course and had been accepted onto the volunteer crew of EMS Cote Saint-Luc, where I was going out in ambulances as a stagier. The cruise was going, er, swimmingly, I suppose, with nary a nauseous moment anywhere and I was lounging about on upper decks enjoying the afternoon sun when my girlfriend shouted “Bram, come quick, someone is hurt!” I grabbed my knapsack – I often take it with me when I am out and I usually keep a pocket mask, stethoscope and blood pressure cuff inside, in case of emergency – and rushed off to see what had happened. An elderly man lay on his back next to an exit door, blood glistening in the sun at the top of his forehead. Over the next 45 minutes, I learned from the conscious man and onlookers that he had tripped on the door ledge and fallen, his head apparently striking the metal wall before he rolled onto his back. As I said, many minutes had already gone by and
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the doctor was still not anywhere in sight. I was starting to get antsy and asked a crew member to find out where he was. Suddenly, several more staff appeared, this time with a wheelchair, intending to load the victim onto it. I fixed them with my sternest gaze and stated “No one is touching this man until the doctor comes and examines him properly.” They backed off. Note that in the case of possible spine or head injury, moving a victim could be life-threatening. The best thing you can do is ensure they are breathing and, best of all, conversing. In this instance, I spoke to the man, ensuring he remained as calm as possible, did not move a solitary muscle, checked his vital signs (blood pressure, pulse and breaths) a second time and kept an eye out for the blasted doctor. He finally appeared and when I introduced myself, he immediately announced for all to hear that the reason he was late was another emergency at the opposite end of the ship. That meant, of course, that there was but one doctor servicing a shipload of several thousand vacationers and zero other emergency staff trained to respond to situations such as these. If there was anyone else qualified on board, where were they? Then the doctor announced to the staff that they should get a back board ready and proceeded to get a collar that he could place around the man’s neck. At this time, remembering one of the first things we learned in EMS training, I asked, somewhat incredulously “Doctor, would you like me to immobilize his HEAD?” “That would be a good idea,” he responded to the rookie. Needless to say, this virtual oversight did nothing to alleviate my concerns.
AUG 5 (pg. 7)
After the man was carried off, I went to the purser’s office to report this incident and the concerns I had. I later learned that the man had been taken to hospital, but had been returned to the ship the next day, before we departed…. And that he later suffered a heart attack and had to be taken to another hospital. During embarkation at the end of the cruise, I was pulled aside and asked to fill out a report detailing my side of the story. My girlfriend was asked to do the same as a witness to the event. Back in Montreal, I typed and mailed a letter to the owner of Carnival and several other major cruise lines, Micky Arison, former owner of the Miami Dolphins football team. I reported what had happened and suggested that they hire first responder crews on all their cruises. You could pay them very little (I am certain many people would work for a small salary and free cruises) and their presence would not only provide much peace of mind, but also invaluable support during emergency situations. I received a letter from Carnival thanking me for my assistance and telling me I could expect a second letter from the CEO in the future. That letter never came. When booking a cruise, I suggest that you ask very pointedly what the status of the medical team on board the ship is. As you can see, when things go well on a trip, they can go very well, but when they don’t?
Happy and healthy sailing!
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NEWS
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Director John Landis in Montreal to accept Fantasia lifetime achievement award July 28, 2011 marked a very special evening in Fantasia lore as legendary director John Landis took to the stage to accept his Lifetime Achievement Award from the festival. Landis, whose large number of film credits include An American Werewolf in London, National Lampoon’s Animal House, The Blues Brothers and Michael Jackson’s seminal Thriller video segment, as well as both the memorable prologue and a controversial segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie, was on stage to accept the award just prior to a sold-out screening of his feature film Burke and Hare. He admired the faux bronze Pegasus sculpture, stating that this was one of the nicest awards he had ever received (PHOTO CREDIT: king-Wei Chu).
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Read On! - Andreas Kessaris
God, You Say? About sixteen years ago I found myself in a church for a wedding rehearsal. My best friend Nick had bestowed upon me the great honour of presiding over his nuptials as Best Man. All went well until after the rehearsal, when I was approached by an older woman who wanted to confirm if I was the designated Best Man. After certifying that fact, she informed me that in order to be permitted said duty, I was required to become a member of their church and pay dues.
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Growing up, I was never particularly religious and by then I was (quite happily) a man without faith, so I let her know I had no interest in joining any “doomsday cult,” reminding the church official that my friend had already dropped a substantial amount of money to hold the wedding there, that many of the guests would probably buy their over-priced candles as well as contribute to the collection plate and that it was completely unfair for her to employ some archaic bylaw in order to squeeze me for some of my hard earned “gelt.” “Look…it is a church, but it is a business too,” she replied in a thick Greek accent, summing up in a few words one of the reasons why I find organized religion so distasteful. We eventually reached a compromise: Nick would pay the dues for a year (despite my moral outrage) and I would allow the membership to lapse. So if you are, like me, fed up with religion, or just sitting on the fence looking for a way to go, you might find these works helpful: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens’s God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, two books with the same mind-set that are as different as the Brits who wrote them. Richard Dawkins, a career scientist, uses a logical, level-headed approach to the question of God’s existence. Smooth, direct, full of facts, enjoyable and intelligent, The God Delusion could make the Pope feel like he wasted his life. Note that I read the original, hard cover version of the book that contained, upon the dust jacket, the bright white word “GOD” on that eerily glows in the dark. Hitchens, on the other hand, employs his signature passionate, provocative, take-no-prisoners rant style designed to verbally slap sense into any believer. He is a masterful wordsmith whose sentences run as long as most other writers’ paragraphs… and paragraphs that take up a page and a half at that! I kept a dictionary at my side while reading God is Not Great because at least one of every three pages contained an unusually and unnecessarily lengthy word. I swear to God you’ll love these books. Read on! www.essaysbyandreas.com
Kith
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THE LOCAL SEEkER,
AUG 5 (pg. 9)
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B. CHILDREN’S WEAR IMPORTER SEEKING PARTNERSHIP Company designs branded and private label children’s clothing and manufactures in Asia with Asian financial partner. ·Sales to boutiques only. Founder and President has 30+ years of design and executive operational experience.
AUG 5 (pg. 10)
·Seeking partnership to execute a fully normally require a multiple step and time consuming registration process (with one detailed five-year business plan. of their already existing mail or social C. MEDICAL/LAB COATS/SPA network accounts like Facebook, Twitter, INDUSTRY SMOCKS IMPORTER Gmail, LinkedIn and Microsoft). In Sales in 2010, $600,000 through 3 commercialization stage. commission sales reps. - Gross profit “LOCAL SEO” 38%. - Asian partner offers generous F. START UP CO. Seeking terms - Seeking partnership or sale or TECHNOLOGY Strategic Partner division head opportunity. Start-up founded in 2010, has developed D. UNIFORM COMPANY a local marketing and analytics SaaS SEEKING STRATEGIC PARTNER platform and recommendation engine. Sales in 2010, $2.2m...historical The software enables marketing agencies average up to 2008 is $4.5m sales. - and internet marketing professionals to Men’s and women’s blazers, suits, centrally manage local online marketing skirts, pants, shirts. - · Production is campaigns for their local, regional and both domestic (with contractors) and national clients. Partners are very import. - 15 successful and profitable dynamic and talented entrepreneurs and technologists. Ready for years. commercialization. E. START UP TECHNOLOGY COMPANY SEEKING G. VISUAL DESIGN COMPANY STRATEGIC PARTNER Company founded in 2009 has FOR SALE developed API (Application Elkin Consulting Group has been Programming Interface). A bridge engaged to source a strategic purchaser between sites and programs that allows for 100% of the shares of a Montreal for a two way flow of data and based designer and manufacturer of information. There are only two other visual designs(exhibits, kiosks, stages, known global competitors. Founder museum shows, etc.). Profitable. - Since and 5 experienced team members have 2002, designs unique show concepts using printable stretch fabrics. - mounted successful IT and marketing history. They are developing a specialized on portable aluminum or steel framing. online marketing tool program - · Sales via Website, repeat and referral allowing end users to sign up quickly business, architects, store designers, and simply, to websites that would interior designers, phone sales, etc.
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THE LOCAL SEEkER,
AUG 5 (pg. 11)
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Hope you have enjoyed this issue of the Local Seeker. Our next issue will come out on August 19, 2011.
Bes t, Bra m
Deadline Friday, August 12, 2011, 12 noon
THE LOCAL SEEkER,
AUG 5 (pg. 12)
FREE CLASSIFIED ADS: 514-975-7745 www.westend.thelocalseeker.com