Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Who is Cathy Latimer?

I came across a posting in the local St. Catharines paper in the "Letters to the Editor" section that caught my interest.

As a member of the Board of the Barrie Construction Association we are dealing with the same issue that Cathy brigs up below about out of town contractors winning locla jobs. In Barrie we have started to get dialogue going with the city and inviting them to speak at events. The long term goal is to make it so local contractors can have a leg up for public tax supported projects.

Now I am trying to find who Cathy Latimer is and encourage here to get in touch with the Niagara Construction Association so they may take up the challenge. I have sent her posting to the General Manager of the Niagara Construction Association, who has then sent it on to her board. I will keep you posted if we find out who Cathy is and more importantly what the NCA does to help the next person who raises the issue and asks for help.

No support for local construction firms

As an employee of a local Niagara construction firm, I am outraged and appalled that many of our local construction projects are being awarded to out-of-town firms. Case in point, Bondfield Construction (Toronto) has secured at least three recent projects in St. Catharines (with area contractors bidding). The Standard then reports that city council recommends the out-of- town contractor use local forces -- it won't. Who pays the taxes for these projects? I do. Now I look forward to becoming one more person on the unemployment line because my city will not stand behind our local contractors and workforces. Shame on you St. Catharines and Niagara Region. Our community was once mine to enjoy. Now it is mine to watch die

Cathy Latimer

Monday, June 7, 2010

Publishers Viewpoint June 2010

Make sure you check out the new extended “Hotels and Lodgings Directory” in the Ontario Construction Report this month. The test has been successful as you can see! In May I had 8 hotels signed up, now I have a full page.

Directories in our papers and in association buyer guides are for the most part a low expense purchase with high potential for return. What separates our “Product and Services” directories in all the papers are the amount of people who will be able to see your listing and some of the online benefits. A traditional association directory ad will cost you $500 and for that the association prints anywhere between 500 and 1000 copies of the Buyers Guide. Your ad is set for the year and can not be changed. The biggest down fall of an association directory is usually the only people who get it are members of the association who you have paid to network with already by paying a membership fee.

Our directories are published monthly and can be updated at anytime if you change your email address, move to a new location or if you wish to expand it. Our circulation gives you more bang for your buck with the GTA paper reaching over 4,000 subscribers each month with the printed edition. If I have not convinced you yet, our online edition reaches well over 50,000 readers each month and by including an email or web address in your directory listing you are only one click away from potential customers. The directories are targeted to professionals to the construction industry giving you a great local and regional audience to draw potential customers from.

In the next few months I will start experimenting with the next leading edge advantage our online editions offer, you the advertiser will be able to subscribe to have a video to play when someone views your directory listing online. I have also started to ad new advertisers to our existing directories with some new targeted marketing pieces with decent results so far.

Are you in our “Products and Service Directories” yet? If you would like to be, email me at chase@cnrgp.com or call me 905-228-1151 and mention my Publishers Coloumn and I will give you $100 off of your directory listing and a free front page ad in the Ontario Construction Report. Also check out the online editions of the paper at www.cnrgp.com and go to the “Current Editions” tab to check out the online versions of the directories.