Monica Blackburn is well known for getting brands noticed. She is an owner at Distill Design, a Graphic & Website Design house, designing with intention to get you results, by focusing on helping you build your brand. Her original designs have proven to be the benchmark for her clients’ competitors.

Photo from last July, 2014 Member Readings

All are invited to attend our annual Holiday Party and Member Readings. There will be a special breakfast menu, 50/50 draw, holiday music and a raffle.  In addition WEN members will be reading poetry and short stories. This is a good meeting to bring a guest. If they join WEN, you will be credited with a free breakfast.

Dr. George Grant, who is known as The Caring Doctor, is considered the Canadian authority in integrative medicine and a wellness ambassador. Dr. George Grant is an expert in biofeedback, stress, anti aging and natural pain management. He is the founder & CEO of the Academy Of Wellness. Dr. Grant enjoys a stellar academic and a fascinating career in research. He is a scientist, professor, chemist, toxicologist, nutritionist, biofeedback, stress management and a pain specialist. Dr Grant worked as a Senior Consultant for Health Canada, FDA and CDC as well as in private practice. Dr. George Grant has helped fortune 500 companies, non profit organizations and Olympic athletes along with 5000 clients worldwide. He has over 100 published articles, conference presentations, book reviews and seven bestselling books including the two books shown below.

Leigh Fowler is the President of Rise Media + Design, keeping technology from getting in the way of entrepreneurs and businesses that need to take their online marketing to the next level. She provides strategy, management and maintenance services as well as content marketing & writing packages for authors, coaches and entrepreneurs.

Early in her career as Digital Media Director at Robert Kennedy Publishing, Leigh previously developed marketing campaigns and worked behind the scenes with authors and luminaries in the fitness field like Tosca Reno, Robert Kennedy, Jack LaLanne, Diane Hart and Cecily Knobler. Managing more than 400 email campaigns annually, she launched 14 websites and 21 social media pages for Oxygen Women’s Fitness magazine, The Eat-Clean Diet®, Clean Eating magazine, MuscleMag and others. Her efforts helped contribute to the combined growth of over a half-million fans, follows and likes, resulting in triple the web traffic and double the email opt-ins.  She started her own business in 2012 to bring her expertise and passion to a wider audience.

As a past National Team Cyclist, Leigh has found that the lessons she learned from competitive sport have transferred over to business very well.  Approaching all projects and marketing challenges from a big picture perspective, she helps her clients find success by building and implementing a comprehensive online marketing plan that incorporates both their top objectives and those important small details that make all the difference. Mix that approach with an appreciation for teamwork, focus and discipline and you get a results-based individual who is committed to achieving success with every project she touches.

Fueled by a desire to give back to the sport of cycling, Leigh has been writing and editing professionally since 1996.  Over the years, Leigh wrote and published over 200 articles, including articles by top Olympians, world champions and other competitive athletes.  With a keen interest in the visual cues that make layouts and websites appeal to readers, Leigh studied Digital Media Design full-time, learning everything from colour theory to interface design to HTML coding and web design. She took those skills and started designing websites, launching her first magazine, pushbikes.ca, an interactive and online cycling ‘zine for bike enthusiasts.

BLOG

Leigh’s blog, Going Digital, is featured weekly on Unbound Media and is focused on helping teams extend their brands online and overcome the inevitable obstacles and barriers that pop up along the way.

Anita Sechesky is a Registered Nurse, Life Coach, Entrepreneur, International Best-Selling author, Inspirational Keynote Speaker, as well as an NLP and Law of Attraction Practitioner. She has been a practicing RN for almost 10 years, gaining extensive knowledge and skills caring for people facing a variety of medical challenges in health care.  She has worked in hospitals and nursing homes, thoroughly enjoying working with all client age groups.  She is specialized in Trauma Nursing and is working in various Emergency Rooms throughout South-western Ontario.

Currently, Anita is compiling her second major anthology project “Living Without Limitations – 30 Stories to Balance Your Mind, Body & Spirit”.  This powerful and inspirational book will be featured in all major book stores internationally and available on Amazon.com in early 2014.

As an Inspirational Life Coach, Anita is certified through the Academy of Coaching Cognition, which is an ICF (International Coaching Federation) recognized Institute of Learning.  She has gained more clarity about her own passion of empowering others. Anita has mentored and coached people from the music & television industry, health care workers, entrepreneurs, social media, career transitions, Realtors, etc. She provides Career Coaching to new grads entering the competitive job market, as well as Resume and Cover letter packages. Anita is the CEO and Owner of the company Anita Sechesky – Living Without Limitations. Her vision for her company is to empower and inspire others to live their own lives without limitations, such as false beliefs, grief, past failures, broken dreams, struggling relationships, finding your identity, lost hope, health conditions, lies and labels placed by others.

Working with Coach Anita will help you break off things in your own life by goal-setting, re-examining your perceptions and seeing where you have been limiting your own power and potential!

July 19, 2014 Members Readings

At the July members readings, the winners of the Summer Sizzle Poetry Contest will be announced.

Theo Heras

After more than 20 years working as a children’s librarian in Toronto, I have retired. But I’m not out of the children’s book world yet. I’m still offering programs for babies, both in private homes and in community settings. I’m writing for children and remaining active in CANSCAIP and IBBY-Canada. Currently I’m chairing the Elizabeth Mrazik Cleaver Canadian Picture Book Award. And, of course, I’m singing.

Dorothea Helms’s work includes regular features on Canadian celebrities, and she has been privileged to interview and write about over 50 well-known professionals in the entertainment, sports, media and arts worlds. Dorothea has sat in the living rooms of Pinball Clemons, the late Timothy Findley, George Fox, Ronnie Hawkins, Roger Ashby, the late Ben Wicks, Jeff Healey, Sandy Hawley, Alannah Myles, Dinah Christie, Bruce Good, Ted Barris, Bill Lishman, Kim Mitchell, Neil Crone and many other reader favourites and written on their lifestyles.

In addition, Dorothea’s articles have appeared in local, regional, national and international magazines and newspapers, including Chatelaine, lichen literary journal, Stitches: The Magazine of Medical Humour, Popular Woodworking, Woodworker, Big Buck, The Business and Professional Woman, Real Estate Magazine, Homes & Lifestyles and Today’s Homes. Dorothea’s humour also peppers the many articles she provides for the Toronto Sun Special Sections such as “Career Connections” and “DriverSource Saturday.”

Dorothea teaches Creative Writing at the college level and offers a fresh perspective that defies typical journalism styles. She offers topnotch writing and editing services for everything from small ads to technical websites and books. Currently, she is the editor of numerous magazines and special sections for Metroland Printing and Publishing and York Region Newspaper Group in the Greater Toronto Area. Dorothea recently started a second writing business that focuses on humour in a series of books, keynote speeches, workshops and courses. Visit The Writing Fairy for the opportunity to purchase her new book on writing.

Dr. Gina Valle is a leading diversity trainer, speaker and author. She is the recipient of the Diamond Jubilee Medal recognizing her contribution to diversity in Canada. Her latest book “Teachers At Their Best – Enseignants Sous Leur Meilleur Jour”, looks at issues of diversity in our society and in our classrooms.
Gina offers workshop and training sessions to organizations, hospitals, school boards and women’s groups. To learn more about these workshops, please visit: http://www.diversity-matters.ca/workshops.html

Dr. Gina Valle has a PhD in Teacher Education and Multicultural Studies from OISE, University of Toronto.

Sholom Glouberman is Philosopher in Residence at Baycrest, President of Patients Canada, and an adjunct at the Universities of Toronto and York. He gained experience in healthcare by first caring for his dying father, and then as a planner at the MUHC in Montreal. Later he became a Fellow at the King’s Fund in London England, director of Health Policy for the Canadian Policy Research Networks and Director of the International Masters for Health Leadership at McGill. He has been a health systems adviser in Canada and the UK. His most recent project is to develop patient experience based indicators to help with the redesign of health care services at Baycrest and in Northumberland County.

In 2005 Sholom underwent a major surgical procedure and became a patient.  This experience and his fourth book My Operation – a graphic example of the disparity between the patient experience and institutional concerns, led him to found Patients Canada which became an incorporated charity in 2011. It now reaches more than 7000 patients and providers and is poised for far greater growth.