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Minutes of the Monthly Meeting held on December 12, 2016, at City Hall Committee room # 2

Present:

Thomas S. Saras
Neel Nanda
Maria Saras-Voutsinas
Rosemary Sadler
Ricky Castellvi
Latif Thakar
Pooyan Tabatabaei
Teshome Worleamanuel
Dimitris Vohaitis
Patrick Lang
Martin Van Denzen
Sandeep Prabakar
Rakhee Prabakar
Mike Kolosowski
Khadijeh Ebrahimian
Helen Li
Arif Ahmed
Khalid Magram
Isa Melo
Mohammad-Bagher Samimi
Sinan Capar
Suleyman Guven
Yuri Natchetoi
Eugene Bakchinow
Mohammad Tajdolati, Dr.
Shahidul Islam MIW TV- Bengali Times
Upali Obeyesekere
Hermie Garcia
Mila Astroga Garcia
Ahmed Shah Hotaki
Maria Swietorzeclei
Antony Joseph
Imran Basir
Paulo Meigri
Fedoella Wang
Polaf Yapililar
Baran Socmaz
Shahidul Mindu
Marek Goldyn
Sodic Gran
Aris Babikian
Janusz Niemczyk
Raffe Der Boghossian
Yohannes Axalew
Ranjit Wicks
Srimal Abeyewardene
Charles Devasasanam
John Saraidaris
Ernesto Donan
Susana Donan
Kevin Wang.

 

Agenda

  1. Welcome Remarks by the chair.

  2. Minutes of the previous meeting

  3. Report of the President

  4. Presentation by Imran Bashir CEO at Apptellect Inc on the Digital Publishing Platform for NEPMCC

  5. Presentation by Aris Babikian

  6. New Members

  7. Adjournment

    8.  

    Welcome Remarks by the Chair:

    Mr. Thomas Saras chaired the meeting and declared the meeting open. Sandeep Prabhakar moved a motion to approve the agenda. Jonathan Annobil seconded it. The motion was carried

     

    Minutes of the previous meeting:

    Sandeep Prabhaker moved a motion to approve the minutes of the previous monthly meeting Janus Raudkavic seconded it. The motion was carried.

    President’s Report/Discussions:

    • Thomas Saras also reminded the members to renew their membership this year in order to enjoy the benefits and privileges of being a member of NEPMCC. He expressed disappointed that only a portion of members have renewed their membership.

    • President Thomas Saras informed the members that the first phase of the digital publishing platform will begin from January 2017. He mentioned that the company responsible for the implementation of the Digital Publishing Platform would update 5 websites every month and as a result 60 websites can be migrated every year to the Digital Publishing Platform.

    • President Thomas Saras educated members on the application procedure of Canada Magazines Fund and encouraged everyone who qualifies to apply as this year the Government has increased the budget of ethnic media due to the tireless work from NEPMCC. He answered all relevant questions regarding the rules and regulations governing the application process.

    • The last few remaining tickets for Annual Dinner to be held on December 16 were distributed during the meeting for a subsidized rate of $30 per ticket. President Thomas Saras encouraged all members to participate with their families. All levels of Government, including the Premier of Ontario the guest of honour among other dignitaries have been invited for this dinner and it will be a great way to wind up another great year at NEPMCC and prepare for the next year.

    Presentation by Imran Bashir CEO at Apptellect Inc on the Digital Publishing Platform for NEPMCC

    Imran Bashir made presentation on the digital publishing platform to be undertaken on behalf of the members of NEPMCC. He emphasized on the importance of mobile apps for ethnic publications as there is a big opportunity for revenue generation in digital realm. He mentioned that good content will help generate revenue while the company will be responsible for training and maintaining the infrastructure for digital publishing platform.
    Some of the highlights of his presentation included
    The digital platform will provide the following to the NEPMCC member publications:

    • Free website for the publication.

    • Free mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows Mobile.

    • Free educational and analytic tools to maximize the ad revenue.

    • Free content management system(CMS)

    • World class technical infrastructure for hosting and archiving the content.

    • Built-in advertisement from large advertisers to monetize the content.

    • Ongoing training and support to say relevant in this age of digital media

    • NEPMCC sponsored content monetization/content management platform will enable community newspapers to thrive by providing access to the same online publishing resources as newspaper giants.

    • With the proposed digital publishing platform, NEPMCC members will be able to publish their content digitally so that it can be consumed by the readers anywhere in the world using their computers and cell phones.  This will save the members from maintaining expensive Information Technology (IT) infrastructures that they cannot afford.

    Pooyan Tabatabaei, Sandeep Prabhakar, Lalit Thakkar, Logan, Srimal Abeyawardene, Hermie Garcia, Mohammad Tajdolati and other members asked a wide variety of questions such as revenue sharing, advertising generation, monetization of the content, transfer of hosting etc. Imran Bashir candidly answered all questions relevant to the project and assured cooperation for the successful implementation of this project.
    President Thomas Saras thanked Imran Bashir for his presentation and mentioned that the project will ne landmark for the members of NEPMCC as it will give its members the needed infrastructure to compete in the digital world and encouraged all members for their participation as the project will start from January 2017. Mr. Saras also said that he hopes by January the special committee of the members will take action towards the perfection of the program.

    Presentation by Aris Babikian

    Aris Babikian made a brief presentation on his decision to contest the nomination of the upcoming Provincial Progressive Conservative Party nomination in the riding of Scarborough – Agincourt. He mentioned about his background in community service with various organizations for a number of years along with his professional experience in dealing with community issues. He distributed a handout to the members present during the meeting and hoped to work for the cause of ethnic media industry at any capacity once given any opportunity.

     

    New Members/ New Business

    Adjournment:Jonathan Annobil moved a motion to adjourn the meeting and Suleiman Guven seconded it. The motion was carried. The Chair, President Thomas Saras adjourned the meeting at 9 pm. The next monthly meeting would take place on Monday, January 09, 2017 at Committee room N# 2, second floor, City Hall.