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Dear readers,

As we celebrate Thanksgiving Day in North America, let me start my editorial with sincere thanks to all GTA This Month readers and feedback senders. We are indeed enjoying every bit of your feedback, which means a great deal to us. Sincere thanks to all the volunteers and the entire team of GTA This Month for their dedication and determination for this venture to succeed.  Way to go team!

Generally, Canadians like the Americans give thanks to a successful harvest. However, in the modern world as we continue with the tradition, Thanksgiving day is celebrated not only literally for the good harvest but for other blessings as well.

As we continue to focus and celebrate multi-culturalism, we picked to feature an article similar to the Thanksgiving Day celebration by our Muslim brothers and sisters called “Eid”. Nonetheless, whether you are a Christian, Jewish or Muslim and whatever your belief or religion and despite the everyday hustle and bustle, remember that life is a precious gift we all should be grateful about. So live it to the fullest and allow us to be part of that by becoming your source of wealthy information.

We live for a cause and in our support to the “End Breast Cancer and Run for the Cure” campaign, we have included an article related to this so far, incurable malady. “Prevention is always better than cure”, hence, be clued-up and pass the message to your  family and friends.  

Another exciting life existence to talk about is our Young Achiever’s profile. We were inspired by our last’s month’s article on karaoke and so we got in touch with one of the Canadian Idol finalists, Martha Joy (MJ) for a personal interview. It was pretty much difficult to match our schedules, due to her hectic performances, but here’s another reason to be thankful about-we managed with cheers and found out that she is not only very talented but indeed very sweet. See more of Martha Joy on our Young Achievers corner.

It is officially autumn! Let’s begin to enjoy the changing of colours and embrace a bit of crisp cool breeze of the season.  So for a change, we have improved our site by adding the Classified Ad section. It is FREE and no registration required. Just follow the prompts and find the category for your AD, be it an upcoming event or wanting to turn something into cash. It’s an easy tool to advertise!

To everyone, here’s our way of saying thank you in many different languages. Which one is your mother tongue? Salamat po! Gracias! Merci! Danke! Shukran! Obrigado! Shukria! Grazie!

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

Criss Papa-Nañola
Editor

Hello readers!

This is our 3rd edition and I would like to share with you dear readers how awe-inspiring it is to have received feedbacks from even across the border. It is indeed, very promising to note that the “word-of-mouth” is a very effective advertising tool. Although the Magazine mostly talked about the Greater Toronto Area events and happenings, it has attracted readers from across the country, who apparently enjoys every bit of information herewith and are complimenting our photo album. Kudos, indeed to our GTA This month photographer and great job to our  volunteer writers.

Summer is over in T.O. and hard as it may seem, we now have to say goodbye to our  shorts and shirts.  It’s been a brief hectic summer for us but our journey within the GTA this season was superb! We certainly had fun becoming  tourists in our own city. 

The last bits of our summer sojourn were at the Mabuhay Filipino Festival, which showcased an exciting array of fun and very elaborate Filipino entertainment. This was followed by a Cultural Parade, week after the Festival of the Greeks known as Taste of the Danforth. We have also covered the 4-day event Buskerfest at the historic St. Lawrence Market neighbourhood of Toronto and the last but not the least was the very first edition of the Fashion Fest in T.O on Yonge & Dundas Square. Now comes the EX, we, the Torontonians know that FALL season is without a doubt on its way!

This doesn’t mean our GTA This month will not be as animated as our summer events. Our September issue, in fact is full of interesting articles like our new Beauty and Fashion page. You surely would not want to miss our very appealing article “Beauty -the never ending story”, which will help you find the authentic life you were born to live. As we  also begin the months of  “ber”, parents and kids will soon be gearing up for back to school  shopping and  so we let our  own kids delve into jotting down articles for our ‘what’s hot  corner”  as they go back to school themselves.

Temperature is maybe dropping but it is too early to hibernate. It is rather perfect to take a vacation out of your totally tiring outdoor vacation.  Hence, stay home,  light your favourite scented candles  and  start browsing our September  issue. Practice falsetto on our “Karaoke” piece and don’t forget to check our event menu to plan your Fall program. 

I’ll leave you now with some borrowed words of wisdom from Joe Lewis: “ You only live once - but if you work it right, once is enough”.

Til next.

Criss Papa-Nañola
Editor

Dear readers,

Welcome back to the second edition of GTA This month.

It is overwhelming to note that our first edition was such a success.  We have monitored the number of viewers on our first release and we are happy to share with you that we have reached about 5,263 for first time visitors and 1,125 for returning visitors.

Thank you to all who have visited the site, to all the supporters and especially to those who have left their comments and feedback. We truly value your opinions. Keep those comments coming.

In this edition, we have so much more to offer you. We are very excited to give you full coverage of the exciting Toronto Summer Festivals.  We had fun covering the Taste of Thailand, the Brazilian Fest, the opening ceremony of the Asian Community Games and the most lavish and fanciful Caribbean Festival. For the music lovers, you’ll catch a glimpse of the different bands in Canada that played a fusion of Big Band, Jazz, Rhythm & Blues and Soul during the 19th Toronto Beaches International Jazz Festival. This time, our bowling enthusiasts will see what’s happening in and around the bowling lanes strewn all over the GTA with pictures of their summer leagues.  Thanks to my speedy cam shooter for perfectly capturing every angle of all the activities.  In this issue, we promise you another totally entertaining package!

We are also extremely proud to give you our first feature stories in ‘Profile of the Month’.   Click on its ‘Immigrant Professional Achiever’, ‘Young Achiever’ and ‘Diplomats' Corner’ and see what makes our magazine truly unique. We are deeply honoured to have the Philippine Consul General. Albeit His Excellency’s very hectic schedule, we were given the opportunity to visit him in his office. The Consul himself is a very good conversationalist and although this was our correspondent’s very first assignment, she didn’t have any difficulty throwing questions at our very intelligent and charming Consul General.  Read the initial struggles of our immigrant professional achiever and find out how he pulled through to be what he is today.   Last but not the least, catch a breath of fresh air with our pretty young achiever, the reigning Miss Junior Philippines-Toronto 2007.  Yes, indeed, we truly aspire to inspire!

And for a quick stress-buster, visit www.mmm-boogrrs.com.

Cheers!

Criss Papa-Nañola
Editor

Welcome to the very first edition of GTA This Month!

We hope to give you the true pleasure of fun and worthy reading. We’ll make every
effort to get you the latest and forthcoming events within the boundaries of the Greater Toronto Area, as well as capture those special and memorable moments for you to enjoy and live by.

GTA is a dedicated event magazine, which features monthly social events and the latest happenings in your community. Right here, you’ll read about kids’ extra-curricular activities to mommy’s ballroom dancing and sports events not only for the daddies but for all sports fanatics. As we aim to promote diversity and unity, we will cover various functions from all ethnic backgrounds and focus on what makes Canada a truly unique place to live in.

In this very first issue, we are delighted to bring you numerous summer activities from
all walks of life. We have covered the celebration of the “Philippine Independence Day“,
the yummy “Taste of Asia” and the very gay and colourful “Pride Parade” to name a few. Sharpen your imagination with our cartoon strips and laugh while you read our "That tickles" page. You will love our ‘Rendezvous Corner’ with random pictures…… and hey, were you there?

Take a look, browse through the pages and enjoy reading the broad range of information and articles that we have for you from this edition onwards--winter, spring, summer, fall and back to the cycle.

Join us as we venture within the GTA. Relax, read and remember, it’s the simple pleasures that matter most!

Criss Papa-Nañola
Editor