Welcome! We are so excited to finally be up and running and able to have all of you join us.
We hope you will all take some time to browse the site and enjoy the informative and helpful articles that some of our supporters have written for us over the last month as we got closer and closer to launching the site. A big thanks to Liz Nyland, Jannise Scott and Dan Clapson for being our very first guest contributors, as well as Michelle Peters-Jones, Janice Lawandi and Joy Farrell-Grove for putting together the Events listings for their respective parts of the country.
Some of the regular features we will have for you:
1. An Events section for a directory of Canadian food and beverage happenings across the country that we think food bloggers might enjoy. If you know of an event in your community that we've missed, please be sure to pass it on and we'll add it to the list. We're also interested in any local food blogging tweetups/meetups you might be arranging so please feel free to share those as well.
2. A Featured Canadian Food Blog. If you have a Canadian Food Blog that you are just crazy about, let us know. We'll be featuring somebody each week and it will always be a surprise... maybe it will be you!
3. Our Forum is open for discussion and networking and we encourage you all to make the most of it if you want to meet food bloggers near you or if you have questions about getting your blog to be it's best - Canadian Food Bloggers have a vast range of experience and it would be great if we could all share our knowledge. You must be a member of the site to participate but, we hope that's the reason you're here in the first place!
Our goal from day one has been to provide a place for Canadian Food Bloggers to network and learn from one another. Our aim is to produce as much original, Canadian content as possible and to introduce you to some of the outstanding food blogging talent that this country has to offer.
One thing that was repeated to us over and over again when we solicited advice and suggestions late last spring was "when will there be a Canadian Food Bloggers conference??". Believe me when I say, we whole heartedly agree and it's very high on our list of priorities.
However, a conference is a big, expensive undertaking, especially with a country whose geography is as vast as ours. We're up to the challenge but in order for us to pull it off, the one thing that we really need is a strong, vibrant membership so we can show venues and sponsors that we're serious. So the best thing you can all do at this point is sign up and get involved - either as a contributor or in the forums! We'll have much more on that in the coming months but for now, we encourage you to sign up and be an active member.
This has truly been a labour of love for the three of us since we had that first discussion over dinner back in early May. We are so grateful for all of the support that so many of you have shown us for getting this initiative off the ground. We greatly appreciate all the help we've had from the writers who have written initial posts for us, the people who have taken on the task of building our event listings, Mushrooms Canada and Canadian Beef for being so supportive when this idea was just that... an idea, and to Dave Zille at Dazil Internet Services for generously donating hosting and development advice for the site. The site is definitely a work in progress and we'll be adding to it and increasing functionality as time goes on.
We have much more coming for you over the coming months and we hope to see you all become involved. If you have an idea for an article or would like to contribute to the group in some way, we'd love to hear from you!
Welcome and thank you!
Melissa, Ethan and Mardi
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Well done you three! You all deserve a hand. I, for one, am happy to see a place where we can all share ideas and help grow food blogging in this great country of ours.
this is already awesome…loving the 101s! Best wishes!!!