With a volunteer staff’s perseverance and hard work, Year 3 (from 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2019) was another good year for Canadian Filipino Net. Much appreciation goes to managing editor Rachel Reid. And to webmaster Arlene Wright for meeting unforgiving publishing deadlines and making the stories shine on the website pages every 1st and 16th of each month.
Staff Movements
While Canadian Filipino Net lost a couple of regular contributors to full-time jobs, it gained essayist Carissa Duenas of Toronto, social justice advocate Veronica Caparas of Edmonton, world- traveler Jo Leuterio- Flach who writes about lifestyle, Meyen Quigley of Victoria, and retired professor Adelaida Lacaba-Bago, serving as Canadian Filipino Net’s second Philippine correspondent.
Money Matters
Emmy Buccat and Iona Santos-Fresnoza prepared a successful application for a government grant and Canadian Filipino Net received $8,000 from Canadian Heritage for a social media campaign. An initial grant of $1,100 was received for fiscal year 2018-2019. The balance is due in fiscal year 2019-2020 to upgrade Canadian Filipino Net’s social media functions.
In Year 3, Canadian Filipino Net decided to have advertisements to cover operating costs.
As a result of an earlier donations campaign initiated by Kaye Banez, a few donations were received as well as a number of heart-warming letters of support and appreciation from readers.
Subscription numbers
Total number of email subscribers was 1,640 composed of Filipino community organizations, media, public relations, governmental departments and readers in general. Facebook friends were 1,027 and Twitter followers, 259.
Viewing statistics
In this 12-month period of Year 3, Canadian Filipino Net had 3,187,706 million hits and 62,477 total unique visitors according to web analytics from Canadian Filipino Net’s web hosting service. The Staff of Canadian Filipino Net do not have a hand in tallying statistics.
Canadian Filipino Net Readers Profile
Web Analytics also showed the profile of Canadian Filipino Net readers to be aged 25-34 and 35-44 or Millenials with women slightly outnumbering men. These young immigrants are in the prime of life and active wage earners. While it showed that Canadian Filipino Net reaches as far as the Middle East where there are millions of Filipino overseas workers as well as certain countries in Asia where there are many Filipino overseas workers such as Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore, the majority of Canadian Filipino Net readers are from urban centers all over Canada such Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Calgary and Montreal, followed closely by those in the Philippines.
Articles, Editorials and Teasers
In Year 3, Canadian Filipino Net published 159 articles, including 12 editorials plus 24 teasers/newsletters for a total of 183 original articles written exclusively for Canadian Filipino Net or an average of 15 new articles per month or 7.5 per two weeks. Not bad for a volunteer group with day jobs.
Still to Come
In 2021, Canadian Filipino Net will be celebrating its 5th year anniversary. To mark this occasion, the Canadian Filipino Net Editorial Board will publish a book about the contemporary history of Canadian Filipinos (2011 to 2021). The book will be a compilation of articles published on the Canadian Filipino Net website in the last five years with a new introductory article for each chapter explaining what the chapter is all about. The book will be for sale to enable the Canadian Filipino Net to continue publishing.
As it embarks on Year 4, assured of secure funding for the next 5 years, the staff of Canadian Filipino Net is determined to continue pursuing their goals of informing, connecting and engaging Filipinos all over Canada and making them proud to be Filipinos in their chosen adopted home.
Aprodicio "Prod" Laquian is professor emeritus of community and regional planning at the University of British Columbia. He has written or edited at least 24 books and numerous articles and book chapters on Asian development focused on urbanization, population growth, planning and governance, slum upgrading, and delivery of infrastructure and services. He has a BA in public administration, cum laude, from the University of the Philippines and a Ph.D. in Political Science major in urban studies from MIT in the US.
Canadian Filipino Net is an independent, non-profit digital magazine produced by volunteer writers, editors, and webmasters. Your donation will go a long way so we can continuously publish stories about Canadian Filipinos. Click on a donate button and proceed either through PayPal, Debit, or Credit Card.
