The Sterling Creations spring 2014 newsletter
Hello and welcome to the Sterling Creations newsletter, which is produced quarterly.
We hope that you enjoy it and encourage you to pass it along to those who may be
interested in the types of services that we offer. We welcome your feedback and invite
you to give us your comments for it is only through you and with you that we can
improve our services.
Table of contents
1 Message from the president
2 Acknowledgements
3 The First quarter
4 Help stop the spread of crime against innocent victims
5 Sterling services
6 List of blogs
7 Contact info
*****
Message from the president
Dear readers:
Ah yes! Spring is finally here and it is o so great to hear those friendly birds every
morning, to smell the fragrance of the blooming flowers, and to see the sun shining and
the trees swaying gently in the cool breeze. You probably guessed it! I love spring!
The first quarter was a bit of a challenge for us here at Sterling Creations but as you will
see from our first quarter review below, we had to face some interesting challenges.
However, and thanks to continuing support from both our customers along with our in
house team we have managed to weather some choppy seas and we are looking
forward to a better second quarter.
I invite you now to read our first quarter in review and I wish you the very best for a
beautiful spring.
With very best wishes
Donna J. Jodhan
President Sterling Creations
*****
Acknowledgements
Sterling Creations would like to thank the following persons:
Aaron Diblasi – web developer for www.donnajodhan.com
Frances
Moffat
–
web
support
for
www.sterlingcreations.com and support for Linkedin
Jamie Brown of Lumasis – website hosting
www.sterlingcreations.ca
and
Dee Scott – blog support for www.donnajodhan.blogspot.com
Dena Patrick – technical support for Facebook
Dar Wournell – social media support
Brad Larkin – social media support
Heather Rupert – Facebook exposure support
Imran Ingar – technical support
The folks at MIAD – technical support
Larry Lewis JR – Advertising support for Author Jodhan
Dan Jellinek – Advertising support for Author Jodhan
Donna Saccutelli – marketing support
Julie Buelow – marketing support
*****
The First quarter
The first quarter for Sterling Creations was a rather interesting one. With having to
work with a drooping Canadian dollar, some turmoil in our industry, and some clients
moving on, we managed to keep things together and to weather the worst of the
storms. We managed to hang on to some of our traditional clients but at the same time
we had to say goodbye to a few. This being said, however, we continued to provide
writing and accessibility services to our clients across North America and Britain.
We continued to produce editorials for the Diversity in the Workplace online newsletter
as
well
as
blogs
and
editorials
www.sterlingcreations.ca,
for
our
own
internal
www.sterlingcreations.com,
websites;
and
www.donnajodhan.blogspot.com.
Much of our effort for the first quarter centered on the marketing of the audio mysteries
at www.donnajodhan.com. We have implemented an online store where visitors can
either purchase or subscribe to author Donna Jodhan's entire library. The subscription
would give subscribers unlimited access to Author Donna's entire library and both
purchases as well as subscriptions are extremely affordably priced. You can check it out
at www.donnajodhan.com/store.html.
We have strengthened our social media team with the inclusion of Brad Larkin who is a
very smart and savvy young man. He is just fifteen but smart way beyond his years.
Bradly along with his mom Dar Wournell have been working to create a greater
presence for us on both Facebook and Twitter and in addition, they have been
developing strategies to help gain more exposure for us among mystery writers and
bloggers. We welcome Bradly Larkin to our team.
We are pleased to announce that on May 24, Author Donna will be teaming up with the
Halifax chapter of the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians to host and run a mystery
evening event. Author Donna has adapted one of her audio mysteries for this special
occasion and she has also developed some games to engage the audience. We are
extremely excited about this initiative and we are hoping to use this event as a
springboard to bigger and better events. Stay tuned!
Accessible Media Inc will be attending this event to observe and record proceedings and
this is wonderful news for us all. We will be working with their Halifax Bureau to get
things in order.
Donna's audio mysteries continued to be run on the ACB Internet radio station and it is
hoped that it will be like this for at least the immediate future.
Our unstoppable president continued her march to more as at the end of January she
attended a chess theme week in Windermere England and believe it or not!
She
actually won some games against some very tough opponents, smile! Donna thanks
Jackie Tai for having been such a great traveling companion as well as Peter and Celia
Gibbs the organizers along with the many great persons that she met at Windermere.
In February, Donna was invited to make a presentation to a class of students at the
Ontario College of Arts and Design and she talked about her journey in her charter
challenge case against the Canadian Government where she obtained a landmark victory
through the Federal Courts. Donna has been invited to give a similar presentation to a
group of about 100 employees at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce on April 11
and we will report on this in our next newsletter.
Donna has also just started to record weekly blogs for Accessible Media Inc. This will
consist of three blogs per week and it will include content that mixes things up. A bit of
Donna's personal perspectives, some political opinions thrown in for good measure, and
some typical daily experiences that she has to face.
In short, ingredients that only
Donna can produce in her very own unique style.
Donna continued to make her contribution to the Alliance for Equality of Blind
Canadians; working on the virtual wall of fame committee, and helping to organize a
town hall meeting for early April. We will report on this in our next newsletter but
suffice it to say that this town hall meeting is supposed to be a very unique one and one
of the first of its kind where participants will get an opportunity to interact up close and
personal with the CRTC. This town hall is being jointly sponsored by Accessible Media
Inc and the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians.
Donna exited from the Braille Camp committee in early January due to a heavy work
load but we are pleased to announce that this camp will take place during the last week
of July at Lake Jo and Sterling Creations has made a small monetary contribution to this
exciting initiative.
So what’s on the drawing board for the forthcoming quarter?
We will continue to serve our clients with our writing and accessibility services. We will
continue to support the audio mysteries initiative and our president as always has some
interesting tricks up her sleeve. Stay tuned for our next newsletter.
With very best wishes
The Sterling Creations team
*****
Please help stop the spread of crime against innocent victims
This is a personal message from author Donna Jodhan
"If you either are or have been a victim of crime, violence, abuse, or bullying; and if you
are simply tired of being bombarded with audios and scenes of the above, then I am
asking for your support.
I have written and recorded audio mysteries that are
completely void of vivid descriptions of sex, crime, and violence because I firmly believe
that it is time for us to use the spoken word to help influence our kids to start listening
to content that is clean and healthy. By doing this we can all do our part to tackle crime
in a positive and meaningful way and it only costs pennies per day.
Visit my online store at http://www.donnajodhan.com/store.html.
I thank you and your kids will also thank you!"
*****
Sterling Services
OUR ACCESSIBILITY SERVICES
Meet our accessibility team!
Made up of a hard working group of very dedicated
professionals.
This team offers compliance and evaluation services. They can help you to test and
evaluate your websites for W3C compliance. They are experienced at what they do and
some of their tasks include:
Accessible website design and development.
Accessible website testing and evaluation.
Accessible content development.
Creation of user testing, technical support, high level, and detailed evaluation
documents.
Managing of user testing teams.
User and technical support.
Hardware and software evaluations of access technology.
Presentations, seminars, and workshops.
Meet our research services team! Our newest edition.
This team can help you to research info on all kinds of topics. From simple subjects to
the more complicated ones. This team can do it.
At the present time the research team is heavily involved in helping clients to research
info for some very complicated Human Rights cases and in addition, they are assisting
several authors to find ways to market their books.
They also offer their research services to home businesses, small businesses, and to
individuals.
Some of their tasks include:
Researching of requested info.
Producing well-written documents containing the requested info.
This team can carry out Internet, phone, and library research on your behalf.
Meet our writing team! Known as the one stop writing shop.
This team is probably the busiest of our groups. Working with authors, students, and
marketing personnel from companies of all sizes.
Some of their tasks include:
Proofreading and editing.
Copy writing.
Re-writes.
The writing team can help you to enhance and expand your articles, blogs, newsletters,
online magazines, and web content.
They can also help you to write product reviews and for those having problems crafting
their papers in English, they are here to help you edit and format your work.
Meet our translation team! Made up of translators and language coaches.
This team works in English, French, Spanish, Cantonese, and Mandarin.
They are
heavily involved in the translation of storybooks for kids into several languages.
Their language coaches are also heavily involved in helping business professionals and
new Canadians to become more proficient at writing and speaking English.
Our dynamic team of translators and language coaches can help you to improve and
translate your articles, blogs, emails, faxes, newsletters, and online magazines.
addition, they offer services to help you improve your phone conversation.
Some of their tasks include:
Translation.
Language coaching.
Transcription.
Proofreading and editing.
In
To learn more about our accessibility activities, visit www.sterlingcreations.ca.
To learn more about how you can use our research and writing services to help you be
successful in your endeavors, visit www.sterlingcreations.com.
*****
List of blogs
The following is a list of websites where you can read blogs and editorials written by
Donna J. Jodhan:
Donna Jodhan! Advocating accessibility for all
http://www.donnajodhan.blogspot.com
Sponsored by the American Printing House for the Blind
http://www.fredshead.info
Weekly features on how to increase your success with your business ventures
http://www.sterlingcreations.com/businessdesk.htm
Weekly articles and editorials on issues about accessibility
http://www.sterlingcreations.ca/blog
The latest news about Author Donna Jodhan
http://www.sterlingcreations.ca/news.html
Ask an expert – how you can make your products and services more accessible
http://www.sterlingcreations.ca/sightimpaired.html
Editorials:
Issues and concerns on diversity in the workplace
http://www.diversityintheworkplace.ca
The new and exciting detective series starring Donna Jodhan as Detective DJ:
http://www.donnajodhan.com
*****
Contact info
To contact us by email: Please send your email to info@sterlingcreations.ca
To contact us by phone: Please give us a call at (416) 491-7711