The FWD Needs YOU!

Many have been wondering, ‘where is the next issue of The FWD?!’

After sending out 2 amazing issues in the spring and summer of this year, we are coming to the end of July with no answer. Thank you to all of the students at St. John’s High School, RB Russell & Children of the Earth for their contributions to making our first 2 issues such a success.

The FWD Issue #3

We are hoping to release our 3rd issue at the beginning of September 2012. Our talented team of Student Writers are on a mission to tackle the current issues and represent the voices of young people in our community. There are many positive experiences and many more opportunities, perspectives and issues to be addressed in our own words in this coming issue, but it will not be possible without community support.

We Need Your Help

There are 3 ways you can help us with THE FWD North End Newspaper:

1. If you are a young person in the North End, consider becoming a student writer! You get to learn how to be a journalist, meet cool people and have your words shared across the City! (you also get to make up your own pen name and personal logo!)

2. If you are a business, organization or group, consider purchasing an Ad in our next issue! We have created a formula where we can publish 3,000 copies of The FWD if we can receive 10 ads purchased for our next issue!

3. If you are a venue in the North End and want to set up a FWD News Stand, let us know! The more places (restaraunts, offices, gas stations, youth centres, etc) that allow us to set up a news stand, the more people will hear our voice. Thank you to the 3 North End High Scrools, and the many community businesses that have helped distribute The FWD (so far!).

To contact us there are 3 easy possibilities to catch our attention:

1. Send us an email thefwd@hotmail.com

2. Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/northendfwd

3. Tweet/follow us at @FWDwinnipeg

While you are at it, check out issue 1 & 2 online now!

ISSUE 1: http://movethenorthendfwd.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/the-fwd-issue-1-now-viewable-online/

ISSUE 2: http://movethenorthendfwd.wordpress.com/2012/05/17/the-fwd-issue-2-now-viewable-online/

We are working hard on our next issue. Please consider supporting our community Newspaper in any way you can!
Thanks!

-The FWD Crew

Click on the Image below (Adobe Reader is required):

(PS. The PDF Version of Issue 2 will be coming soon! Stay tuned. In the mean time, you can email us at thefwd@hotmail.com if you’d like
some paper copies to distribute at your business or organization.)

Chapter One: Dragons and Ice Cream
By: MetallicCelluloid

The short, nervous looking man casually approached the dragon. It was the last dragon, the final creation of the greatest blacksmith the world had ever known. The dragon looked straight ahead, piercing the eyes of the man standing before it. The iron wrought beast represented the culmination of almost nineteen years of work. The man smiled. He reached into his pocket, and took out a glowing silver pocket watch. Glancing down at the watch’s hands below him, he stared intently until the watch showed the time he had been waiting for. The time of day that had haunted his wildest nightmares, the time of day that brought a touch of surrealism to the most mundane of acts. Midnight.

The sound of glass breaking startled everyone in the restaurant except for two people, a man and woman, lost in heated conversation.
“No, no, no! You cannot simply dumb down Belmont’s genius to ‘a boy who is in search of ice cream’. It doesn’t work like that. The cinematography, the back story, the lighting as well… but you seem to not be a point where you can understand any of this.”
These words flew out of Alexander Princeton like cannonballs into the battlefield. He was passionate about the topic at hand, and refused to allow his girlfriend to slander his idol the way she had been doing for the last few minutes.
“But… I don’t get it. First he’s alone, which is fine. Then he meets Blue, and things get all weird. She leads him around the city, and then loses him, and then what happens? A giant robot fight? C’mon. I can’t get a clear understanding of a story from those events, and neither can you! You’re just making yourself out to be someone who gets this stuff, so you’ll impress more people. Well Alexander, while I find a great deal of what you are impressive, this part is only making me aggravated.”
The woman rose from her seat, and for a moment Alexander thought she was about to walk out on him. He imagined how embarrassing that could get, everyone in the restaurant noticing what had happened, him being left sitting alone, with no choice but to pay for their meals and walk out with his last few shreds of pride.
“Rebecca, please, sit down. Just because you didn’t like the movie, does not mean that we can’t have a nice day together. Would you like to go to the park, perhaps? It’s looking lovely this time of year.”
Alexander smiled. He knew this would work, Rebecca adored the park, and it had served as a fitting antidote to their quarrels on more than one occasion.
“Well, alright… can we walk on the path next to the river? I do love that path… and then get ice cream afterwards?”
“We can do whatever you would like, dearest. Waiter, check please!”

The dragon loomed over the man, looking somehow… different than before. It was now half past midnight, and the man was engrossed in his task. He knew he could never dream of creating such an amazing tribute to the creatures of the skies on his own, and if he ever did attempt such a thing, it would look like nothing more than a misguided venture of mimicry. To the untrained eye, the dragon would have looked rather innocuous. Daunting, massive, even powerful, these all would have described the dragon as well. But it would not have looked dangerous. Not at all. Only a few select beings knew of the true power that lay within this iron beast.
But he knew. The short, nervous looking man knew exactly why the dragon was there. He knew its purpose, and he also knew – in theory, how to control it. He had studied the various books concerning it, of course, having travelled to the various libraries of the damned for the past few years. A couple of the more integral passages, he could probably rattle off verbatim in his sleep. But those books, those massive volumes which many people would never attempt to open, let alone read… they did not contain the real knowledge. The knowledge the man had committed unspeakable acts to obtain.
He knew what had to be done. Seemingly out of nowhere, a dagger appeared in his hand. He looked down at it, closely examining the ancient symbols that lined the blade. He took a few long steps backwards, steadied himself, and prepared the throw the dagger. He envisioned its twists and turns in the air as it flew towards its target before he could bring himself to actually launch it into the air. He saw in his mind exactly where it would go, and then he let it fly. It shot into the night sky, sparkling in the moonlight as it got closer and closer to its mark. Then, without making a sound, it made its way into the dragon’s mouth.
The man carefully stepped towards the dragon, and peered into the hole of its mouth. The dagger was nowhere to be seen, and his work was done. Had anyone been there to notice, they would have seen that the dragon appeared to have gotten a little bit larger.

“You think that’s funny? Geeze, you should have heard some of the anecdotes my university calculus professor would throw at us, now those were comedy gold!”
Alexander laughed, and Rebecca laughed with him, as they walked alongside the river together.
“Oh, I’m sure they were. I think I met him once, when I was with you? He was muttering something about how gregarious people could all benefit from a high dosage of pessimism, or something like that. I’m sure he got everyone in tears from laughter daily.”
The sarcasm in her tone was easily detectable, but Alexander didn’t care. He was out with her, enjoying the splendors of nature, with a smile on his face that had been unwavering for the last twenty minutes. He felt no need to respond to her at this point, and was content to continue walking down the path, her hand in his. As they continued down the path, Rebecca was startled by a sudden group of dragonflies that flew into them.
“Guess they need to be somewhere in a hurry.”
Alexander remarked, still smiling.
“Maybe… or maybe they’re frightened of something, and they’re trying to escape. Say, didn’t your grandfather used to make dragonflies? Not real ones, of course, but stone ones? Am I close?”
Alexander looked down, his smile disappearing for the first time since they had begun their walk.
“He used iron. And they were not dragonflies, they were dragons. And, as the legend states, he was killed for them. There are a great many other suspicions surrounding his death as well, some of which too boring to even paraphrase for you, but I’ve always believed it had something to do with the dragons.”
“Oh, I, I hadn’t realized things were that serious. I’m sorry for asking, Alex. I really am.”
“No, no. It’s fine. I can deal with thinking about it. But for now, let’s continue our walk, shall we? We can plan where to go for ice cream later.”

Word of the Day #3

Days passed. The short, nervous looking man returned to the dragon on a daily basis, always arriving around eleven pm. He spent the hour before midnight carefully studying the beast, looking intently for what little differences had been made noticeable over the last twenty four hours. He made notes, taking down every little growth he could see. The dragon was growing, a little each day.
The man was getting rather tired of waiting for it to begin its final transition from an inanimate stone creature to a living, breathing monster. He knew that he would have complete control over it, of course.
“The man who grants it life, shall be granted control.”
This was inscribed on the final page of each of the books he had read concerning the dragon, and it was these words that spurred him on to complete his quest in moments of weakness. He pushed these thoughts of giving up aside, reminding himself of the control that was within his grasp.
The dagger that had appeared in his hand just days beforehand had not done so without reason. It went to him because it wished to. It saw in this man much promise, but it also saw his nefarious side. If someone was going to control this iron creature, it had to be someone that could handle it. The dagger recognized this control in the man, along with the desire for evil. The dagger didn’t mind. Its job was done, and was content to observe what would come in the future.

“So, what all do you know about this dragon? I mean, is it still out there somewhere?”
Rebecca’s interest had been peaked during her walk in the park a few days ago, and had been itching for an opportunity to bring it up with Alexander again ever since. Unfortunately for her, he had been in a terrible mood lately, and she had ended up spending the majority of her time attempting to placate him over the past few days. Finally, her efforts were beginning to pay off. He had been going out and about, cracking jokes, and smiling all day. It finally seemed like a fitting time to bring up what had seemed to be a rather delicate subject with him once more.
“Well. Let me see. Last I heard it was lost somewhere, but that could have changed. Or maybe it was never true at all. Many rumors float around in rather… dissonant ways. No one is ever sure what’s become of it, theories crash into each other on a regular basis, you know, that sort of thing. I know one thing for sure, though. If something serious were ever to happen to it, something really serious, I would know. I can’t explain it, I just know that I would feel something. A shift in my being. Any other questions?”
Alexander’s response was not really what Rebecca had expected. She was finding him harder to take seriously by the second… she just couldn’t get over how seriously he took all of this. She had imagined he’d say something a lot more concrete, give her a fact or two, not just go on about how he had this magical connection to an iron dragon. She would hate to bring him back to that awful mood he had been in before (which he never did explain to her), so, at the risk of coming across taciturn, she sat there in silence. After a minute or so of this, he commented on it.
“You seem awfully quiet all of a sudden, everything okay?”
She didn’t know what to say. ‘I got freaked by what you said and now I don’t want to talk anymore’? That hardly would do anything good. Finally, she came up with something.
“Oh, no, I’m fine. Just thinking about what you said, that’s all. I’m feeling a bit tired though… maybe I should go. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
Alexander hoped he hadn’t scared her away with how he had went on about the dragon, but then reminded himself that she was the one who asked him about it in the first place. These thoughts quickly left his mind when he noticed the time, though. It was time for both of them to head to bed, alright.
“Yeah, it’s definitely time for bed. Tomorrow sounds good, we’ll meet for lunch?”
Rebecca smiled.
“Perfect.”
She walked out of his apartment, and he retired to his bedroom. Just as he entered the room, the clock struck midnight.

The man was almost in tears. Every night he got his hopes raised high, and went to visit the dragon. And every night, without fail, his hopes would be dashed due to the fact that he saw absolutely nothing happen. Oh, there was the occasional movement, or growth, but nothing substantial. The dragon remained inanimate. And tonight was the absolute worst. He sat on the ground, with nothing to do.
There were no new growths to record, no interesting sights to marvel at, and no one but himself to spend the hours with. Minutes ticked by.
He always tried to be careful when he visited the dragon. Don’t disturb any of the surrounding, don’t make any noise, and don’t even think of doing anything that could be considered reprehensible by others.
He sat alone, encased in boredom, and contemplated leaving early. There was no real reason to stick around, now was there? None that he could think of. He usually left around one am, but tonight it didn’t seem worth it to stay past twelve thirty. He grabbed his book, got up from the dusty ground, and began to walk away. When the dragon was almost out of sight, he turned around, just to make sure his leaving was still a good decision. What he saw grabbed his attention almost immediately.
Light was shining out of the dragon’s mouth. Shaking with glee, the man began to run back to the dragon. The light, as it turned out, was not only emanating from its mouth. It was shining out from every orifice the dragon had, blinding the man as he ran, stumbling towards the beast. No longer was it iron that he saw when he gazed upon the dragon, but it was gold. The brightest gold he had ever seen.
Then. It finally happened. It moved. The dragon’s wings spread before the man, larger than he could have ever imagined. The man could not resist smiling, reveling in every second of this tremendous event. The man looked up in awe, wondering if the words at the back of every single book concerning this beast were true. As if knowing what the man was thinking, the dragon did something the man didn’t even think was possible. It spoke to him.
“You have granted me life. Control is yours.”

“Are you sure we’ve never been to this restaurant before? I could swear I’ve eaten this exact same bowl of soup before.”
Alexander smiled. Rebecca’s memory, while not the greatest, seemed to hone in on food more than anything else.
“Well, maybe you came here by yourself once before. I’ve never been here before in my life, but the same might not be true for you. Do you recognize anything else about it?”
“Actually, I do! The way the waitress took umbrage to me asking for extra napkins! This place seemed cheap to me the minute I stepped inside.”
“Quiet down, we wouldn’t want to add this to our list of places we’ve been thrown out of.”
“That was one time, Alexander, and I do not intend for it to happen to us again.”
“Oh, really?”
The two of them were laughing at this point, remembering the time at a local diner when they had questioned the presence of pepper on their plate of French Fries, when just seconds before they had requested it be presented to them, “Sans pepper”. An argument between Rebecca and their server ensued, and at one point things go so heated that she commented on how “a wraith with no limbs could easily do a better job of ensuring customer satisfaction”. The server did not take kindly to remarks such as these, and threw them out immediately.
“Yes, really. Oh Alexander, you know how annoying the idiot with the pepper shaker was!”
The two smile at each other. Regardless of what happened, they always enjoyed their various restaurant adventures. Alexander suddenly looked uneasy, as if things were hitting him the wrong way.
“Something wrong Alex? You don’t look well.”
Alexander grimaced. He knew she might not take him seriously, but he didn’t care.
“Well, you know how I said if something serious were to happen to the dragon, I would feel it?”

Click on the Image below (Adobe Reader is required):

Click on the Image to view The FWD Issue 1 (PDF)

Check out today’s Winnipeg Free Press Sunday Xtra for a story on The FWD.

Over the past few months, students, future teachers, community members, politicians, businesses and organizations have been working hard at preparing the very first issue of the FWD for you to enjoy.

WE ARE PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THE FIRST ISSUE HAS ARRIVED!

The first issue features several exciting articles highlighting community activities, student related causes (like bullying) and of course FWD Fun (including Sudoku & Horoscopes). The Winnipeg Free Press & CTV News have covered our work with some coverage on Global National to come this Friday.

WHERE CAN I GET THE FWD?

The FWD North End Newspaper can be picked up at the following locations:

• St. John’s High School (401 Church)
• RB Russell (364 Dufferin Ave.)
• Children of the Earth High School (100 Salter St)
• St. John’s Library (500 Salter St)
• Neechie Foods (325 Dufferin Ave)
• Ralph Brown Community Centre (460 Andrews St)
• North End Y/Win Gardner Place (363 McGregor)
• Gunn’s Bakery (247 Selkirk Ave)
• Ndinawe Youth Resource Centre (472 Selkirk Ave)
• Indian Family Centre (470 Selkirk Avenue)
• University of Manitoba – William Norrie (Selkirk Campus)
• Urban Circle Training Centre (519 Selkirk Ave)
• North End Women’s Centre (394 Selkirk Ave)
• 99cent Pizza (on Selkirk)
• George’s Burger (408 Selkirk Ave)

So as you can see, many people are excited about the paper, and you can be a part of it too! Please send your comments, suggestions and questions to the FWD Volunteer Staff Team at thefwd@hotmail.com

Let’s Move our community forward (or FWD)…

Together!

CLICK HERE

The mission of The FWD is to promote outreach, pride and involvement within the community and create a youth training /skill building opportunity in the form of a North End community newspaper. Based out of St. John’s, R.B. Russell, and Children of the Earth high schools, a weekly journalism club will offer guidance and training for students and a voice for community members. With the assistance of the organizational staff of The FWD, the members of the club will produce a product that reflects their community and allows them to establish relationships with community businesses and organizations while developing job readiness skills.

‘The FWD’ North End Youth Newlsetter

• Purpose:this would be a youth led Newspaper, supported by volunteers within North End high schools. Contributions would be welcomed from high school students, resident’s association members and residents.
• Background: At NECRC 2011 AGM, Arthur Gunn (of Gunn’s Bakery) spoke of the need for a student led Newspaper to ‘help the North End move forward.’  A group of young residents and student teachers were listening from the floor and began to scribble some notes on a paper.  That evening, ‘The FWD’ as an idea, was born

How To Get In Touch

Fortunately for all of us, we have many ways you can keep posted with The FWD: North End Youth Newspaper!

Twitter: @FWDwinnipeg

E-mail: theFWD@hotmail.com

Facebook.com: The FWD: North End Youth Newspaper

We are currently in the process of collecting volunteers for the FWD. If you, your organization, or your (you’re) young people wanting to help out, drop us a line!

See you all in the new year!

The FWD: Team

We are here. The FWD: North End Youth Newspaper. We have been working away at AYO’s Creative Expressions program, at Children of the Earth High School, at RB Russell High School and of course, our champions at St. John’s High School who kicked this project into high gear. Special thanks to NECRC (North End Community Renewal Corporation) for their leadership in supporting the start up of this initiative.

We are excited to present to you a blog that we can use to communicate online until we drop our first issue in January 2012!

We are only in the beginning stages of this project and are still looking for as many North End businesses, writers and helpers as possible to make this project a success!

Sincerely,

The FWD: Team

PS – Thanks to Ross Eadie for his support of this project!!