The Toronto Christmas Market is a massive holiday spectacle that will attract over a quarter of a million people into the red brick denizens of the historic Distillery District at 55 Mill St in the city's harbour portlands - the oldest part of what was once called Muddy York. I took a walk around the place on Friday morning, before the crowds showed up, to capture some great shots of the cobblestones streets and wooden vendor shacks all lined up and waiting for their tenants.

Toronto Christmas Market

The old fashioned clock is fitted with a selenium solar cap that makes a small electric current to power an elecromagnet that holds open a reed switch which when closed, in the absense of the sunlight powered magnet, another current opens a circuit to power the bulbs behind the clock's enormous faces. These entire white frontispieces are illuminated , or rather they become the light sources and they generate an immense glow that lights up the entire courtyard. Toronto mortgage broker

The clock has been damaged by delivery trucks reversing three times in the last three years, and now it has metal barriers erected around it's base - but they are quite low to the ground and I wonder if they are not perhaps too short. It seems to me most delivery trucks have rather tall rear bumpers. Beep beeep beep - we could be back where we started.

Lauren Howe, Miss Teen Canada World came to visit Toronto’s Distillery District and went on tour of Toronto's beautiful tourist hot spot. Lauren was very happy to be at the district, she took photographs with tourists and signed autographs. For a change, it wasn’t hot outside due to the heavy rain. But the rain did not the stop the events of the day, Lauren did an interview with Farid Omar from Digital Journal, discussing her platform and what her titles truly means to her. She also went on a photo shoot around the historic area. She also took part in a segway tour which talked about the history of Distillery District and it's impact on the process manufacturing and lean manufacturing industry. Next she enjoyed a delicious lunch. Lots of photos were taken of her exploring the Distillery District and stopping by all the shops and café’s.

Lauren arrived ready for her photo shoot, her hair looked beautifully blown out and her makeup was perfectly natural. She was photographed doing everyday things and being herself. She talked about her favorite foods and fruits. One of Lauren’s passions is healthy eating. She believes in looking your best and doing what is healthy for your body. She made tiny desserts and fruity drinks featuring a great chill from a stainless steel ice cube tray. Because of her strong passion for science and biology, she is always thinking about how a meal affects your mood and the importance of exercise. In her senior year of high school, Lauren was the captain of the field hockey team. She definitely enjoys being active outdoors, love exploring new places and meeting new people.

Fluent in French and English, Lauren was proud to represent Canada in the Teen World competition in Houston, TX. The big show consisted of three events, swimsuit, evening gown and costume. Lauren was very excited about the Costume portion of the show. The costume is a representation of your country in dress form. Lauren wore a strapless white dress with red maple leafs on it. She also wore a snow like sash to represent to the snowy months of winter we get in Canada. The beautiful 18 year old is very excited that she had the chance to represent Canada in an international setting. She competed against 24 other young women for lavish gifts from sponsors, a scholarship for secondary schooling and the international title. Lauren Howe was the fourth runner up and won Miss Teen Congeniality.

After touring the district on a segway, Lauren went for lunch at the Pure Spirits Oyster House and Grill. The meal was a delight, but the company was even more exciting. Lauren spoke about her role models and what she wants to do in school. She hopes to get a degree in business and sciences; and in the future, run a pharmaceutical company. Lauren will be attending Mc Gill University in the fall of 2011 to begin her secondary education and road to success. While enjoying her freshly made Thai salad at Pure Spirits, she spoke about her admiration for Oprah Winfrey and the fact that she has over come so many obstacles; on her way to becoming one of the most powerful women in the world. Lauren relates to Oprah because they were both bullied at a young age and seeing Oprah’s success has been a great inspiration for Lauren. She has a lot of love for the Canadian music scene and is a huge fan of the band Down with Webster. She loves to play the piano and sing along to their song, ‘Your Man’.

Stay up to date with Lauren’s journey on the Miss Teen Canada World Blog.

As everyone on planet Earth already knows, Channing Smendziuk was crowned the 2010 Miss Teen Canada World at around 11pm on the evening of July 17th 2010 at a convention centre in downtown Toronto.

It was an amazing night and there are some terrific blog posts chronicling the evening here:

And on Saturday August 7th 2010 Channing Smendziuk took some time to learn the basics of her new digital duties as the Miss Teen Canada World blogger, and promoted as one of the feature attractions on the very popular Miss Teen Canada World website.

Rob Campbell of Smojoe social media marketing in Toronto toured her around the Distillery District (formerly the Gooderham and Worts distillery circa 1840) and snapped shots of her inside the historic buildings. Then they had a knowledge sharing strategy session; Smojoe schooled Channing on how to write good blog posts for the Miss Teen Canada World franchise from the persepctive of the girl wearing the crown. Nobody else on planet Earth has that perspective right now. And lots and lots of people would like to know what happens to this person when she wears that sash and crown and represents the best of Canada.

This picture is the best I snapped that Saturday. It was taken at about 2:30 pm just inside the front door of Balzacs coffee house.  Channing was getting a lot of attention in that setting because I requested that she wear her sash as we toured around the property and talked. Almost every family we encountered reached for their cameras and she was no doubt photographed a hundred times and will probably appear in a dozen family photo albums - this is a novelty for Channing right now but it is something she experience a lot...

Now read this early Channing Smendziuk OnSugar post where she got to drop the puck at a hocket game, and look at the photo and you can tell that she is concentrating entirely on not slipping and falling on the ice. Read the text and note the emotion here. The diction is geniune complete with hearts and smiley faces, not professional, but certainly passionate. The blog post is short beut deliveres a detailed play by play of the previous evening's experience. The diction is raw, the emotion is real. Channing Smendziuk scored 8.2 out of 10 points for her assignments. Channing's blog on the Miss Teen Canada World website is designed to better let her share her raw emotional experiences with readers. We want the same charisma but better formating and better storytelling, proper use of tags and keywords and alt text and 3rd party photo hosting.

So one of the reasons why she was selected by judges as the Miss Teen Canada World was her new skill at publishing her thoughts and ideas in a blog format, on a semi professional level. The three MTCW Blog Army challenges demand each contestant learn new skills as they attempt to make and publish their own media. They ask each girl 'can you promote yourself and your ideas online?'  And the judges were satisfied with Channing Smendziuk OnSugar Blog. However, Channing has a long way to go to live up to Siera Bearchell, who was an excellent Miss Teen Canada World blogger. Good luck Siera.

Preserving Siera's Legacy

Siera Bearchell 's content can be found here and in the coming months I will endeavour to set a keyword tagand make the archives index her content chronoligically so readers can follow along on her journey - make sense of the disjointed jumble that's there now

The website is being evolved - Smojoe social media marketing works with client like Miss Teen Canada because there is so much potential for world class story funnels in this setting

Before Siera Bearchel there was Katie Stark who competed for Miss Universe? what happened there? i need an update on that

Channing's Twitter

@channingsmendziuk

Channing Smendziuk OnSugar Blog

There will be some dramatic changes to the blog on this platform in accordance with an infitely more social and less formal website.

http://www.missteencanadaworld.com/meet_mtcw/blog

Siera Bearchel did a terrific job as Miss teen Canada World blogger - she

http://www.missteencanadaworld.com/meet_mtcw/blog