A privilege indeed to have joined the celebration in Mississauga, ON Canada on the evening of June 12, 2025. Henley Point’s Steven Christianson was awarded the 2025 Volunteer Medal for his contributions serving on the Board of Directors of Connect4Life.
New swag is always fun, and these two mock-ups should soon be in our hands (or on our backs, as the case might be). Available in male and female styles, in a variety of colours, with a couple of options of fabric, these cool Henley Point polos should fit in perfectly well with the blossoming of spring and the arrival of new colours in the gardens and the trees. Drop us a line if you’d like one for yourself.
Henley Point partners Steven Christianson and Josee Scalabrini partnered with author and former Parliamentarian Dennis Mills and Big Sky Publishing to help produce this beauty (featured above). Running at more than 450 pages, with more than 135 full-colour brilliant images, this memoir offers amazing insights into how Canada’s Parliament works, the essence of leadership, how to make a difference in national politics, and even in small and large businesses. It contains tons of fun stories involving presidents and prime ministers, music, TV and sports celebrities, business leaders, princes and kings–and features a foreword by former Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Chretien. Chalk-full of historical tidbits, background stories and plenty of “did you know” factoids … It really is a must read about how people can make positive change. We were privileged to partner with Dennis and Big Sky Publishing to lend a hand in this project, and we’re delighted to share the official news of its publication. By the way, the book is available in-store and online at http://www.benmcnallybooks.com, a family-run independent bookstore in the heart of Toronto.
One of the key activities of Henley Point is the production of books. Every once in a while we partner with an author and/or other publishers to jointly produce a book. And such has been the case with the book shown in the photo above, From the Wood Chair to the Green Chair.
Over the past two years, Henley Point partners Steven Christianson and Josee Scalabrini helped with ghostwriting, structure, design and layout during the production of this fascinating memoir by former Canadian parliamentarian, Dennis Mills (with a forward by former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, to boot). It is also the most prominent project in which Henley Point has collaborated with another publisher, in this case Big Sky Publishing.
The above photo is a personal snapshot of the cover of the draft advance copy (taken with a … get ready … yes, a Blackberry) by a very excited author-in-waiting. And who could blame him with such good news?
We’ll post more details on our front page about From the Wood Chair to the Green Chair by Dennis Mills as they become available. Until then, we wanted to share the news of this forthcoming publication, and, in so doing, highlight this work as an example of how Henley Point can work with you to tell your story or get your message to the market.
A lot of useful blogs and social media posts aim to help podcasters refine their writing skills around the composition of show notes for a podcast episode.
Most inform us that a minimum of 250 words helps place the episode on the radar of discoverability. But what about the description for the program, the podcast itself?
As our colleagues at Podcast Discovery recently shared, the first and perhaps most important bit of advice concerns what the listener sees first. In fact, while scrolling, or “discovering” podcasts, it is often the case that a listener only sees the first several words. With that in mind, the question is — why bother using that valuable real estate for a welcome message? Instead, get right to the nut of the matter, and tell people what your podcast does.
Which takes us to another error many show descriptions make: rather then informing a potential listener about the issues or problems or topics their podcast addresses, such descriptions only share non-specific adjectival terminology, such as the genre of the program, the likeability of the host or spectrum of unidentified future guests. Be specific. What problem or gap or specific issue does your program address for the listener?
Not only will more refined show notes and program descriptions help attract more listeners, such improvements will also enhance the likelihood that program and its episodes are listed in search engine results.
In addition to our expanded content in hardcover books and podcasts, projects which began earlier in 2023, this year is filling up with new book and podcast titles in travel, public policy, non-profit management and communications, and media messaging. A year of expansion, 2024 will also see Henley Point formalize relationships with new corporate clients and advocacy projects, making the connections that make the difference that our clients aim to effect. Which is all part of our mission of “Helping you tell your story”. Over the next several months we’ll also be refining and renovating this website, as well as launching a new Henley Point podcast, email newsletter and line of merchandise (hey, you’ve got to look good when you’re spreading a message, telling a story and making an impact). We’ll keep you up to date as we plug away.
Henley Point partner, Josee Scalabrini, recently attended the Fall 2023 Convocation at Toronto Metropolitan University, where she officially received her diploma in business communication–and where she made all of us very proud! It is no easy task to complete a university curriculum part-time and during the evenings. On top of all this, the Convocation was held in Maple Leaf Gardens (Mattamy Centre), former home of the Toronto Maple Leafs (how many universities have an “Original 6” hockey arena as a venue for convocation)!
And because we’re so very impressed with the experience, we’ve posted a 15-second clip of Josee receiving the academic nod of graduation from the TMU President and Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Mohamed Lachemi: Fall ’23 Convocation TMU. Congratulations Josee, from the team at Henley Point.
Henley Point’s newest audio project that we’re only too happy to share is The Life of a Servant by Dennis Mills. A former Parliamentarian, business leader and dear friend to those of us at Henley Point, Dennis’ podcast features guests—a who’s who, really—who come from a spectrum of professional backgrounds, and they discuss the importance of servant-leadership. This podcast features a entire season of episodes that have been taken “from the vault”, audio originally produced and streamed in 2002 by Ingenuity Radio (another Dennis project) from a conference held at the University of Toronto. Those episodes features participants that include a former Prime Minister, Members of Parliament, Senators, renowned academics and leading senior officials from the Government of Canada; each segment explores how to improve public service, effective governance and citizen engagement. The team at Henley Point modified and adapted that audio into a nine-part series, all packaged under the heading, Season 1. More current content features discussions with … a former Member of Parliament about the war in Ukraine; one of Canada’s leading business executives whose recycling empire started by taking out the garbage at Maple Leaf Gardens; one of Toronto’s most internationally-celebrated restaurateurs whose clientele features a regular stream of Hollywood personalities; and many more. The podcast is available through all major streaming apps and podcast platforms. This production really was a labour of love, and we hope you’ll love listening to the compelling topics and fascinating dialogue as much as we enjoyed producing this project.
What began as a hobby evolved into a print, digital and audio production service.
But it began with advocacy and government relations work (such work remains a key component of what we do). Quite often, such work requires understanding the context of an issue, crafting a narrative around the context, and communicating that story in a message to intended audiences. The goal is to make change, sometimes political, sometimes policy. But the communications matrix that underpins these efforts is ever-present: the message is only effective when the totality of its communications effort is understood, and therefore appreciated, and hopefully shared with others.
The transition was from one company with one particular focus, moving to the next, with a more refined and specific focus on building narrative and “personality” of the issue or organization, and to its ultimate conclusion as a production; this was the path of evolution for Henley Point.
Today, Henley Point is a content creation company that builds narrative and personality — and all those constituent pieces that contribute to it.
Henley Point is, in fact, in practical terms, the publishing arm of Henley Point Productions. Today, the Henley Point catalogue includes globally distributed nonfiction books in politics and government, comparative religion, technology, DIY, social media, reference, and content management. Another focus of Henley Point Productions embraces audio messaging and storytelling through the production of podcasts. And, tying everything together is the “promotional campaign” element of the production that is driven by a goal, such as raising awareness, educating, persuading, recruiting or electing.
Why the name “Henley Point”? In part, the name is a nod to our immediate community, which is located in The Beach district of Toronto. The name also conjures an image of a lookout at some water’s edge, a place to see the horizon more clearly, far and wide, and observe everything that’s going on. Again, from our windows’ vistas, we see far and wide over Lake Ontario – from our little corner of the world we call “Henley Point”.
And we seem to be at that juncture where the effort evolves again, from residing in the category of “hobby” and moving to the professional application of business development and management. This type of change can be good; at the very least, we can safely say that Henley Point is making waves. More to come in 2023.
Shoe Lovers and shoe collectors will absolutely love this new book by Henley Point author, Josee Scalabrini – One, Two, Buckle My Shoe Collection: The Ultimate Guide to Our Soles.
Elegant and stylish, this book gives shoe collectors of all kinds a personal inventory and registration system for their shoes – for up to 108 pairs.
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe Collection also includes comprehensive and up-to-date information related to care, storage, personal organization and insurance, as well as useful tips, reference material, and informative guides on just about everything related to shoes, starting and managing a shoe collection, and how to become an expert collector – without breaking the bank (too much).
Beautifully designed, with full colour 70lb premium pages and gloss hardcover presentation, One, Two, Buckle My Shoe Collection contains nearly 380 pages and has an exterior measurement of 8″ by 8″.
And for those shoe collectors needing more, there’s Three, Four, Get Some More: Another Ultimate Guide to Our Soles.
This book continues the personal system of keeping track of all your shoes, with diary entries for another 108 pairs and also comes with a comprehensive footwear glossary.
Elegant and efficient, and a 2nd volume follow-up to One, Two, Buckle My Shoe Collection, shoe collectors can use this book to organize small and large footwear collections, but in a more compact way: Three, Four, Get Some More features about 245 pages and focuses only on the registration diary and the glossary. And hey, while it’s beautiful and elegant, it’s also priced significantly lower than One, Two, Buckle My Shoe Collection.
Welcome, Josee, to the Henley Point family of authors.
Henley Point 