2012-04-08

Easter Sunday April 8^th

Happy Easter to all, and as I sit and enjoy this lovely sunny long weekend – with not a whole planned and enjoyable family times, yard cleanup and some early planting.

I think about how lucky we are in Ancaster sometimes seems a little Utopian – I know my neighbors and (sometimes) wave and the masses of people that go by my house on their way to the Bray Path. 

I can’t help but think about the recent news stories concerning homes in the Meadowlands, and wonder how the neighbors did not have any idea.  Groups of men in and out of the house at strange hours, the comings and goings must have been very strange.  For a seemingly well to do neighborhood – it at least causes my eyebrows to curl. 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/how-hungarian-criminals-built-a-slave-trade-in-ontario/article2390190/  - How Hungarian Criminals build a slave trade in Ancaster.

Some victims worked directly for the organization’s stucco businesses, while others were farmed out to different companies, including a lumber yard and a tiling contractor.

 Gang members lived the high life. In the fall of 2009, Ferenc and Gyula Domotor moved into new houses, each worth nearly $500,000, down the street from each other in Ancaster.

 Over the course of the next year, even as police investigated, the Domotor organization continued to bring workers into the country and even branched into a new type of crime: tipping over Canada Post boxes at night and rooting through the mail to steal and cash cheques.

The really scary thing is that these people were running multiple Contractor business’s – stucco and tiling and dealing with local people and coming in and out of our homes.

How do you select a Contractor – from a mess of Ad’s in the back of the Newspaper?  No you should call friends and people you know – people with personal references – like the Ancaster Factor.  www.ancasterfactor.ca.

 Every person on the business directory at the Ancaster Factor – I know and personally vouch for – honestly.  J - jojo

2012-03-24

I never realized I felt so connected to my website - until someone tried to Hi-Jack the idea and name.

The Ancaster Factor has been an active website since the early 1990's.The Factor began as a way to track friends email address's when I was living abroad. It quickly picked a lot of interest. Ancaster people all over the world found it an easy place to connect with old friends.

I have spent many hours and much money keeping the website up since 1996 when the programming was still dos based and I had to memorize the html code. I have always looked at the AncasterFactor as a fun way of teaching myself about "Web Misstressing", it forces me to keep current with new technology and I enjoy it as a hobby.

The old Factor was brought to life in the days before Facebook, and the core group of Ancaster Factorites - were mostly friends from AHVS. This was a well and good until it got a little popular and my inbox always had a backlog of requested posts. That was the "old" Ancaster Factor and manual updates are no longer required. Facebook Groups are a great way for everyone to have control over their content. Please join the AncasterFactor group on Facebook @ www.facebook.com/ancasterfactor

So onto the New Factor - Ancaster is getting so big these days that it is hard to tell which companies are truly local.

As an Ancaster home owner I quickly realized that reliable or available Contractors were hard to find, and as a Mom I wanted to know who was coming into my home and feel comfortable with them.

I found that print Ad's in the back of the Ancaster News were useless to determine if a contractor should be selected or not, or whether a purchase was of value.

I want to make a difference by purchasing local and sustainable products.

Whether is it contractors, services or local meat and produce we are all accountable… and make choices every day at the cash register.

Thus the Ancaster Factor – Second Generation - Business & Services Listings came to life.

Shop Local - Think Global!
JoJo – The Ancaster Factor!