Nexicom To Double Donations To 4th Line Theatre Emerging VOICES Program Until March

4th Line Theatre announced on Wednesday that Nexicom is doubling donations to the theatres Emerging VOICES Program until March 1.

Photo courtesy of 4th Line Theatre.

“Through our Emerging VOICES engagement program, local youth are given the opportunity to gain experience, skills and training that will ultimately help them to achieve their goals, artistic and other,” said Managing Artistic Director Kim Blackwell. “What makes the program particularly unique is that local young people work alongside and learn from, professional artist. And the program is completely free of charge.”

This is not the first time Nexicom has donated to 4th Line Theatre.

“This unique program recognizes the importance young people play within our community, and gives voice to their ideas and stories through their participation in the Arts. We greatly encourage anyone looking to support the arts to consider this wonderful program,” said Lance Nachoff, Sales and Marketing manager at Nexicom.

4th Line Theatre’s Emerging VOICES Youth Apprenticeship Program requires an average of $20,000 in funding annually in order to effectively train youth volunteers.

4th Line Theatre’s Emerging VOICES Youth Apprenticeship Program requires an average of $20,000 in funding annually in order to effectively train youth volunteers.

In 2021, 4th Line’s dedication to students did not waiver despite the challenges of the pandemic: partnering with Trent University’s Traill College, they employed a group of young, diverse regional youth in a new initiative, The 2021 Young Company. These young artists worked with industry professionals to produce livestream virtual play readings and performance pieces. 

 Generally, in the summer season, as many as 60 or more youth actors are engaged in productions, each contributing more than 210 hours, while learning to work collaboratively to achieve artistic excellence. The Double Your Impact with Nexicom initiative will ensure the program’s success in the theatre’s upcoming 30th season.

To donate, click here or call the 4th Line Theatre Box Office & Administrative Centre at 705-932-4445 until March 1st to qualify for a matching donation by Nexicom.

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Nexicom Commits $126,000 To Our Pet Project Campaign To Build New Animal Care Centre

Nexicom has announced its commitment of $126,000 to Our Pet Project, the Peterborough Humane Society’s campaign to build the new Animal Care Centre, and will sponsor the Centre’s Adoption Technology Hub.

“2020 has been a rough year for all of us but one thing that stands out is the impact our pets have on our lives—whether it’s keeping us fit through daily walks or being that constant companion that provides unconditional love and improves our mental health,” says Julie Howe, Sales & Marketing Manager at Nexicom. “We’re so proud to be partnering with the Humane Society and we challenge other businesses in town to think outside of the box of how they can help to build this Animal Care Centre for our community.”

Photo from announcement at future site of Animal Care Centre courtesy Peterborough Humane Society

Designed by Peterborough firm, Lett Architects, the Humane Society’s new Animal Care Centre will sit on nearly 20 acres of land at 1999 Technology Drive. It will be home to the Humane Society’s Adoption and Education Centre that will serve as a community hub, and allow for expansion of their outreach, education and advocacy programs.

The Adoption Technology Hub, powered by Nexicom, will provide in-person and online visitors the opportunity to view animals available for adoption and to complete their adoption application online. Computer terminals will be located in the main lobby of the facility’s Adoption & Education Centre.

The new Centre will also be home to the region’s only High Volume Spay and Neuter Clinic providing accessible services to our community, and Canada’s first Provincial Dog Rehabilitation Centre in partnership with the Ontario SPCA and Humane Society.

“The new Peterborough Animal Care Centre will set a new standard for animal wellness in Canada and we are excited to have amazing corporate partners, like our friends at Nexicom, who share our vision for the future of our community and its pets.” says Shawn Morey, Executive Director at the Peterborough Humane Society.

Our Pet Project, the campaign to build the new Peterborough Animal Care Centre, has raised over $7 million towards their $10 million goal and is looking for local businesses and animal lovers to help them cross the finish line and get their Centre built.  

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Nexicom Brilliantly Recreated Abbey Road In Millbrook

Millbrook's downtown streets recently went through extensive renovations, and when they were done all the townsfolk were happy—including Nexicom which has an office there. The new street line markings reminded many locals of the ones from the Beatles' iconic Abbey Road cover.

Nexicom Marketing rep Suzanne Whiston had an idea, and went with it: "I saw the lines—I saw the Beatles cover picture in my head," she tells PTBOCanada. "I saw four guys in my area where I worked, asked them if they would be willing to do this for fun and they said 'Yes!' with enthusiasm. A few of them had the vision too when the lines were painted but I was off that day so when I returned to work and saw the lines through my window, I acted on my hunch right there and then. The guys took their roles very seriously. We practised a bit in our office backyard and took a few shots. Our graphic designer, Mark, tweaked the picture and added the original Beatles pic too."

Mark Laj, Tyler O'Brien, Josh Scott and Scott Murphy diligently practising their walk sequence at the Nexicom office first...

Here is the Beatles cover...

Here is the Nexicom cover, reproducing the famous Beatles walk...

Brilliantly played Nexicom team. It's great to see the team Come Together in such a fun way. Again, check this out...

—post by Neil Morton (h/t Stu Harrison)

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Nexicom In Millbrook Had More Customers Than Usual Drop By Their Office Today

UPDATE: Thursday, September 8th, 11:09 a.m.  Here's an interesting timeline sent to us by a tipster that reveals what went wrong with Nexicom switch... It's apparently put together by Nexicom employee.

Sept 5th – 11:45AM. Primary and redundant switch failure alarm generated. Both our primary and backup phone switch went offline and technician notified.
Sept 5th – 12:15PM. Technician onsite and investigating. Strong burning smell evident upon entry to building.
Sept 5th – 12:45PM . Additional technicians called to site to investigate – power disconnected to all phone switch equipment as per safety protocols.
Sept 5th – 3:00PM. Diagnosis of issue shows that the primary and redundant telephone switch had suffered un-repairable electrical damage.
Sept 5th – 3:00PM. Emergency procedures initiated and switch vendor notified.
Sept 5th – 6:00PM. Extensive troubleshooting and “heated” discussion with switch vendor. Switch vendor notifies Nexicom that there is no spare equipment available in Canada currently and must ship replacement equipment from their UK and/or California locations.
Sept 6th – 8:00AM. Updates received from switch vendor that they are still staging and preparing the equipment. Staging and testing process is very involved and complex with this kind of equipment – normally takes a minimum of 1 week.
Sept 6th – 9:00AM. Nexicom technicians began preparatory work for arrival of new equipment.
Sept 6th – 3:00PM. Switch vendor has confirmed shipments have left from the UK and also from California via air freight.
Sept 6th – 11:00PM. Nexicom technicians complete preparatory work required for arrival of new equipment.
Sept 7th – 7:00AM. Confirmation that replacement telephone switch equipment has arrived in Toronto and waiting customs clearance process.
Sept 7th - 10:00AM. Customs clearance confirmed and new switch equipment picked up by Nexicom.
Sept 7th - 11:30AM. Equipment arrived and technicians began installation.
Sept 7th - 1:30PM. All voice services restored.

Nexicom has extensive support and maintenance contracts in place with our telephone switch vendor so that situations like this can be dealt with very quickly. This situation has raised serious concerns that are resulting in a series of ongoing discussions with them in the coming weeks. Obviously our primary focus at this moment is to followup on the service restoration but you can be confident the discussions with our switch vendor will be a priority immediately after service restoration.

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[UPDATE Wednesday, 11:51 a.m.: Here are the latest emails that went out to all Nexicom customers this morning. Service should be restored later this afternoon.]

Message to all Nexicom Telephone Customers

Re:  Phone Outages Update

Further to the update we sent a few hours ago, the switch has arrived in Millbrook.

Our technicians are currently working on programming the unit, and we anticipate that we should have full telephone service available to you by later this afternoon.

We will continue to keep you up to date on the progress.

Our next update should announce fully restored telephone service.

 
Thank you again,

The Nexicom Team

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Message to all Nexicom Telephone Customers

Re:  Phone Outages Update

The replacement switch has been processed through Canadian Customs and is in transit from Pearson International Airport to Nexicom’s facility in Millbrook.

The switch will be programmed by our technicians upon its arrival and we hope to have your phone service fully operational by later this afternoon.

Once the equipment is in our facility undergoing programming, we will send you another update.

Again, we thank you for your patience and understanding.

The Nexicom Team

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[UPDATE: Here is the release that went out to all Nexicom customers this afternoon. It's looking like service won't be restored until by end of day tomorrow.]

From: "Do Not Reply" <donotreply@nexicom.net>
Date: September 6, 2011 3:38:07 PM GMT-04:00
To: <donotreply@nexicom.net>
Subject: UPDATE:  Telephone Outage
Reply-To: support@nexicom.net

Message to all Nexicom Telephone Customers
 
Further to our message this morning, a new telephone switch has been configured, tested and we have confirmed it is in transit.  It is anticipated that we will receive the new switch tomorrow afternoon after clearing customs.  As soon as we receive the unit, every effort will be made to restore service by end of day tomorrow. We will send out another update tomorrow once we receive the switch.
 
Again, we thank you for your understanding.
 
The Nexicom Team

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CHEX Newswatch segment:

[chextvDOTcom]

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After Recent Hack Attack Nexicom Issues Statement To Its Customers

After some Nexicom clients were without their websites and email for almost a week because of a hacker, this recent statement was released by the company:

Beginning immediately Nexicom will be notifying customers that we will be implementing a very focused plan to ensure all of our web hosting environments are migrated to new hardware platforms running the most current versions of operating systems and security software platforms. To the majority of our customers this migration will be transparent and will not have any impact on their system availability. The customer applications that are incompatible with the newer versions of software will be given a definite period of time to bring their applications into compliance or they will be deemed inoperable and taken out of service.

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People Are Getting Just A Tad Frustrated With Nexicom

[***UPDATE: Examiner reports that service should be restored by later tonight or Saturday morning***]

Starting roughly Sunday night, a hacker exploited their way into Nexicom's servers and was able to lockout numerous user's sites. Some of Nexicom's user's sites were defaced and left the users without the ability to change their site back or send and receive email.

Presently, Nexicom has removed the defamatory splash pages, but have yet to restore full service—check out The Canadian Canoe Museum site, for example—or issue an advisory bulletin. Remember, this started on Sunday. And it's now Friday. That's a long time with what's apparently only been sporadic service.

Obviously, Nexicom users in the Patch are growing increasingly frustrated and some are starting to look around for other web hosting companies.

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