This week’s issue is a special one, though its theme and format has shifted throughout the years. It began as the “30 under 30,” where The Uniter celebrated local achievers under 30 years old.

It then shifted to a similar shape today, where, through an open submission format, we summarize the best people, places and things of Winnipeg, as selected by you, our readers.

Categories themselves have changed over the years in an attempt to capture more of what it is that makes our local communities so great.

For example, we tried to broaden favourite University of Winnipeg prof to include other U of W staff and to recognize that profs aren’t the only people who make campus great. Responses to this new category included a lot of confusion, so we changed it back.

To balance out the initial bias toward younger achievers, we added in a category for local achievers over 60. This isn’t yet perfect, as there are many people in that 30 to 60 range who are doing cool things, but we don’t quite have room to expand our categories broad enough to have a Uniter 60.

Other categories, such as Favourite Local Neighbourhood, began to show redundant results, so they were shuffled off to add to other areas, like having both a favourite baker and a favourite chef.

While some days we wish we could do more, we can’t do it all. Regardless, we are grateful for your submissions, and we’re happy to devote this issue to highlighting 30 local winners, as well as all of the runners-up and honourable mentions. We’ve got a lot to celebrate in this city, and this is just a start.

– Anastasia Chipelski

Published in Volume 73, Number 12 of The Uniter (November 29, 2018)