Looking forward

John McCombe

Editor Yvonne Martin

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Editor’s Corner

Living the dream? Bring on Cup Week The 1st issue in The Press Looking forward What happened in July? June's welcome May's editorial April's news A word on March What happened in February?

August marks the end of an era for Avenues. From September, we’re changing the way we deliver Avenues to you and we’ll be reaching tens of thousands of new readers in the process.

The past year has brought plenty of change to these pages. Our new team, content and design have seen a 33 per cent lift in readership to 65,000. We're proud of how far we've come. The next step is to introduce our magazine to more readers by significantly boosting our distribution.

The September issue will be mainly distributed by our sister paper, The Press, specifically to its urban Christchurch subscribers. The magazine will be delivered with the newspaper on the first Thursday of the month. Distributing Avenues this way

will quadruple our circulation from just over 10,000 copies to more than 40,000, and lift our readership even higher.

Avenues will still be for sale in selected bookshops and for reading at doctors' surgeries, dentists, cafés, leading hotels and airport lounges. Paying subscribers who will now get a free copy of the magazine with their Press, will have the remainder of their Avenues subscription refunded.

We will be introducing a small format change next month. The paper stock inside the magazine won't change and neither will its content, but the magazine will be bound differently to enable its insertion into the newspaper. Avenues will still be the only glossy magazine of its kind in Christchurch, delivering an interesting and entertaining read about life in the city. The good news for advertisers is, despite all these changes, advertising rates won't be increasing this year; we'll be absorbing the extra production costs internally.

Speaking of transformations, this month's feature on Christchurch's transgender community shows how far members are prepared to go to ensure their appearance matches the gender they believe themselves to be. At least two women featured have opted for gender-reassignment surgery. Another subject dresses as a woman outside of work hours, while a man steps out publicly as a woman whenever he needs to express his feminine side. It has certainly been a difficult, lonely road for those who feel they bat for a different team than the one nature selected them for. Hearing their stories makes you wonder if our society's definition of gender is a little narrow. Pacific people and Indians recognise a third sex, while Indonesians have five genders.

We also bring you the latest on Christchurch International Airport's $208 million makeover and what it means for commuters.

Among this month's foodie features, we've joined experts on the hunt for that gnarly but expensive delicacy, the truffle, and we've discovered some of Christchurch's best pizza.

Enjoy your magazine, as we look forward to moving Avenues up a gear.