The Canadian Society of Magazine Editors held their annual Editors’ Choice Awards last night in Toronto, and for the second year in a row, This was named “Magazine of the Year” in the small circulation category.

Many, many people work very hard to make This happen, so it would be impossible to thank by name all the writers, editors, designers, photographers, illustrators, and researchers who put so much work into each issue. Thank you all so much.

A few particular thanks are definitely necessary. Our volunteer section editors who worked on the magazine in 2010 are a huge part of our success, so thanks to: Chantal Braganza, Lindsay Kneteman, Aaron Leaf, Lauren McKeon, Stuart Ross, Eva Salinas, Nick Taylor-Vaisey, Daniel Tencer, and Ivor Tossell. David Donald, our art director, makes us look champagne-good on a juice-box-budget. Lisa Whittington-Hill, our publisher, runs this whole miraculous show and manages the business of running a small magazine — no easy feat in Canada these days. Thank you also to the board of directors of our umbrella organization, the Red Maple Foundation, whose guidance and expertise has sustained This for 45 years now.

Finally, our thanks to you—our readers and supporters. Our mandate is to tell the stories that are going untold in big corporate media and break new talent, and your attention and engagement and interest is the only reason we exist. Awards are swell, but we do it for you, and your support means everything to This.

If you’re not a subscriber already, we’d like to encourage you to consider it. We’ll continue posting all our articles on the website for free, but a mission like ours needs financial support as well. At $27.99 for six issues mailed straight to your door, buying a subscription is easier and cheaper for you; subscriptions provide us with stable, predictable, and sustainable funding to support the magazine’s mandate. It’s win-win. You can also make a tax-deductible donation to the foundation to support our work.

Finally, telling your friends about This is a great — and free! — way to spread the word and help us reach more people. We don’t have big marketing budgets or advertising campaigns; word of mouth is how most people learn about us. So share a This story on Facebook or Twitter when you like it — just being out there and part of Canada’s public discussion is important to the magazine and our future. Thanks for reading.

Last night was the annual Canadian Society of Magazine Editors gala, and we’re very happy to report that This was named Magazine of the Year in the small publication category. We think it’s a huge honour, especially considering the fearsome quality of the nominees, including our friends at Explore and Spacing.

Industry awards are always a bit inside baseball, I know, but there are some important thank yous I’d like you to note: Thank you to our many talented and hard-working writers, photographers, and illustrators whose work you can find all over this website. This dedicated group of people work diligently to uncover stories you won’t read anywhere else, and they tell those stories beautifully. Thanks to the section editors who worked on This in 2009 (the issues the judges were reading)—Jordan Himelfarb, Lindsay Kneteman, Stuart Ross, Eva Salinas, and Ivor Tossell, all virtuoso wielders of the red pen. Thanks to David Donald, our art director, who led the redesign of the magazine last spring and makes our words pop on the page each issue. Thanks to publisher Lisa Whittington-Hill, who oversees all the business operations that make this whole show run. And thank you to the Red Maple Foundation’s board of directors, the bedrock team whose guidance and mentorship has sustained This Magazine for 44 years.

And, of course, thanks to you, the readers, donors, volunteers, and supporters who believe in the magazine and its mandate. We love the work we do and we hope that comes through on the page. The award is nice—we were thrilled to get it—but the award isn’t an end in itself. Publishing the best journalism by the next generation of great Canadian writers is the mission, award or no.

A mission like that needs your support. If you like This, please tell your friends about it. If you haven’t already, buy a subscription (before the HST crash lands, Ontario and B.C.!). Or buy someone else a subscription. Or become a donor. Your support doesn’t have to be monetary, either—retweeting that story you liked or sharing it on Facebook is a great way to spread the word. Thanks for reading.