About Five Points Media
Five Points Media is a community-oriented broadcast-quality online media service that offers a non-judgemental social voice to those who are all too often ignored by mainstream media.
Those groups include but are not limited to:
- Charities
- Not-for-profits.
- Benevolent individuals and groups
- Grassroots community organizations
- Women’s rights advocates
- The LGBTQ community
- The poor, homeless, and disenfranchised
- The disabled and the infirmed
- Ethnic and cultural groups
- Those dedicated to helping others
- Most social enterprises
- New immigrants and others being taken advantage of or defrauded
- Issue driven programming, such as about how the City of Barrie is embrassing 'social murder' as a means of 'resolving' the homeless crisis.
Five Points Media fills a gap that exists within mainstream commercial media, which is limited in its ability to serve charities, benevolent groups, and the various special needs components of our society.
We are a not-profit-motivated social enterprise comprised of a group of people with widely diversified backgrounds and credentials. Our Producer, John Ironside, is also owns and operates 3B Solutions, a commercial video production company that brings the experience of thirty years in international journalism and documentary production. However, Five Points Media is community-oriented and through it we provide production crew and equipment free of charge or at a heavily subsidized cost to local charities and qualifying not-for-profit groups. In order to be able to provide those donated services, we also offer dramatically reduced rates to other vetted charities, and to selected benevolent organizations and community-oriented groups that charge for their services or which receive government funding. Please review our policies listed at the bottom of this page.
Since 2014 and consistently throughout into 2026, our team has been identified by "Three Best Rated" as the
"Best Videographers in Barrie".
Our crew believes strongly in the value of a social conscience, and that all people have a responsibility to help each other. As such, what started as an offer of assistence to those in need, as made by 3B Solutions, became Five Points Media as the call for help grew louder. Essentially, we were helping so many charities and community groups that the 3B Solutions brand as a commercial video production company was becoming best known for their charity.
John Ironside, Journalist / Producer / Director
John Ironside is the principal producer of community programming for Five Points Media. During the past 30-plus years, since 1988, John has worked in media and journalism both on the international level and closer to home. In addition to having worked in virtually every form of media, including print, video, photography, and digital, John has also taught media related subjects at community and private colleges across Canada.
As the producer of socially poignant documentaries for Five Points Media, John leads our team to tell the stories of people who live amazing lives, or who contribute greatly to our society. John's abilities as a storyteller have been honed by his real-world experience in journalism and documentary production.
In addition to having extensive experience in broadcast and corporate video production, John has worked as a photojournalist and then Deputy Editor of a national European newspaper, and as news camera and photographer in places like Bosnia and the Middle East. John's experience in documentary production ranges from the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources to Greenpeace in Europe, and his hundreds of commercial credits cover the full range of business, from Fortune 500 corporations to local family-run proprietorships.
John is the father of two special needs children, who have inspired him to donate his time and resources to various charities and benevolent organizations.
We use only the latest technology and tools of communications to produce full-broadcast quality HD videos
The beneficiaries of our services have ranged from individual philanthropists to international organizations, and have included but are not limited to:
- Autism Ontario – charity in support of people living on the Autism spectrum
- Barrie Pride – not-for-profit in support of the LGBTQ community
- Beneath the Blanket – charity in support of the homeless
- Canadian National Institute for the Blind – charity for the blind
- Coldest Night of the Year, Orillia – fundraiser for helping the homeless
- Gilda’s Club of Simcoe Muskoka – charity in support of cancer patients and families
- Goodwill Industries – community-oriented offering training and support to jobless
- Hopefest – annual not-for-profit music festival in support of Sick Kids Hospital
- Lighthouse Soup Kitchen and Shelter in Orillia – helping the homeless
- Patchless Ride for Autism – annual motorcycle rally in support of Autism Ontario
- Paying It Back – Barrie philanthropist Frank Nelson’s bucket list charities
- Pole Fitness – women empowering exercise misrepresented by ‘conservative’ opponents
- Push For Change – cross-Canada journey to raise awareness of Youth Homelessness
- Restoring Dignity and Hope – charity in support of newly released inmates from correctional institutions
- St. John's Ambulance - a community based first aid and safety oriented not-for-profit service that provides a wide variety of services to our community
- Silent Swim – deaf swimmer Brenda Lussier-Neumueller swam across Great Lakes to raise funds to fight Cystic Fibrosis that threatens her brother
- Swim For Dreams – fifteen-year-old Ashleigh Beacham swam Lake Ontario to send a five year old boy with leukemia to Disney World
- SY-STEM Links (formerly STEM Interface) – online and video kiosk based system to assist the homeless find essential services
- Women and Children’s Shelter of Barrie – charity in support of women and children
Our work has been used by various broadcasters, including the Barrie CTV station and their counterpart in Toronto. Our commercial production credits range from small local businesses to international fortune 500 companies, and the charities we have assisted cover the full-range from infant care, through to women’s rights, and even bikers raising money for Autism.
Please review the list of charities we have helped by selecting the “Recent Stories” button on the header bar.
