The Learning Annex is back. It's just not the one you remember.
It actually made its first appearance this time last year. Early one Saturday morning in March, 2007, the lobby of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre was heaving with thousands of inspiration-seeking registrants scrambling to get programs. Each program was emblazoned with the motto "THIS WEEKEND BECOME A MILLIONAIRE!"
The Learning Annex Real Estate & Wealth Expo had plastered the city with Donald Trump's face, but hadn't advertised when in the two-day event his ballyhooed speech would occur. So here was everyone who'd paid upwards of $100 for tickets, bleary-eyed and jostling, not wanting to miss out.
"If you have your badges, keep moving up the stairs," hollered an official in the crowd. "If you have questions, ask the cute girls in the white shirts!"
Upstairs, as the stadium-sized main floor filled up, the girls in white tank-tops - and there were many, every one of them cute - milled about and greeted newcomers. Someone had dressed in a costume with a giant Trump bobblehead. Up front, a speaker had taken the stage.
"We have a little tradition here," he boomed. "It's called the money dance!" The money dance was set to the tune of the 1990 pop song I Wanna Be Rich: "I... want... money! Lots and lots of money!" Step-clap-step-clap... As the music blared, thousands got up, looked around a bit sheepishly, then stepped, clapped, stepped and clapped.
And then the organizers of the Learning Annex Real Estate & Wealth Expo did a little money dance of their own. For the next two days, attendees were offered a blend of high-octane inspirational talk along with pitch after pitch for schemes that promised success at everything from flipping apartments to profiting from foreclosures - if, of course, they purchased further learning materials.
This is the new Learning Annex - and it will be rolling back into town on March 29. After being sold and re-sold over the years, the institution that Torontonians might best recall for its intriguing and offbeat night-school courses has morphed into a different creature entirely.
Its curbside boxes are empty and dilapidated, its quirky courses no longer offered. In its place is a travelling extravaganza of high-profile speakers and anyone-can-do-it real-estate schemes. If last year's event is any indication, it will leave some people feeling like a million - and others wondering where their money went.
From z to z and back
It wasn't always this way. What happened to the Learning Annex that was?
"Donald Trump," is Bill Zanker's answer.
"Donald Trump took our brand and put it on the map."
Mr. Zanker would know. He founded the Learning Annex in 1980 in New York City. By 1986, it had expanded to Toronto, as well as other big cities in the United States. Over the years, it earned a reputation for offering how-to courses that ranged from meat-and-potatoes to downright weird.
The Learning Annex would teach you everything from computer skills to reconnecting with your past lives, from magazine writing to "The Intimate Art of Foot Reflexology." It might not have been Harvard North, exactly, but who else offered a course called "Break Into The News Business! An Afternoon With Gord Martineau"?
In 1991, however, the Learning Annex filed for bankruptcy, and Mr. Zanker sold the organization he started. The Toronto end of the operation was purchased by a trio of Canadian businessmen and run locally for most of the decade.
Through the 1990s, the Learning Annex's local owners moved towards bringing in more high-profile speakers - motivational and otherwise - in addition to the usual courses. Toronto saw the likes of Jerry Lewis, Deepak Chopra, Timothy Leary and Kurt Vonnegut, who spoke in a church on Queen Street East.
"We brought a lot of personal growth to the big stage during the nineties," said David Sersta, who was the Learning Annex's managing partner in those years. "We introduced a lot of great speakers, like Eckhart Tolle." (Mr. Tolle went on to author The Power of Now, which became a darling of Oprah Winfrey and her formidable marketing machine.)
