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Wednesday, January 31, 2007
from The Manitoulin
Expositor, by Lindsay Kelly
Mindemoya-When last we
heard from the Business Retention and
Expansion project, the surveys had been
completed and the project coordinators
were overseeing the compilation of the
data. On January 23, participants in a
day-long workshop gathered to provide
input for the next step: providing
strategies for the Island-wide action
plan to foster economic development.
Gathering at the Mindemoya Community
Centre, close to 40 representatives of
sectors from across the Island,
including tourism, government,
agriculture, business and more, spent
the day brainstorming about what can be
done to encourage economic development
at what organizers called the
Island-wide task force retreat.
“We hope, at the end of the day, we will
have a tool we can use for all of
Manitoulin,” said John Foster, Community
Economic Development Officer for the
LaCloche Manitoulin Business Assistance
Corporation (LAMBAC). “We need to get
together to share our views on how we
can bring businesses here and keep the
businesses that are already here.”
Representatives were broken up into
groups – agriculture, retail, tourism,
and training – to discuss what their
sector needs in order to make positive
strides in economic development. The
leadership team, which comprises
representatives from across the Island,
isolated areas on which the groups were
to work, based on data from the surveys
conducted in the summer, Mr. Foster
said.
Ideally, their solutions will be those
that will create or save jobs across the
Island, he added.
While the Northeast Town has decided to
incorporate the findings into their own
community planning process, Assiginack,
Gore Bay and Central Manitoulin will use
the process laid out by the BR+E
project.
For the retail sector, the focus was on
encouraging people to ‘buy Manitoulin.’
A former campaign promoting this
endeavour has fallen by the wayside, but
part of the project’s focus will be to
“get that up and running again,” Mr.
Foster said.
Agriculture representatives, meanwhile,
were focusing on the abattoir, and
whether it should be a priority for the
Island. Although the Northeast Town is
currently exploring options surrounding
the abattoir, “we have no interest to
replicate someone else’s work,” Mr.
Foster said. “The idea is to look at
the Island as a whole.”
Those in the group looking at training
zeroed in on the use of the Internet and
developing a website as being their most
useful marketing tool, and the group
studying tourism has identified the
one-day events as an area that must be
promoted better.
In a press release sent out following
the initiative, project coordinator
Amanda Morrison said the workshop was a
success, and the results will be
released to the public very soon.
“The ideas developed at the retreat will
be approved by the leadership team,
written into an action plan and
presented at public meetings later in
the winter,” she said.
Dates and times for the public meetings
will be publicized as they become
available.
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