St. Ann's Bay Development Association

Meeting of 5 January 2010

In attendance:
Yves Despois, Gordon Douglas, Loreto Doyle, Marcelle Lavoie, Chrissie MacEachern, Merrill MacInnis, Corrina Petersen (VCCAPS), Aaron Schneider, Andy Watt, Paul Weinburg, Kurt Yonder, Susan Zettell

Regrets:
Angelo Spinazzola

1) Agenda
Approved (moved: Yves; seconded: Susan)

2) Minutes of 15 September 2009:
Approved (moved: Paul; seconded: Chrissie)

3) Elect a Secretary, and collect Joint Stocks registration data

• Defer selection of a Secretary to the end of the meeting; Aaron agrees to take notes for this meeting (with our thanks).
  
  
• Chrissie gathers addressing information from new Board members for SABDA's Joint Stocks registration update.

4) Business Arising from the Minutes of 15 September:

• September 20 cleanup of old Cabot Trail
  Several people turned out. Some work remains to be done, but a good walking route that is mostly accessible to bicycles, too, is now available.
  
  
• North River Church pews for fundraising
  This is Angelo's project; in his absence tonight, this item will be deferred to our next meeting. ACTION: Angelo will pursue the idea with pew owners.
  
  
• Celebrating Communities Conference
  Marcelle attended this conference on our behalf. ACTION: As suggested by Susan, Loreto (who attended on behalf of the Health Centre) will post her report on the Conference on the SABDA web site. (NOTE: the report appears as an appendix to these minutes.)
  
  
• Arboretum Society
  The Arbouretum Society is in default of its Registry of Joint Stocks fees. Dennis Laffan has expressed his interest in helping to get the Society going again, and plans an Arbour Day planting on May 1. (Dennis Laffan and Bill Nicolson are the best sources of more info.)

5) Business Arising from the Minutes of the November AGM:

• Expensive Internet Access
  
  Aaron reported that Seaside high-speed Internet customers are paying more than $250 per year more than if they were able to access the Bell Aliant service. He learned that CRTC does not regulate Internet access, and the consensus at our meeting is that the Province funded a programme aimed at universal access to high speed, not at guaranteeing a level playing field, price-wise. Corrina suggested calling Keith Bain to discuss our concerns. (Aaron notes that he did call, and found Keith's assistant Diane very knowledgeable and helpful. She will forward our concerns to Keith and the Provincial Broadband Team <broadband@gov.ns.ca>).
  
  
• Ecology Action Centre Presentation
  
  Donna forwarded an article that mentions some of the provincial coastal initiatives that SABDA should be aware of and keep in mind. Jen Graham mentioned (at our AGM) the Sustainable Coastal Development Strategy, which is due in 2010. Its release will be preceded by a State of the Coast report (now released; see http://novascotia.ca/coast/state-of-the-coast.asp); following the release of this report, there will be public consultations. Jen thinks SABDA should participate to avoid the dominance of a Halifax point of view. As well, there is a Provincial Water Resources Strategy being developed that focusses on fresh water.
  
  Jen also talked about a Climate Change Adaptability Fund that will be available soon, and SABDA may well find that we can put in a proposal for funding.
  
  As well, the Coastal Coalition (ccns.chebucto.org) plans a congress in early February, and SABDA may want to be part of this Coalition.
  
  The Eastern District Planning Commission (headed by John Baine?) for Cape Breton and Antigonish stresses land use planning. We've tried to talk about this around here, but little real planning has been done. Something else SABDA needs to investigate…
  
  ACTION: Marcelle will follow up on Coastal Coalition membership possibilities.

6) Financial Report: Chrissie

• $6,984.72 in the SABDA account.
  
  
• Financial report accepted as read (moved: Chrissie; seconded: Susan)

7) New Business:

• Hiking trail at Indian Brook—Paul pitched his idea to build a trail along/above the Indian Brook to a promontory above the "Great Falls". Liability, maintenance, routing, financing, and sponsorship (SABDA) issues were discussed and questioned. A motion was passed as follows:
  
  Moved: SABDA supports the development of a safe and accessible walking trail to the Great Falls on the Indian Brook, and asks Paul Weinburg to explore its feasibility with government officials and report back. (moved: Merrill; seconded: Yves; passed)
  
  ACTION: Paul will take our expression of support to his contact in government, and find out what next steps they suggest or require.
  
  
• VCCAPS offerings—Corrina Peterson, Coordinator of Victoria County CAP Sites Association (VCCAPS), spoke to us about ongoing CAP site projects:
  
  . Classes for seniors, organisations, and small businesses
  . Youth-staffed winter web info project (see webopt.info):
    - Web design, maintenance
    - Web-based commerce
    - Internet security training
  
  Corrina can also assist in proposal writing.
  
  VCCAPS is open to suggestions for other programs of interest; Corrina can provide a trainer, and many courses are also available on line for self-teaching:
  
  . Easy step guides on a variety of topics: vccaps.com/easy-step-guides
  
  
• Software—Loreto tells us that inexpensive software is available for non-profit organisations from Techsoup Canada. Qualifying is complex, but software is very inexpensive. If anyone sees a need for software for SABDA, this can be investigated further. Their web site is techsoupcanada.ca
  
  
• Insurance—The nature of and need for Directors' and Officers' insurance and liability insurance for SABDA's committees was discussed.
  
  ACTION: Loreto will find an agent/broker to advise us at April's meeting.
  
  
• Election of a Secretary—Yves was nominated as our new Secretary; he accepted his nomination and was acclaimed to the office.
  
  

8) Next Board Meeting: Tuesday 20 April 2010, 7:00 pm, at St. Ann's Bay Health Centre.

9) Meeting Adjourned

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Appendix I
Celebrating Communities Conference

--Loreto Doyle

I attended the "Celebrating Communities" conference in Truro on September 23–25, 2009. My conference and travel costs were funded by the Ministry of Economic and Rural Development, the primary sponsor of the event.

This conference is held every two years (it's been done three times, I believe). It is sponsored in part by the host community, this year, the Colchester Regional Development Agency/City of Truro.

The main theme of the conference is community development; it incorporates an awards programme targetted to communities and volunteers who are getting things done locally.

Format

In addition to an evening devoted to awards, and assorted recreational events, the conference included several speakers and presentations that offered motivational exhortations, case studies of community projects on differing scales, and government policy announcements or discussions of said policy.

We also had a field trip to one of six selected development projects in and around the Colchester area. We were not free to select our destination; however, I was assigned to one of two that had interested me.

Principle Lessons

Listening to other groups' stories of their projects and challenges, I was reminded of just how unusual is our community. Represented at the conference were communities of all sizes, including Halifax, but the preponderance of groups were, as in the province itself, quite small and/or rural. None, however, had quite as large a geographic size as ours, coupled with such a tiny population.

We are probably in the very top group of communities when it comes to average age. And we are among the most "wealthy", again, on average. We also have a very healthy percentage of people not born here, or even with historic ties here, also quite unusual. So, anything but typical. It was therefore sometimes hard to draw direct parallels between us and other communities represented at the conference.

Two things became very clear over the three days of the conference:

1. The most successful communities have clear, long-term goals, and strategies for achieving those goals. Everything they undertake serves those goals within the context of their agreed strategies. Goals are commonly agreed in the wider community, and are not set in stone.
   
   
2. The most successful communities spend quite a bit of energy keeping each other informed. Rather than inciting more contention, common knowledge appears to reduce misunderstanding, and increase participation. Keeping the whole community very informed seems to build involvement, even if some people are involved only on a per-project basis.

As I spoke with volunteers from other communities, I heard refinements on these basic ideas:

1. Long-term goals can be changed. They should be revisited regularly. Strategies must be changed, as times, regulations, and opportunities change. Strategies serve goals, and are not goals in themselves.
   
   Any project we undertake must have very clear goals, and these must be referenced as the context for all decisions affecting both the project and our other work. Our projects should clearly serve the community's long-term goals. If they don't, they won't endure, or won't succeed. Even if we're really fond of them.
   
   
2. Our newsletters should include a fair degree of detailed information about our on-going projects, plans, funding, and goals. Except for personally identifiable information (as a health-related organisation in a very close-knit community, we sometimes have access to such, and have a special duty, therefore, to protect it), we should have no secrets, and should even become boring on the subject of what we're doing.

Interesting Presentations

Currently, the Cape Breton District Health Authority is focusing on healthy eating as a primary component of its Health Promotion strategy (see the "Communities in Motion" and "Healthy Eating" initiatives). It is on this platform that we have built our successful Seniors' Lunch programmes. So, these two presentations were particularly interesting to me, as a representative of our Health Group.

• The Edible School Yard
  
  The community of Summerville, in Hants County, has a school which maintains a vegetable garden. Students help to select the plants that are grown, and the community at large (primarily parents) help to maintain plantings during the summer. The garden produce is included in school meals. Students learn about growing and harvesting food, and preparing it in the kitchen, even including tool use (garden and kitchen).
  
  This is a difficult project for a school, given the summer break during the height of the growing season. And in our community, we are currently school-free. However, there are growing numbers of seniors in our community who can no longer do all that is required to grow and maintain a garden, but who still want to garden, and who certainly want garden produce.
  
  A community garden (or a series of them), with a twist, could be in order. The twist is that the community's gardeners would offer a little time to the garden for plots that are not their own. Seniors, or seasonally busy people, or those with special needs, could have garden plots that they could tend some time, with support from others for heavy work, or help at planting and harvest times, a little weeding or watering, etc.
  
  

• Deconstructing Dinner
  
  Jon Steinman, a proponent of food-source/quality awareness, has a radio programme produced in Nelson BC that examines the cultural, political, economic, and health consequences of our food choices.
  
  Web site: deconstructingdinner.ichannel.ca
  
  In addition to giving us an introduction to the kinds of issues he researches, Jon presented background on his current long-term project, which follows BC's "community supported agriculture (CSA)" project to raise grain.
  
  A CSA is a cooperative that essentially buys a farmer's production at the start of the season, thereby guaranteeing a living to that farmer. The CSA assumes the risk of crop loss or failure, and receives all of the product of the farm at harvest time. The idea is to keep farmers on the land, and procure local supplies of produce.
  
  The idea of a CSA could work quite well in our kind of community, where farms tend to be small, and land hard to work. The example that Jon is documenting in BC involves three grain farmers; like here, it is not reasonably possible to have very large grain farms in the area being farmed, so three smaller holdings combine to meet the demands of the CSA. Here, too, it is likely that more than one farmer would have to enter the arrangement, in order to meet all or most of the needs of a group of consumers. CSAs may be one viable solution to the combined problems of small holdings, difficult land, an aging population, and "interesting" seasons, in a community that expresses a growing demand for quality local produce.
  
  

• Connecting Communities
  
  Lorraine Glendenning, of the "Broadband for Rural Nova Scotia" initiative, has already been to Victoria County this year to introduce the Ministry's workshop "Planning for a High Speed Future". Apparently, we were among the first to try out the workshop, because it is just now being rolled out to the province at large. The presentation at the conference introduced the workshop, and profiled several community and business ventures from around the province that are succeeding because of the advent of high-speed Internet access.
  
  The workshop is a tool to help communities examine how they might use the Internet to effectively develop and deliver social and economic benefits. The province has trained various local volunteers to run the workshop, and it is now available to any community group. Even though it has already been presented in Victoria County, we are free to organise it again any number of times. Because the first one occurred during business hours on a week day in fishing season, I do think another would be a good idea...
  
  Web site: novascotia.ca/econ/broadband/connect/planning
  
  

• Enabling Funding Announced
  
  During his remarks at the conference, Minister of Economic and Rural Development, Hon. Percy Paris, announced $100,000 in new funding for the "Building a High Speed Future" program, to help communities develop new Internet-based services. From the press release: the funding "... will ensure communities are better positioned to develop a stronger presence on line, and become more competitive".
  
  I have spoken with several people from the Ministry, and I am reasonably reliably informed that funding will be granted on the basis of quality of application, rather than geographically. In short, we needn't fear that multiple applications for funding from the same region will be in competition. They are more interested in finding and funding good projects that can become models for other communities.
  
  See the press release here: novascotia.ca/news/release/?id=20090925003
  
  So, there is a tool available to help us test our wishes for the Internet, and funding offered to help us implement whatever we can devise.

Field Trip

Glooscap Heritage Centre/Nova Scotia Arctic Charr (Aquaculture)

We toured these two projects of the Millbrook First Nation. This community is a group of about 800 on-reserve residents, plus another 500 or so who live off reserve, or on one of three satellite reserves in HRM, or one in nearby Truro. The population is quite small, and includes both "town" and "rural" components. Unlike our own community, there are very few elderly seniors, and quite a few youth and children.

Millbrook has a very active economic development strategy, high notes of which are the two facilities we toured. The community is also very focused on providing education and cultural preservation and promulgation inside the community. The Millbrook business web site and community portal are very good examples of what can be achieved with some imagination, dedication, and excellent grant applications:

Web site: millbrookfirstnation.net

The Glooscap Heritage Centre is located just off the main highway between Truro and Halifax, and is marked by a very giant statue of Glooscap. It shares space with a visitor centre and gift shop, and features museum displays and an audio-visual presentation of the history of the Mi'kmaw people. The facility is staffed by very enthusiastic tour guides who are prepared to speak at length about the cultural heritage of the local people. In fact, our 20-year-old tour guide was able to speak from personal experience when he described the making of porcupine quill tapestries--he undertook to learn the art so that he could more fully explain it!

While I am not a particular fan of the type of indoor aquaculture practiced at Millbrook (I don't like conditions from the fish's point of view), it is an undeniably successful economic venture. Great care is being taken to prevent damage to the watershed of the community, and waste heat and animal waste are actively captured to be used by the adjoining independent greenhouse operation.

The Millbrook community impressed me with its many large-scale development projects, including a health and fitness centre, community centre, and business centre. Such a very small community is actively involved in multi-million dollar development projects in its own right and name. While even this small community is quite large in comparison with our own, population-wise, its determination in the face of some quite daunting cultural disadvantages is quite inspiring.

Specific Programmes and Resources

I have brought back a copy of the 2005 "Strategy for Positive Aging in Nova Scotia"; I am told that it is in process of being updated and reissued/replaced.

"Women's Health in Rural Communities"

• Partnership between Nova Scotia Agricultural College (NSAC), Dalhousie University, and IWK Health Centre
• Funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
• Web site: www.bringinghealthhome.com/whirc
• The focus of this group is young women living rurally. They do research, and aim to develop strategies and influence policy toward improving health in rural communities through the young women they see as guardians and promoters of health.
• They publish reports, a newsletter, and their web site. Some studies may be reported at some point.
• They invite input from communities, including through seats on their advisory boards.
• They may be a source of ideas for our own programmes, even though they target younger women.

"Voluntary Sector Resource Collection"

• New collection of information at each public library "coming soon" (may already have arrived)
• Web site: novascotia.ca/lae/volunteerism/resources.asp

"The Rural Research Centre"

• Nova Scotia Agricultural College Note: the college is now part of Dalhousie University)
• Web site: dal.ca/faculty/agriculture/research/centres-and-labs/rural-research-centre.html

"Community Counts"

• Web site: novascotia.ca/finance/communitycounts
• This is a new and developing resource. It presents pre-packaged views of census data (the data source is StatsCan). Because it is new, we can interact with the data designers early, and help "guide" their choices. As might be expected, our community is not specifically described, and so we have to further extrapolate and guesstimate. However, it is worth seeing how far the designers are willing to go (and how well they are funded) in making this data specific enough for us.
• We have already started to use some of the presented data in our current grant applications, and previous-project reports to funders.
• There are obvious uses of census data in planning, for both social and economic development. This is currently a free service, and that is what is new--local community groups can base decisions on more or less "real" data, rather than assumptions and guesses.

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