Blood Money From Sale of Our School

Former Blyth Public School

Director of Finance for Avon Maitland School Board, Jane Baird-Jackson, proudly announces that the sales of this school and one other (Brussels) have been concluded. She adds that there are very tight restrictions on what these funds can be used for.

It is important to point out that there were also "tight restrictions" on how the AMDSB could go about deciding which schools to close. The board paid very limited attention to those rules, board and staff members routinely manipulated the ARC process to frustrate the community's needs and rights. They gave out false information, ignored the community's petition. And the Ministers of Education through that time period turned a blind eye on the entire sordid process.

We are not told what those restrictions are on the use of the blood money they are getting from these sales, but we as a community cannot trust that the uses will be of any benefit to this community. Given the board's track record, can they be trusted to adhere to these restrictions?

Gone are the days when school trustees represented the community by whom they were elected. Instead we have only leeches which draw out our blood and build monuments to themselves at enormous and unnecessary public expense.

This community has been severely damaged by this board's malicious theft of our school. Whatever the board decides to do with their ill-gotten gains, our only consolation is that there is nothing else left that they can steal from us.

CAUTION: B R & E MUST BE DONE PROPERLY

BUSINESS RETENTION  and  EXPANSION (B R & E)

THIS IS AN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM WHICH, WHEN CARRIED OUT PROPERLY, CAN MAKE A DRAMATIC IMPROVEMENT IN THE ECONOMIC CLIMATE OF A COMMUNITY. WE HAVE LEARNED RECENTLY THAT THERE IS A NEED FOR OVERSIGHT TO ENSURE THAT THE PROJECT IS CARRIED OUT PROPERLY. A BADLY CONDUCTED PROJECT CAN HAVE POWERFUL NEGATIVE EFFECTS ON THE COMMUNITY.

   

BR & E  is a process which has been in use for many years and was adopted in Ontario in the late 1990s by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA). It is an important economic development strategy, an important adjunct to the popular strategy of attempting to recruit businesses and industries from other places. The argument behind B R & E is that "we need to build on what we have, by doing whatever we can to keep the businesses we have and help them to succeed and grow. Businesses that we can lure from other communities may be just as likely to slip away somewhere else, whereas our existing businesses already have an allegiance to us. Why not do our best for them?

I was involved with the introduction of BR & E in Ontario in the late 1990s by OMAFRA. Along with four or five others, I was on the committee chaired by Harold Flaming which developed the original questionnaire as well as the procedures that would be used throughout the process. The program was tested in several communities throughout southern Ontario. I worked with the pilot program for Seaforth and along met periodically with all of the pilot teams around the province to compare notes and fine tune the program.

We were all very proud of what was achieved by these pilot projects, and now, many years later, we can still see the benefits of the things we learned and the relationships that were formed by that entire process.

In recent months many more B R & E projects have been launched across Huron County. In most cases we see similar kinds of success due to the identification of challenges and the discovery of new visions all of which lead to positive plans and renewal. I have noted that the questionnaire has undergone some updating and refinement, but a surprising number of the questions remain the same as those of the original survey document.

Unfortunately, some of the projects completed recently have failed to measure up to the potential of B R & E quality results. In my view this has come about because along the way some groups have made changes that they feel will improve the process in certain ways, but in so doing, they have eliminated some of the very qualities that made the BR & E process so successful. Chief among these changes have been measures to make the process more efficient. In many cases these efficiencies have eliminated some of the activities that contributed enormously to the success of the program. This is a program in which the steps in the process of doing it are all important and part of the original design. Somewhere along the line newcomers have seen this as a simple completion of a questionnaire. They have missed many of the essential points that have had as great an effect on the community as the survey itself. In other word the process of the project is of as great an importance as the final report itself.

I will indicate some of the original features that have been altered by some groups:

Direct involvement by municipal council.

The B R & E process has been so successful in large part because it put together the elected officials, municipal staff, business representatives, and other community members. All the members see that the whole community is working together determined to make the community better for present and future business to serve the community more effectively. Thus it was not just a matter of the work that these people did, but a matter of how they perceived other people and other segments of their community.

Later groups have felt that that arrangement was very inefficient, and have a “lean and mean” committee with perhaps a staff representative from the municipality and a committee of mostly business people. In some cases they hire one or more “experts” to do the interviewing, complete the forms, and submit these to OMAFRA for processing. This is certainly more efficient if seen as nothing more than a form filling exercise, but completely lost is the community impact which was derived from the joint participation of members of the total community. It's a cheap way of doing the job that misses the rich results that should be available. 

Volunteer Interviewers

The original design called for a large number of volunteers from the community to do the interviewing. Most of these people are very busy and cannot afford a huge amount of time to devote to this task. Thus the aim was to have a large number of interviewers each performing from two to four interviews. In that way the interviews could be completed in a very short period of time – probably within two weeks or three.

The other feature was that each interview would be conducted by two volunteers: one to ask the questions, the other to record the responses on the questionnaire form.

There were two evenings of preparation to familiarize the interviewers with the questions in the questionnaire and to prepare them for responding to questions that the interviewees might ask. Some role playing exercises were held which added to the comfort level of the interview teams both on interviewing and recording.

Not surprisingly, this demand for dozens of volunteers appeared to some as a huge waste of volunteers. For several years now I have not heard of any groups that have taken this route. The loss, however, is enormous. In the Seaforth pilot, great care was taken to impress on everyone that these interviews were given in confidence. The questionnaire form would be sealed and sent to Guelph for processing unseen by any other individuals. The exception to this would be a “red flag” item: some issue that came up in the interview that required immediate attention by someone or some body. In this case, the interviewee would give permission for the team to present this information to the individual who was designated as the red flag coordinator who would then take the issue to the appropriate authority for resolution. That might be the Mayor, the Director of Public Works, the telephone company, the landlord, the neighbour, or whoever had the authority to deal immediately with the matter.

This approach had a huge effect on the entire community. It involved a huge number of regular community members who saw first hand the genuine concern and effort being put forth by their community and business leaders to make substantive improvements in the community. It increased the amount of civic involvement. The effect showed up in the crowd that showed up to hear about the results of the BR & E project.

The BR&E is a whole community event

The BR&E program is intended as a community-wide process – not just a council or a business project. When it is taken over by one or two segments of the community, it can be turned into a very divisive process with finger-pointing, blame-laying, community fragmentation, and the very kind of dysfunctional behaviour which might be one of the major obstacles to retaining and attracting businesses.

The ideal is to get all groups together, ensure that all are in agreement to the goals of  B R & E, and go forward to determine what “we” need to do to retain and attract business in our community. Otherwise it can become a witch hunt whose only purpose its show up the inadequacies of “those other people”.

The Municipal council must be involved in the planning and organizing of the project because it will have a major role in dealing with obstacles or issues that arise in terms of public works, water, sewer, storm water, traffic, roads, etc. Also, it is essential that the councils members have a complete understanding of the B R & E purpose and goals and their responsibility in working with the community to address these issues. Furthermore, as the project is dealing with the issues arising, the council can advise the participants of the opportunities available through the municipality as well as to constraints under which they operate.

It is important as well to have a representation of regular citizens working on the project. Some could be on the central committee but a large groups could serve as interviewers. Besides those functional roles, they will serve as ambassadors to the community at large spreading the word about the goals of the project and building anticipation for the outcome and encourage participation and support for the remediation that takes place to implement to changes recommended.

RECENT TRENDS

A common trend is to minimize the involvement of large groups of volunteers to assist with the interviewing. The mythology is that those early projects were bogged down with volunteers, were very inefficient, and the projects dragged on for 6 or 8 months. I am aware of some projects that took an inordinately long time, but they were always ones that involved only overworked staff who had difficulty finding time to do the interviewing. My recollection of the Seaforth pilot is that the interviews took place over a period of no more than three weeks. (that is just my recollection. I was on a team of two. We had about three interviews that took place in a span of two weeks.) The results were sent quickly to Guelph for processing. They were a little slow coming back because they were still adjusting to the process, but were in reasonable time. The process was not only more efficient than the consultant route being used now; it was much more productive as a result of the other benefits of community involvement.

We have witnessed a few B R & E projects which have failed to achieve the optimum results that are generally reached by the original process.

LONG TERM EFFECT OF B R & E

I attended a meeting last week in Seaforth at which the Gateway Rural Health Research Institute was signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Western Ontario faculty of Medicine and Dentistry as an agreement to work together to enhance the education of medical and dentistry students as well as to contribute to our rural health across Canada and our understanding of the special health issues in this rural area. Attending that meeting and directly involved in that institute were several people who began working together on that B R & E program almost 12 years ago and are still working together today.

Brock Vodden

AMDSB: Another Communication Screw Up!

  “Blyth area schools to see enrolment increase”

This was a front page headline in this week's Citizen. 

How could a seven word statement contain so many false and misleading concepts? It suggests that there are several Blyth area schools, and there are not; in fact, there are no Blyth area schools. The last one was closed last year by the Avon Maitland District School Board, the institution that issued the press release. Besides, the Blyth area schools cannot increase their enrolment, because they do not exist and have no enrolment.

The article continues talking about other schools in Wingham - MRES, the monster school,  and F.E. Madill Grades 7 & 8. What happened to the discussion of Blyth? Very few of the Blyth students have opted to attend those schools; most are trundled off to Huron  Central School in Londesborough. They apparently don't warrant a mention. To the Avon Maitland Communications Department, that school doesn't exist either.

Yesterday, I got my copy of the Wingham Advance-Times EXTRA, and it all became clear how this very slip-shod communication process went off the rails. Its headline reads:

"Wingham and area student numbers to increase"

What follows is the exactly same content as the "Blyth area" piece except Wingham is substituted for Blyth. In the name of efficiency, the Wingham version of the article seems to have been written first, and with no further thought, they substituted Blyth for Wingham thinking that they have saved a lot of time and made the little people in Blyth happy that they are being recognized.

Interesting to note that they had no mention of Brussels which is an equal partner in the Citizen coverage area.

The AMDSB's communication department has never been accused of being honest or intelligent, but this fiasco takes the cake.

Communications departments are usually intended to create a positive image of the organization in the minds of the public, but this communications department seems to project and amplify the very internal inadequacies the Board would like to cover up.

They do a surprisingly good job of representing the board at the macro level, but, like the board, they are hopeless when it comes to dealing with and representing individual communities throughout the "empire". They could learn something from Alexander the Great or the Roman empire, about the danger of taking over more territory than your limited abilities can manage effectively.

Superintendent Ash, however, according to the article is very pleased with the fact that elementary head count has stabilized. (I wonder if he realizes that the Blyth children have gone AWOL, statistically speaking?) He is really pleased that the ARC process is going to “sustain good building utilization”. 

Good building utilization!

That is a performance measurement I never heard of when I was a Superintendent of Education. I guess we were hung up on trivia such as education quality and service to the community.

I am beginning to think that this perpetual abandonment of Blyth and Brussels by AMDSB may be a great advantage to these communities. If we expect nothing of them, we’ll never be disappointed when nothing is what we receive. 

That sense of being on our own as far as education is concerned, casting off the yoke of a board that nether represents us or serves us, may just spur us on to create a better service than that board would be capable of providing even if they really cared.

Brock Vodden

NEW HOPE FOR BLYTH

BLYTH FACING UNPRECEDENTED OPPORTUNITIES

The closing of our only school by Avon Maitland District School Board was a serious blow to our community. My pessimism is fading as I begin to see glimmers of new ways of mitigating that tragic loss. Sometimes it takes a shattering blow to enable us to discover potential we did not know we possessed.

BLYTH: FREE OF ITS SHACKLES

I have had a lot to say about our community of Blyth being abandoned by the school board which, we assumed, should represent us: our community and our children.

We now know, and everyone knows, the kind of people who run the Avon Maitland District School Board. The questions which now come to mind are these:

“Would we really want to be represented by this group?” and

“Why are we not celebrating the fact that we are no longer shackled by that dysfunctional and misguided board which has sacrificed our school (and others) in order to erect a monument to themselves?”

I really believe that Blyth will survive and thrive in spite of, and perhaps because of, our being abandoned by the Avon Maitland District School Board.

There are signs that encourage this optimistic viewpoint.

Blyth is unique. Despite the fact that we share the struggles of small rural communities across Canada, we are special.

Ø  We have the Blyth Festival of the Arts, approaching its 39^th year of achievement.

Ø  We have the Huron Pioneer Threshers’ and Hobby Association with over 50 years of annual Threshers’ Reunions.

Ø  We have a new and exciting Emergency Services Training Centre, attracting the attention of emergency services organizations across Ontario and beyond.

Ø  We have one of the largest serviced campgrounds in Canada which is just beginning to realize its true potential as a destination for camping groups.

None of these are “branch plant” entities. They benefited from outside support and ideas, but they emerged from local initiative and vision.

As impressive as these achievements are, they reflect only a thumbnail view of their potential for the future. Whether we take advantage of that potential or not is moot.

The potential lies in our response to changing circumstances that are already in motion. Many of our past disadvantages are becoming advantages. Societal changes are rolling over us willy-nilly, but we have the choice of riding the tides or drowning.

BROADBAND INITIATIVE

History keeps repeating itself. Technologies are initially adopted in large centres and only slowly rolled out to the hinterlands.

• The first telephone systems were confined to cities and towns. It was considered too costly to extend telephone lines into the sparsely populated rural concessions.
• Many rural areas failed to get hydro services until the late 40s. The barrier was the perceived prohibitive cost of distribution through those areas.
• Recently, in this area we participated in a project to get internet access out to the rural parts of Huron and Perth counties. Like the others involved, I firmly believed that wireless technology was the only way to reach these areas. It never occurred to us that fibre would be a feasible delivery vehicle to the farm gate.  This opinion, unless over-ridden, would confine rural areas to sub-optimal broadband and bandwidth access.
• The Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus has launched a project to change all that. They are holding conversations across SW Ontario to try to develop a business case for extending super high speed internet service to every household and business in this entire area. 

If successful, this initiative will open up for us the opportunity of a lifetime – literally.

We have been shackled by the concept of being too far away from the big cities and Highway 401 to be successful. Well, 401 has become Toronto’s disadvantage (for many people). With commuting times growing annually, life in or near the big city is becoming intolerable and unsustainable for many people. We can offer freedom from those commuting hours, less expensive housing, cleaner air, calmer life-style, so long as we can also offer unlimited, extremely high speed, reliable connectivity. Hundreds of thousands of people are able to do most of their work from any location on earth (or even from a space station) so long as they have the ultimate in connectivity.

Face to face meetings are often necessary for people who work remotely, but even these are accommodated by advanced technologies and excellence of connectivity.

CULTURE AS AN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL PILLAR

We enjoyed a presentation last week by Gordon Hume, a respected commentator of matters cultural and municipal.

Many of our local communities continue to view cultural matters as effete, frilly, and frivolous matters for people who have more money than they know what to do with. Mr. Hume convincingly demonstrates that culture is as important as the physical infrastructure of our communities, and stands as an equal element within our economic development portfolio.

We have known for some time that a community like Blyth cannot function effectively by relying exclusively on local commerce. We need customers, clients, tourists, culture seekers from outside of our area to keep our community buoyant.

We have also been selected as a key community within Tourist Region 4 enabling Blyth to benefit from regional promotion of what we have to offer visitors from far and wide.

Our Blyth Festival of the Arts has demonstrated the ability to draw that kind of traffic to our community. I believe it has the potential to do even more, based on the concepts of the former Artistic Director, Eric Coates, with his concept of the artist community in “Banff East”. We have been further stimulated by the vision provided to us by a community-based presentation headed by Interim Artistic Director, Peter Smith. They talk of refurbishing the quintessential Blyth Memorial Community Hall, but also blending that in with the initiative to create a new streetscape of the village. The presentation also proposes further development down the road to broaden the footprint of the theatre and other arts. It is important to note the powerful endorsements that came from many community leaders and groups for this initiative.

BROADBAND AND OUR SPECIAL ASSETS

How can we link our technology capabilities, cultural assets, and unique community assets to assist Blyth to achieve its full potential?

That is the topic we need to consider as a community.

SUPPORT REQUIRED

It is important to note that all of these initiatives have come about by community leadership as opposed to local government initiative. All levels of government, including the local municipality, have contributed financially and in other ways, but the spark and the drive have all come from the community.

As we move forward, support will continue to be needed from the Municipality of North Huron as owners of the Memorial Hall, and other facilities in Blyth. But I predict that there will be other matters that will arise which will require a more venturesome and proactive role for the municipality. Whether the council of the day will rise to those occasions or not will depend to a great extent on the vision and the open-mindedness of the members. The municipality will never be expected to lead in these activities, but hopefully, will be prepared to take on a significant and fundamental supportive role to ensure that positive innovations are sustainable.

CONCLUSION

I see this article as a very preliminary view that will become richer and more predictive as time unfolds, but in the meantime, I would welcome comments from people who read this. You can comment within the blog structure or email me directly at hbvodden@ezlink.on.ca

If you contact me through the blog, you can request that I not publish your comments.

Looking forward to hearing from you:

Brock Vodden