While supporting it in principle, council will give further consideration to a request from the local Economic Development Advisory Committee to participate in a provincial community exchange program in order to get input on the town’s strengths and weaknesses from an outsider’s perspective.
Jane Gillon, with the local Ministry of Northern Development and Mines office, was at Monday night’s council meeting at the request of the EDAC to pitch the idea to council and explain how the “First Impressions Community Exchange” program works.
“It’s an exchange program where communities can learn about their own communities through the eyes of strangers, like first-time visitors,” Gillon explained.
“You identify a community similar to yours far enough away that they aren’t here on a regular basis or you’re not there on a regular basis,” she noted.
“The province helps to facilitate identifying the other community,” Gillon continued. “A team from our community would go to their community, and a team from that community would come here and assess the town.
“The downtown appearance, amenities and services, housing supply, quality tourism facilities, infrastructure, those kinds of things.”
A team consisting of five-six members of varying backgrounds and ages would visit the chosen community for the day, and assess it by role-playing as a potential new resident, tourist, or someone looking to start a business to get different perspectives on the community.
During the visit, they would collect written materials, take discrete photos and notes of things positive and negative about the community, and look for things they would like to implement in their own community.
This information then would be put into a report for the respective communities to use.
Gillon said such reports would be useful in conjunction with ongoing action plans, such as business retention and expansion, heritage tourism study, and the downtown core report.
Gillon said “First Impressions” pilot programs have gone on elsewhere in the province between January and June, 2005, but only now are being promoted in the north.
The community exchange idea also has been successfully implemented in more than 100 communities in Wisconsin and Illinois.
Gillon noted doing a “First Impressions” exchange provides insight for downtown revitalization, helps build relationships with other communities, has a short time commitment, is easy to implement, generates excitement and action, and is inexpensive.
If council chooses to participate in the program, EDAC would form a sub-committee and take care of details, like recruiting volunteers and forming a visiting team.
Coun. Todd Hamilton asked if funding was available for this program, to which Gillon replied that there wasn’t. But she added the cost to the town is minimal (i.e. travel cost, and possibly one night’s accommodation for the group sent to visit the other community).
Mayor Dan Onichuk asked how the town would identify a suitable community to partner with.
Gillon replied that the province has a co-ordinator in place to match communities, adding the communities likely would be on the north shore of Lake Superior, or possibly from Manitoba or Minnesota, both of whom also are running similar exchange programs.
Council thanked Gillon for her presentation, and supported in principle the recommendation from EDAC regarding the “First Impressions Community Exchange” program. However, council also indicated it will have to give it further consideration before committing to it financially.
Mayor Onichuk said after the meeting the idea looked to have potential.
“Obviously input from the other community as to what’s good or bad is valuable,” he noted. “We do get a great deal of that from the judges with
‘Communities in Bloom’ because they’re very experienced and visit a lot of communities.
“I was a little leery at first because it sounded like the old twinning thing, where we were going to trucking all over the place,” added the mayor.
“It seems like something where if it’s a day-trip in, and we have the right people involved, from different areas and businesses big, small, and otherwise, I think there’s some merit to doing it.
“I’d like to see some of the details, some of the results from other communities,” Mayor Onichuk continued. “I don’t us to be the test case or anything. But input from outside the community is always welcome.”
(Fort Frances Times)
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
