While registrations are off to a good start, there still are seats available for a pair of free workshops this Thursday.
“We were just looking at the registration sheets and there’s 15 for each,” Angela Halvorsen, business investment officer with the Rainy River Future Development Corp., said Monday.
“So there are seats available, and people can register up until the day of the seminar. The more, the better,” she added.
The first of the two workshops—“Small Business and the Internet”—will be held at 9 a.m. at the Fort Frances Curling Club.
“After the feedback I got from the NOI [Northern Ontario Online Outreach Initiative] workshop we had last year, we found that many people wanted to know how to get online, why to get online,” said Halvorsen.
“This will be a step back from what we did with NOI, a kind of introduction.”
She added this workshop should be of particular interest to small business owners as many have a long way to go in preparing for the future.
“”Only one-third of all small businesses are even on the Internet,” Halvorsen remarked. “I don’t mean not having a Web site, but not even being connected to the Internet.”
This session will be led by a representative from the Thunder Bay-based Global RnD.
The second of the workshops—“How to Start a Small Business”—will start at 1 p.m. at the curling club, and Halvorsen said anyone who’s ever considered a venture should attend.
“It’s basically taking it from the idea stage to the implementation stage. How to do a business plan, how to do your market research,” she noted.
This session, which has been held here several times in past years, has proved popular in the past, drawing upwards of 40 people last year, said Halvorsen.
The workshop will be led by representatives from the Business Self-Help Office in Kenora and the Aboriginal Business Service Network.
Those interested can sign up for one or both of the free workshops. To register, call 274-3276.
The small business seminar is sponsored by the RRFDC and the local Business Women’s Network.
