Jon from Dalmeny

The last couple days I have been starting to feel the impact of mentally dealing with everything going on around me. How do we make sure the Town is responding appropriately to the COVID-19 outbreak? How can I stay productive at work while everything seems to be going kind of nuts around me? People are leaving and working from home so how will we deal with it from a logistical standpoint? What am I supposed to do if I don’t have toilet paper? Actually I have a friend with a b...idet so I will just camp outside his house :P But seriously, fear and anxiety about a disease can be overwhelming and cause strong emotions in adults and children. Helping others cope with their stress can take the focus off ourselves and in turn help us deal with our own stress. This will also help to make our community stronger. I have peace about this situation, and I suspect many people in Dalmeny do also. It is up to us to help where we see a need. If you are feeling worried please reach out to those around you. Maybe do it over the phone though There are so many in our community who would love to help. Another resource to help you cope with anxiety and stress has been published by the CDC and can be found at the attached link. I'm not sure how they think a giant picture of a virus is going to help anyone deal with stress, but there are some other good resources in this article.

Night out with Council which was scheduled for April 2 has been cancelled :( I was really looking forward to this. We will schedule it again as soon as we can.

Please consider supporting the Dalmeny Christmas Baskets initiative. The name of the page may be deceiving - they do distribute food baskets at Christmas time, but they have started up again now during our time of social distancing (aka quarantining and so many things closing) to make sure those in town who were accessing the school food cupboards can still do so. There is more information on the Dalmeny Christmas Baskets page such as where to drop off items and which items are desired. If you are looking to get involved helping out the people of Dalmeny, this is going to be a huge way you can do that.

Lacy summarizes some excellent information in this video that outlines the next steps for the Spray & Play Committee. It should be an exciting year!

Make sure to fuel up at Co-op and log your pins everybody. There is a video on the Spray and Play Facebook page with instructions on how to do it if you want to find out. We won before and we were labelled Rider Nation. We can do it again!

I would like to share something with you that has been weighing on my mind lately. It is a call to action that has to do with our Asvey Mart in town. Through some conversations I have had recently I understand business could be better for them. This can’t be a surprise to us though can it? Is it full when you walk through there? It isn’t when I walk through there. We need to evaluate what we want here in Dalmeny. Is it important to us to have cheese or milk or some bananas a ...couple blocks away in case we run out and forgot to get some? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t that is a personal decision. A business is not going to be able to survive on just those small convenience trips though. If we want the convenience trips, we have to back them up with solid full on grocery shopping trips. The trick is for the Asvey Mart to balance supply and demand. If they bring in produce and it doesn’t sell, that is not sustainable for them. So maybe their answer is to buy less so it sells for sure right? But then what happens if they do all of a sudden sell out and you go to get some carrots and they’re out? You will consider that a wasted trip, and next time you need carrots you are going to make the decision to stop at Co-op in Martensville on the way home because you know they always have carrots and then you won’t have to waste your time. Nothing personal to the Asvey Mart, you’re just being efficient. While you’re at Co-op in Martensville you might as well get everything since you’re already there efficiency right? So what happened in that series of events? Asvey Mart made a smart business decision because they can’t rely on us to come buy their carrots, and they ended up losing more than just the sale of the carrots. If you keep going with this line of reasoning, Asvey Mart loses because the problem keeps snowballing. They simply can’t turn a profit with all of us making decisions this way. The solution: we need to commit to them that we are going to buy their carrots. If they know we’re coming to buy carrots, they will stock them. They know that if we stop to buy carrots, we’re going to get some cheese, milk, bread, and salad dressing too, so they’ll have that in stock for us also. The more we go there the more they will start to offer. The more they offer the more attractive it will be for us to go there. And so on The decision is ours whether the Asvey Mart stays or goes, not just theirs. We lost our bank because we told them they weren’t important to us and we didn’t need them. That is a valid thing to say if it is true. Let’s think very carefully what message we are giving the Asvey Mart. Dalmeny Asvey Mart

Here’s another friendly reminder that we have an upcoming Night Out With Council planned for April 2. I mentioned a couple weeks ago that we are going to highlight 4 different items that evening, with the first item being our plans for the 1st Street CN crossing. Another thing we want to highlight on April 2 is Council's plan for a Stay Local campaign with our local businesses. We have over a dozen local businesses signed up to participate in this initiative with us and we wi...ll be presenting (not a formal presentation remember?) information around how this will look for Dalmeny. I can’t tell you more here you have to come see on April 2! Please come out and don’t forget about the snacks either! The Night Out is planned for the evening of April 2 at the JJ Loewen Centre. Specific time to be determined but it will be a come-&-go type of event so we are able to accommodate as many of your schedules as possible. Please share this post as you are able so we can let everyone know this is happening. Thanks.

I want to make sure you are all aware of the Night Out with Council on April 2. Although there will be no formal presentation (you’re welcome), we are going to highlight 4 different items that evening. One thing Council is very excited about is our plan for the 1st Street CN crossing. With the money we received from Transport Canada this is going to be a huge upgrade for our community. We are going to have plans for that crossing on display. Come out and see what it will look... like. Council will be wandering around ready to answer any question you may have even if it has nothing to do with town of Dalmeny business, we will answer it. Need to know what colour to paint your bathroom? We can help with that. Relationship advice? You bet. (We will not accept any liability for our relationship advice.) Come on out to the JJ Loewen Centre on April 2. Time to be announced but it will be in the evening and it will be come and go so hopefully you can find a time that works for you. And, there are going to be snacks. Even if you don’t care about the rail crossingsnacks! We will be sharing this across all town social media and information boards, but please share this post if you get a chance so nobody is unaware of the event. Thanks.

We had a Council meeting last night. It was straight forward with many of the usual things going on such as approval of accounts, and approval of past minutes, and so on. I will outline a few interesting things we have been working on lately. I have heard that people are wondering about water meters and water rates. This is something that never goes away and that is fair because it pertains to people’s money. As a bit of background, you should know that the town has not been ...Continue reading

We are almost done with day 3 here at the SUMA convention. As I type that I realize I won't be typing it for much longer since SUMA just changed their name to Municipalities of Saskatchewan. We'll have to get used to that new name. Anyway, I just stepped out of another session. This one was titled Bolstering Partnerships for Growth in Towns and Villages. It was pretty much what you think from the title. We have got some really great partnerships already with the RM of Corman Park and the towns of Langham and Borden, as well as others around us. It is good to hear from other SK communities to see what is working well and get new ideas.

Day one of SUMA. I attended a seminar on ethics for municipalities where one of the main points was Council setting the tone for ethical behaviour in a municipality. I think Council has inadvertently been doing a great job of this, but it was good to hear how this actually has a trickle down effect for the town. I wandered around in the tradeshow area for a while seeing what is available for services for a municipality. This is a great annual resource for us. Tonight is the welcome reception where we do a lot of networking, visiting with other towns to see what is working for them and etcetera.

I thoroughly enjoyed the class I took today called Public Relations and Communications for Municipalities. We learned about how to respond to interview questions and strategies to use to tell a positive story about your community. We learned about social media platforms that can be used to get your message out to various audiences, and how to manage all of the social media platforms without spending 8 hours a day at it. Tomorrow is day one of the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) convention in Regina. I am looking forward to attending sessions and meeting with other elected officials in Saskatchewan, finding out what they are doing and how they are making things work.