Lockeport Revitalization Event Oct 8-9, 2009

Last Thursday and Friday, the Town of Lockeport held a 2 day conference on revitalization. It was a "next step" in the development and implementation of the town's sustainability plan. The draft plan was completed the end of September by our ICSP coordinator, Dale Eshelby and she is now seeking input for the final revised plan which is due by the end of March, I believe.

The conference was jointly run by a team from the Nova Scotia Community Colleges which plans to partner with Lockeport in implementing some aspects of the plan - a valuable learning and research tool for students and faculty which will be of great benefit to Lockeport. They did an awesome job. The meetings were held in the high school gymnasium/auditorium with coffee, tea and muffins provided by the Anglican Church ladies who also catered lunches. There was a plethora of speakers from various government, private and non-profit agencies willing to get involved in helping with various aspects of our "revitalization".

The key-note speaker, who attended throughout, was Storm Cunningham from Washington DC - a world-reknowned expert in the field. His addresses both days were etremely inspiring - maybe we do have a future for this town.

The turnout was very good - there were many in attendance from other towns and municipalities and a reasonably good turn-out from Lockeport of both citizens, politicians and business leaders. Allendale Electronics had a very strong representation. Unfortunately, some of the small businesses couldn't spare anyone during 2 weekdays to attend and the usual lethargy amongst many of the populace kept them from putting in an appearance. It will be the major challenge of the entire project to engage the rest of the town in whatever is the result of this process.

There were extremely good displays at the Firehall by students on the history of Lockeport (younger ages) and the environment and sustainability (older ones). There were also business displays and booths from most of the presenters about their work, grants, products etc.

Round table dialogues were held as part of each day's programme - many good ideas were brought forward and I hope have some future chance of being implemented. There is an opportunity, for instance, to have our schools become UNESCO partner schools which would be a very enriching move for the students and the area.

Well done Dale!