The Saskatchewan South East Enterprise Region (SSEER) held its quarterly economic development forum in Stoughton recently, bringing some interesting topics and perspectives to community leaders and economic development officers.
With the Saskatchewan enterprise region system now more than a year old, SSEER has been ramping up programs in an attempt to develop with individual communities some strategies to continue the business growth that has been so dominant in the area over the past few years.
Taking over their economic development responsibilities from smaller regional bodies in June of 2009, the much enlarged regions bring a unique, wider perspective to the challenges of economic development in the Southeast.
Attending the meeting in Stoughton were such people as Scott Greening, the mayor of Lampman, Kipling council member Kevin Kish, as well as Tara Beck, the economic development coordinator for the community of Carnduff and Mount Pleasant.
A full agenda greeted those in attendance, with topics ranging from rehabilitation of contaminated sites within municipalities to a new regional housing initiative.
Attending and presenting on behalf of SSEER was SSEER CEO Edie Spagrud, Lydia LaJeunesse, James Tessier, and Meagan Nicholas.
Also in attendance from the provincial body, Enterprise Saskatchewan, was Linda Mack and Cory Harkness of Weyburn -based Community Futures Sunrise.
The presentations for each topic were well presented, and covered such items as provincial or federal standards or support programs that are available for related projects.
"We are happy with the turnout today," said Spagrud of the meeting. "It is about the average from what we have seen so far."
"We are looking to present to these community representatives some of the topics that have been of concern to a large number of the communities in our coverage area," Spagrud said. "These types of forums are a great place for us to talk directly to our communities, and to find out what issues and problems they are finding, and hopefully we can research and present some useful information to them at future meetings."
For this meeting, the topics that were covered included contaminated commercial sites and who is responsible for clean-up, community growth programs, using social media for business and economic development, local business retention programs, a proposal for a collaborative marketing effort at the Home and Leisure Show, economic development training opportunities, and a region-wide housing initiative.
The next quarterly meeting is due to take place in January of 2011.
