Happy World Book Day (April 23)

 

WHAT’S HAPPENING AT CONSILIUM… In this corner of our site we’ll be posting notes on new people, new projects, and new online materials you may find interesting. Enjoy, and come back often.
 

NEW PLACES

Break out the champagne. Consilium Nunavut Incorporated will be opening its offices in the posh new Royal Bank building in Iqaluit later this month

Royal Bank Building in Iqaluit:  Consilium Nunavut's New Home

NEW PEOPLE

Consilium Nunavut Incorporated is delighted to welcome Bridget Orsetti to our ranks as a planner and researcher. Most recently with Nunavut Tourism in Iqaluit, Bridget has lived across the north and worked in Lutsel K'e as a Recreation Coordinator and as an Eco-Tourism instructor in Paulatuk. Recently she's completed Socio-Economic Report on Tourism in Nunavut, as well as cultural and artist demonstration programs in Iqaluit.

NEW PROJECTS

Continuing Consilium's growing list of evaluation projects, Terry Rudden and Jennifer David will be working with Transpolar Technologies on an evaluation of the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation. One of the perks is tickets to the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards, where Terry will try to get Robbie Robertson to autograph all his Band albums (yes, "albums" - you know, those black, vinyl CD-like things?)

National Aboriginal Achievement Awards, Edmonton 2001

• Watch this space next month for news of a major Land Claims Event upcoming this fall. We can say no more.
   

ONGOING PROJECTS

• Greg Smith (Consilium) and Whiteduck Resources Inc. have completed the draft evaluation report on the Northern Native Broadcast Access Program and the Northern Distribution Program for the Department of Canadian Heritage. These programs fund northern Aboriginal television and radio production and distribution of television by APTN via satellite to 96 communities in the north.

• Below is Fred Weihs helping to facilitate a Strategic Planning Workshop held in March with the Iqaluit Amarok Hunters and Trappers Association and their business arm,  Quliruaq Inc.

 

• Consilium team members have just presented ten case study reports on Aboriginal Human Resources Development Agreement (AHRDA) holders to the Advisory Committee working with the Evaluation and Data Development branch of HRDC. This has been a massive project involving detailed on -site research, interviews, focus groups and surveys at each of the ten sites. Greg Smith is project manager, with involvement from nine other team members from Consilium and Whiteduck Resources Inc.

• Below - Hagar Idlout-Sudlovenick with facilitator, (CNI's own Terry Forth) at a planning workshop held recently in Iqaluit with the staff of the DIAND Intergovernmental Affairs and Inuit Relations Division. Continuing his DIAND work, Terry went on to participate in the recent Sivummut II Economic Development Conference held March 20-23 in Rankin Inlet.

 

GOSSIP

There are some pretty good stories going around about Terry's frozen finger. The most interesting one, wholly fabricated (by Terry), is that he heroically used his finger to plug a leaky hydraulic line on an NITC charter flight to Taloyoak. The least interesting one is the truth, which is that he froze solid it by wearing Ottawa gloves with a hole in the finger during a Taloyoak blizzard. We are currently taking a poll to see how many people would actually like to see a picture of the frozen finger, at its worst, on this site. Upside of the episode is that he was awarded an Official Inuktitut Name by the NITC as a result of this episode. You may now call him "Tikkiq".

Aside from the usual comings and goings north, east and west as Consiliumites travel the country in the performance of their duties, there are some movements southward as well. Ron Ryan and Kathy Fry recently soaked up some sun in Myrtle Beach South Carolina, taking advantage of a golf trip that Ron won last year.

Greg and Marianne Smith are off to explore Cuba for two weeks later this month, with no fixed itinerary other than avoiding e-mail, faxes and phones for as long as possible. They hope to re-establish contact with El Lider Maximo, seen here (on the left) with Greg at Cozumel, Mexico last year.

Down memory lane....From the Consilium Nunavut audio-visual library here's a photo taken 35 years ago this month (April '68) by Terry Forth in Coral Harbour. Can you identify the subjects? They're Peter Irniq (left), now Commissioner of Nunavut and Tagak Curley, who went on a few years later to found what is now ITK. In this shot they are working together to construct a model of a pre-fab house. These models were used as part of the federal government's Housing Education program in the 1960's. Peter was a housing educator in Coral Harbour and Tagak introduced the same program in Repulse Bay later the same year. This experience was a foreshadowing of his later "house constructing" activity as President of the Nunavut Construction Company - NCC.

April may be T.S. Elliott's cruelest month, "...breeding Lilacs out of the dead land"...but it also bred a surprising harvest of Consiliumites.  April babies include:

• Greg Smith and Leslie Sutherland, born April 13th (anniversary of the arrival of the first known elephant in the United States, in 1796).  Note that this was months before either Greg or Leslie was born.

• Marianne Smith, born in Switzerland April 18th (the date of Michael Jackson's 1984 scalp surgery to repair damage done after Jackson's hair caught fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial). In an amazing coincidence, Michael's role model (and eventually his physical double) Dianna Ross lives in a Swiss village near Marianne's.

• Terry Rudden, born April 23 (the anniversary of Coca-Cola's doomed 1985 launch of New Coke...no proven connection with Michael Jackson's scalp surgery)

• And...Ron Ryan, April 24 (on the date known to soft drink aficionados for the 1833 invention of the Soda Fountain.)

• Mehrun Forth, April 25th (no Michael Jackson or soft drink connections, but in 1684 on this date, a patent was granted for the thimble.)

• One final birthday...Nunavut, born April 1st, 1999.

 

 

CHECK BACK EVERY MONTH FOR MORE CONSILIUM NEWS, TOOLS, AND GOSSIP.