• Fred Weihs and Terry Rudden will be working with Regional Wildlife Organizations, NTI and Hunters and Trappers to help all stakeholder organizations in Wildlife Management to find more effective ways to work together.
  

ONGOING PROJECTS
 

• The Board of the Nunavut Implementation Training has been developing a set of five-year strategic goals to guide the organization through its second decade of training to support Land Claim Implementation. Terry Rudden facilitated the final staff planning session in Winnipeg, when NITC's managers elaborated the Board's long-term goals into a series of specific strategies. The final operational plan will be posted on NITC's website upon completion.

• The Canada-Nunavut LMDA evaluation team has been fanning out to five case study communities to conduct surveys, focus groups, and interviews with various key informants and stakeholders. Helen Klengenberg was in Cambridge Bay and Rankin Inlet, David Boult in Arviat and Pangnirtung (assisted by Jonah Kilabuk) and Terry Forth is overseeing the research in Iqaluit. The team hopes to wrap up the fieldwork early in January. Project Manager Greg Smith and the rest of the team are looking at strategies to increase the number of LMDA clients completing surveys – the number of clients in Nunavut is very small compared to other territories and the provinces.

• ARDOS will assist the Aboriginal Human Resource Development Council of Canada (AHRDCC) to host a national forum in Halifax for groups to development engagement strategies that will assist Aboriginal people to find and maintain employment. Ron Ryan, Jennifer David and Leslie Sutherland will be discovering what February in Halifax is like. 

• Aarluk’s Ron Ryan facilitated the revision of Kakivak Association’s mission statement at a Board planning session in November, the culmination of a process begun at a staff planning session earlier this year.

•  Boldly going where no Implementation Department has gone before…Jericho David, Master of all Things Computeresque, and Terry Rudden (not quite there) are putting the finishing touches on an Implementation Monitoring System for Nunavut Tunngavik. When completed, the system will provide NTI with a flexible, powerful tool for tracking the Claims-related obligations of Government, Inuit Organizations, and Institutions of Public Government.

• Greg Smith did a series of presentations and interactive sessions on Community Economic Development planning for the Nishnawbe Aski Development Fund (NADF) in Thunder Bay at the end of November. The event was an Economic Development Officers Forum involving around 50 participants from many northern Ontario communities. As a result of the conference presentation, Consilium was asked to provide comments on a community profile and inventory tool being developed by the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.

• Consilium has more than twenty years of commitment to the development of Aboriginal Broadcasting in northern Canada, at the community, regional and national levels – most notably in assisting with the start-up and operations of two Arctic broadcast organizations (Inuvialuit Communications Society and Inuit Broadcasting Corporation), planning for northern network TVNC and the national network APTN, and contributions to numerous policy studies and evaluation reports. In the latest project in this long series, Greg is completing the draft of a report on a consultation meeting with the Aboriginal broadcasters held last year, including their recommendations on policies affecting them, for the department of Canadian Heritage.

• Lazarus Arreak and Ron Ryan of Aarluk, working with Carol Rowan,  just completed Childcare Societies Board of Directors training for Nunavut Arctic College in the communities of Arctic Bay, Cape Dorset, Hall Beach and Clyde River. Three further workshops will be delivered in Igloolik, Iqaluit and Sanikiluaq. This training was one of the main priorities identified at a childcare forum held in 2002 which was sponsored by the three Nunavut Aboriginal Human Resource Development Agreement Holders (AHRDAs). Ron and Carol, along with the staff of the AHRDAs, planned and facilitated this original forum.

HAPPY ENDINGS
 

• In December Tungasuvvingat Inuit celebrated the graduation of  the first intake for TI's Mamisarvik Healing Centre. The program is Canada's first urban, Inuit-specific recovery program. The original study and planning for the program was conducted by David Boult, Terry Rudden, and Virginia Carver. Congratulations to the committed folks at TI for another outstanding success.
   

GOSSIP

• Lots of great gossip from the Consilium Christmas Party and Dinner. But if you weren't there...well, you don't get the gossip. That's just how it goes. Next time you're talking to someone who WAS there, you might ask them about the Five Wise Men and One Wise Woman, or about the Neighbour Who Stole The Wine, or whether Leslie Gets To Go To Halifax. But your editor is much too discreet to tell such stories here.

• All doff hats for a minute of gratitude on January 13, when we celebrate Ryan Lotan's One Year Anniversary with Consilium. Never has our company boasted such an abundance of film and pop culture trivia.

• Ron Ryan's son Tim just returned to Canada after a year studying accounting in Australia (they have bigger numbers down there.) Showing true Oz disdain for the elements, Tim arrived in Ottawa on December 10th...in shorts.

• And from our Shameless Plugs For Almonte Department (SPAD): "What is it with Almonte?", we are often asked. Three Consiliumites - Partners Fred Weihs and Greg Smith, and most recently Ryan Lotan, are from Almonte. This photo overlooking the falls at the Victoria Woollen Mill, on Almonte's main street, may help explain part of the attraction. Here Greg and son Jordan, his wife Karen, and their children Jasmine and Blake are standing at one end of what will be developed into a Riverwalk over the next three years. The Riverwalk will follow the Mississippi, passing two waterfalls and many heritage buildings in the centre of town.
   

• Consilium's honoured associate Ed Weick has launched his own Blog (that's a Weblog, an online diary/Op Ed page) at http://nobrainer.blogs.com. Drop in and visit for a taste of Ed's ever thoughtful musings on life, the Universe, and all that