• Okay, You Passed the Audition. After two years of part time support, Terrilyn Chiasson joins the Consilium family as Office Administrator. She's the ultra cheerful person who'll be answering the phone from now on. Terrilyn holds a BSc in Psychology from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, as well as diplomas in Business Administration and Program Analysis/Internet Solutions Development. She taught English as a Second Language in Kangnung, South Korea, and has traveled throughout Eastern Asia.
   

• Join Aarluk and See the World. Chris Grosset has been travelling across Nunavut to do on-site research on potential trades and occupational training facilities for the Government of Nunavut Department of Education. After a brief stopover in Iqaluit, Chris is spending two weeks visiting communities in the Kitikmeot. His research will help the team to provide an assessment of the availability and suitability of various facilities for training for a number of trades and occupations. With Chris on the project are Greg Smith (Project Manager), Catherine Moore, Robert Billard, Helen Klengenberg and Bert Rose.
   

• Jennifer David of ARDOS, unquestionably the most artistic of our partners, will be facilitating a series of workshops for Aboriginal Media Artists currently funded by the Canada Council for the Arts. Scheduled for Winnipeg in May, the workshops will assist developing young artists in establishing positive, productive mentoring relationships to support their development.
   

• Terry Forth, Lazarus Arreak and Terry Rudden have begun consultations with Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated (NTI) and the Regional Inuit Associations to identify ways of delivering programs and services to Inuit beneficiaries more efficiently and economically.

Foreground:  Entrance to a 600-year old Thule-culture stone and whale bone dwelling.  Background:  Abandoned DEW Line tropospheric antenna array constructed during the 1950's "cold-war"

 

• Fred Weihs has completed a comprehensive draft training plan for NTI and the Regional Inuit Associations of Nunavut to support Inuit employment during the cleanup of DEW line training sites for the next decade. Working with Patti Black and Terry Rudden, Fred developed a strategy that will support training for Inuit in high priority positions, from Truck Drivers to Site Superintendents.
   

• Fieldwork has wrapped up for the evaluation of the Canada-Nunavut LMDA, being conducted by Aarluk Consulting Inc. for HRDC. The research team, headed by Greg Smith, has completed more than 55 key informant, stakeholder and employer interviews, as well as interviews with a number of clients. More than 60 clients from five communities have responded to a detailed survey on their experiences with the Benefits and Measures offered under the Agreement. This information will be combined with data from a variety of sources, including the Government of Nunavut's Case Management System for analysis and reporting. The final report, to be written by Greg and Fred Weihs, is due at the end of June.
   

• Just days to go until the NTI election. Chief Returning Officer Helen Klengenberg, Assistant Chief Returning Officer Lazarus Arreak and their team of local returning officers and polling clerks are locking in the hundreds of last minute details that go into organizing a Nunavut-wide election. Advance polls take place on March 9th, with the main election on March 16th, 2004. For further information visit the election website www.ntielections.com , or call their toll free election hotline at 1-877-NTI-VOTE (1-8770-684-8683).

• Terry Rudden and Jerico David are completing the final touches to NTI's Implementation Management System, a powerful Access-based database that will enable NTI to track implementation of the hundreds of Government, DIO and NTI obligations arising from the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement.

• Our in-house data whiz, Ryan Lotan, is completing the tabulation and analysis of 164 audience surveys from 12 Nunavik communities. The surveys were conducted by Consilium for Taqramiut Nipingat Inc. (TNI), the Inuit radio and television broadcaster serving the Nunavik region. Results were processed using the SPSS program and a report will be provided to TNI by the end of March. Greg Smith and Terry Rudden are also working on the project.
   

• Greg Smith, with editorial input from wordsmith Terry Rudden, is completing a report on Aboriginal Broadcasters Perspective on Broadcast Policy for the Aboriginal Programs Directorate of the Department of Canadian Heritage. The report will summarise an earlier analysis of Aboriginal and Public Broadcasting in Canada prepared by Terry, and the results of a three-day consultation and planning session involving representatives of thirteen Aboriginal Broadcast organizations funded by the Northern Native Broadcast Access Program (NNBAP) and the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN).

HAPPY ENDINGS

• ARDOS President Dr. Valerie Assinewe helped to organize and participated in a conference on Indigenous healing, held by the Belize Indigenous Training Institute (BITI) from February 25 to 27th in Punta Gorda. Funders, Canadian scientists and Mayan healers from the Toledo district of Belize came together to agree on strategies for carrying the work of the healers forward.
   

• Terry Forth and Lazarus Arreak co-facilitated a very successful workshop in Iqaluit on priorities for planning and research dealing with homelessness in the North, organized by Human Resources Development Canada and attended by delegates from across northern Canada.
   

• Valerie also moderated a successful session on indigenous knowledge at the international symposium on climate change and biodiversity at McGill University on February 21st.

• Consilium and ARDOS were there in force at the Aboriginal Human Resource Development Council of Canada national forum in Halifax, where stakeholder groups developed engagement strategies that will assist Aboriginal people to find and maintain employment. ARDOS team members and conference organizers Ron Ryan, Jennifer David, Leslie Sutherland and Terrilyn Chiasson were onsite as organizers, facilitators, recordists, and...once the conference concluded...tourists.

• Waskaganish recreation personnel, including Ernie Moses and Hugo Cowboy, were recently provided with a four day training and planning session by Greg Smith. The training took place at The Gathering Place, Waskaganish's new and very impressive recreational facility - which includes a gym, exercise centre and a cyber café. It was Greg's first visit back to this James Bay Cree community in a few years, and he reports that it was nice to bump into many old friends while travelling up and back with Air Creebec, and while in the community. Greg helped to design and deliver a two-year training program for Cree Cultural Coordinators in the late 1990's, so he was pleased to catch up on news from former trainee and well-known Cree artist Tim Whiskeychan and Cree Regional Authority archaeologist David Denton.
   

GOSSIP

"Consilium Web Designer at Work"
 

• Look for big changes to the Consilium website very soon. Squads of HTML programmers, graphic artists and professional writers are labouring around the clock to create the absolute summit of Internet experiences for our loyal readers. Watch for the announcement of our virtual launch party within the next couple of weeks.

• Not only does Terrilyn get to join the Consilium team...but in this, her Very First Month on the job, she gets the coveted Consilium Birthday Mention in the Gossip section of the Newsletter. I mean, honestly, does it get any better than this? No, it does not. Send your cards and letters to Terrilynn on March 17th, which of course also marks the anniversary of the date that St. Patrick chased all the snakes out of Cape Breton.

• And on the subject of birthdays...a belated happy one to Aarluk's Lazarus Arreak, who celebrated his twenty ninth birthday on February 26th.

• To respond to an inquiry received from a client...no, "Dump Your Significant Jerk Day" had NO connection with "Redefining Relationships".

• And by the way...the little Monopoly Man with the top hat and moustache is named Rich Uncle Pennybags. You see, you learn at least one fascinating thing in every Consilium Newsletter.