Our Featured Celebration

February is Snack Food Month - and Canada, in this, as in so many areas of human endeavour, leads the way. From Poutine to Beavertails, we glory in a proud national history of unparalleled achievement. But no snack food triumph surpasses the incomparable splendour of the home-grown Hawkins Cheezie. Initially perfected in Tweed, Ontario, and currently manufactured in Belleville, the Hawkins Cheezie towers with magnificent insouciance above its inferior imitators – the Cheetos, Cheezits, Crunchits, Cheeze Puffs, Cheese sticks, and all the other lame cheesy wannabes. The immortal Robbie Burns certainly agreed, as evidenced by his little-known and recently discovered ode “To A Cheezie”:

Wee crunchy, lumpy, glorious Cheezie,

Och, what delight awaits to please we

For whom thy cheddary mem’ry lingers,

Thy grateful fans wi’ orange-stained fingers.

(Pictured right: Co-editor Charles Foster Clootch, unaware that his life is about to change, prepares to sample his first-ever Hawkins Cheezie.)

NEW FACES

The Consilium Consulting Group (CCG) is delighted to welcome our new Finance Officer, Lei Han, to the company. Lei is a graduate of Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario with a double major in Accounting and Business Finance and a 4th level Certified General Accountant. Lei, his wife Xiling and his Labrador Try-Try have made Ottawa their home for the past year. Lei’s professionalism, sense of humour and incipient workaholism have already made him a part of our family. We wish him and his family happiness and prosperity in what we hope will be a long future with our team.

NEW BEGINNINGS

Following closely on the footsteps of the recently redesigned Stonecircle website, we are pleased to announce that our hard working team has completed the “NEW and IMPROVED” Aarluk website! So with a celebratory glass of champagne and a bowl of Cheezies by your side, set your browsers to www.aarluk.ca and bask in our new informative beautifully redesigned site.

Stonecircle will conduct a literature review on best practices regarding Aboriginal people in treatment centres across Canada for the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health in Toronto.

Aarluk will be evaluating the Nunavut Community Wellness Project (NCWP) for Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI). The evaluation, ongoing until March 2010, will focus on lessons learned, best practices, and NCWP outcomes. The NCWP will involve pilots in six Nunavut communities; it will explore, develop and implement approaches to increase integration among community-based health programs and services in Nunavut. It is overseen by a steering committee of representatives from NTI, the Government of Nunavut's Department of Health and Social Services, and Health Canada’s Northern Region. Greg Smith is Project Manager for the evaluation and will be working with Alex Ker, Geoff Rigby and Cindy Rennie.

Stonecircle will be organizing a major conference on Aboriginal health for the National Aboriginal Health Organization (NAHO). Patti Black, Jennifer David and Patty Saulis are developing a work plan for the conference, which will be held at the end of November in Ottawa. Stay tuned for more details…

 

One of the best things about our job is that we get to work on projects that really matter. Terry Rudden is proud to be working with the Government of Nunavut (GN)’s Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth on communications strategies to help promote Nunavut’s historic new Language Acts.

 

Alex Ker did such a fine job providing support to the Deline Land Corporation in the NWT that she’s been invited back to work on two new initiatives. With research support from Patty Saulis, Alex will be providing Deline with an accounting system assessment. Blair Stevenson, a CCG associate, will provide Deline with an Educational Assessment. (Pictured right, flying into Deline.)

 

Jennifer David has the privilege of working with the esteemed Dr. Fred Wien, a long-time supporter of Aboriginal health and economic research and initiatives. Dr. Wien heads up a team writing a paper on the state of the Aboriginal economy. Jennifer will provide research support to Dr. Wien, on behalf of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), and the paper will be presented at an upcoming AFN conference.

ONGOING PROJECTS

Data collection for Stonecircle’s Process and Impact Evaluation of the National Aboriginal Health Organization (NAHO) is now complete. The Project Team (Greg Smith, Jennifer David, Patty Saulis and David Boult) will be moving on to analysis and report drafting over the next few weeks.

Aarluk continues to work with the GN’s Nunavut Parks and Special Places Division to update and revise signage for several territorial parks. The program provides learning opportunities for visitors on the history or natural features of these parks, helps visitors navigate with site maps, and provides valuable safety and regulatory information.

Stonecircle’s Jennifer David is excited about adding three new artists to her interview list: Dennis Allen, Ursula Johnson and Ian Ross will now be new features of the Canada Council promotional book. Interviews will take place in early February, and then she will work with the designer on the layout of the publication.

Aarluk has helped the Baffin Regional Chamber of Commerce to organize a bookkeeping certificate program where 24 participants were selected out of 50 people who applied. This is a seven week program spread over a few months. The anticipated result is that participants will eventually fill a void in the Baffin communities with qualified bookkeeper.  Funding for this program was secured from Kakivak Association, GN's Department of Economic Development and Transportation and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada.

The audio guide for the First Peoples Hall at the Museum of Civilization is nearing completion. Virtually all interviews are completed. Jennifer David was recently seen muttering to herself as she walked through the First Peoples Hall with the draft audio guide text in hand. Rumours of a limited edition European edition of the audio guide with out-takes, commentator’s commentary, and an unreleased, extended a cappella rendering of “YMCA” by Patti Saulis could not be confirmed at press time.

Aarluk continues to help the Aboriginal Human Resource Council (AHRC) by helping to organize another Workforce Connex Forum. There had been 10 across Canada since 2006. This time it will be held in Iqaluit, Nunavut – March 2nd and 3rd,2009. A Nunavut Advisory Committee has been established to help plan the event. The Committee is comprised of representatives from the Government of Nunavut, Nunavut Arctic College, Nunavut Employees Union, Kakivak Association, Kivalliq Partners in Development, Kitikmeot Economic Commission, New Mont Mining Company, Baffin Regional Chamber of Commerce, and Nunavut Municipal Administrators. The theme of the forum is building strong Inuit and employers partnerships. More details on the forum can be found on the AHRC’s website: www.aboriginalhr.ca.

HAPPY ENDINGS

Consilium, Aarluk and Stonecircle specialize in providing training and organizational development. We believe in the concept of a learning organization where everyone from entry level to senior management have the opportunity to meet their personal and professional goals in life. So under the heading of “happy - not entirely ended, but a great end to a wonderful start” we all want to congratulate Leslie Sutherland, our Office Manager and everyone’s “go to” person, on completing the first course towards her Human Resource Professional designation. Leslie had excellent marks (surprising nobody but herself) in Human Resource Management and is getting ready to jump right into course two – Organizational Behaviour. Congratulations Leslie! (Pictured right: Leslie doing what Leslie does.)

GOSSIP

Despite having more employees working for Consilium, Aarluk and Stonecircle than months in a year, for the 15th consecutive time, not one of them has a birthday in February. We therefore encourage ALL would-be consultants born in February to get your résumés in. Not only do you get to work with some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, but you’ll get the WHOLE birthday section to yourself, once a year.

However, just because we don’t have a birthday doesn’t mean we can’t have a celebration. The CCG is proud to honour Aarluk’s Chris Grosset with a gift commemorating Five Years of Meritorious Service. When asked how he felt upon receipt of this singular honour, a visibly moved Grosset said… well, see the picture.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

When last we left the larval Consiliumites - Weihs, Smith, Ryan, Rudden et al. - they were halfway through what would become the monumental seven volume Nunavut Implementation Training Study, wondering whether or not the world was ready for a new consulting firm. On the off chance that it was, Fred, Greg and Ron began scouting out potential office space. And the team started to toss around a few potential names – something with a bit more pizzazz than Ontario 88483882.

AND THE WINNER IS...

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TOOLS, AND GOSSIP.