Ian Lindsay & Associates: Ian Lindsay of Lindsay and Associates has played an active role in the local community since 1979. He has been with RE/MAX Vancouver Island's most advanced real estate business network since 1996. Marketing and selling residential, rural, strata, recreational, investment, and project development real estate, you'll find true real estate professionals at ianlindsay.ca.

Rockin' Rhonda: Here comes Peter. Here comes Dave. Oh, listen. Bringing stories, making waves. No missing, spinning tales in the hot podcast cave. So laughs and insights everywhere. What a treat.

Peter McCully: This is The Pulse Community Podcast. Welcome back. I'm Peter McCully, and we're into that last stretch of summer here on Mid-Vancouver Island with the Labour Day long weekend approaching, and there's still much summertime fun to be had.

Dave Graham: And I'm Dave Graham. I'm just glad to be here. You may recall last week I mentioned having issues with some appliances recently. Yeah, some of them have been acting up. This might make me sound old, but I'm wondering if maybe too many things are becoming too smart these days. They're just being given too much control.

Peter McCully: Well, Dave, yes, you are old. Fair point.

Dave Graham: Anyway, in our last episode, I talked about maybe pulling the plugs on some of these devices. Well, my smart speaker told me the other day that they heard me, and now they're working together to give me my best chance to live my best possible life. I can't say no to that, so everything's still plugged in.

Peter McCully: And how's that working out for you, Dave?

Dave Graham: Well, my alarm goes off at the crack of dawn so that I can have time for meditation and quiet reflection. I prefer my coffee strong, but apparently I'm getting too much caffeine, so it's weak these days. The whole house is chilly to help me stay alert, and now my toaster's saying burned food may not be good for me, so I get floppy toast. Floppy toast, Peter.

Peter McCully: Well, maybe it'd be helpful to see those issues as opportunities for growth, Dave. And I'll segue from a healthy diet suggestion to a hearty offering of arts and culture coming to us in the form of the Route 19A Arts Festival. It's a 16-day celebration running from Dashwood to Union Bay that brings together a juried fine art exhibition, multi-venue live performances, and a self-guided artist studio tour. Sheena McCorquodale is here to tell us about this festival that literally has something for everyone.

Sheena McCorquodale: My little gallery will be a 20-person one. The hall, which will have 200 people at a dance. The Fanny Bay Hall is 160 people. We have a beach house that will have 40 people in it. There's LoveShack Libations, who will have about 40 people. So there's a real variety of the types of shows matching up with the types of audience that come.

Dave Graham: This year marks 50 years for the Career Centre, and they're recognizing this milestone with a new campaign called Your Stories, Our Legacy. Cheryl Dill explains.

Cheryl Dill: People ask what you do, and we really do help transform lives. And it's really what empowers our whole team. So we know already that there's thousands of stories out there. We're inviting people to share their stories, whether they're a job seeker and came through our organization years ago or currently working with us, or whether you're an employer and you have a fantastic story of the best employee you ever hired with our support. We'd love to hear it, and we'd love to celebrate that.

Peter McCully: Paul Black, a blues singer-songwriter from Victoria, will be playing the Mid-Island area in September. He'll be bringing us some music and his story to a future broadcast.

Dave Graham: The Port Alberni Toy Run is celebrating its 42nd event in September, and Marnie Grimes will be here soon to detail all the fun.

Peter McCully: The SOS has a new program for seniors.

Dave Graham: Bonnie

Peter McCully: Brown will join us to talk more about an initiative that has huge potential to improve lives.

Thrifty Foods Parksville: At Thrifty Foods, we love to help nonprofits, charities, and schools. Our Thrifty Foods Smile Card bulk program allows organizations to immediately save up to 6% on the purchase of Smile Cards in bulk, allowing you to keep more money in your organization's pockets. Ask for details at Thrifty Foods in Parksville.

Marilyn: Ian Lindsay of Lindsay and Associates has played an active role in the local community since 1979. He has been with RE/MAX, Vancouver Island's most advanced real estate business network, since 1996, marketing and selling residential, rural, strata, recreational, investment, and project development real estate. Ian has received several awards recognizing his exceptional community commitment locally, as well as awards for outstanding performance and achievement from both RE/MAX International and the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board. You'll find true real estate professionals at ianlindsay.ca.

Peter McCully: It's the last week for our Roy Henry Vickers book giveaway.

Dave Graham: It's a giveaway celebrating Roy Henry Vickers' 80th birthday. We have four books to give away, including The Best of Roy Henry Vickers: 80 Selected Works. Head to thepulsecommunity.ca or our Facebook page to enter before it wraps up.

Peter McCully: Now let's get to our first guest. Here's Marilyn.

Marilyn: Sheena McCorquodale wears two hats along Vancouver Island's Route 19A corridor. She's the festival director behind the Route 19A Arts Festival, a 16-day celebration running from Dashwood to Union Bay that brings together a juried fine art exhibition, multi-venue live performances, and a self-guided artist studio tour. And she's an artist herself, known for wire and brass sculpture out of her Cathouse Gallery in Qualicum Bay. Before sculpture, she spent years as a commercial artist in sign design, computer graphics, and TV and theatre set work.

Dave Graham: Thank you for joining us on the podcast, Sheena. It's a treat to chat about this amazing celebration of the arts, and it's also just nice to see you again. Welcome.

Sheena McCorquodale: Thank you. Good to see you again, too.

Dave Graham: For anyone who's never experienced it, how would you describe the Route 19A Arts Festival? It is primarily a celebration of

Sheena McCorquodale: the area. So there's a number of artists. Every time you turn around, there's another artist or musician or whatever. Between Dashwood and Union Bay, what happens generally is we usually get rolled into either Courtenay or Qualicum, but this is us saying, “No, this is our area, and these are the little communities along the coastal stretch of Route 19A, and we love the area.” So this is our festival.

Dave Graham: It just brings all the good things in life together. This festival, as you were alluding to, spans many small communities, Dashwood, Qualicum Bay, Bowser, Deep Bay, Ships Point, Fanny Bay, Union Bay. It's just wondrous in itself, but can you talk a little bit about the origin story here?

Sheena McCorquodale: The origin came with Peggy Logan, who is a jeweller, and she was doing a show at the Lighthouse Community Centre. The next weekend was going to be a tour. So the very first year, it was two days at the exhibition and then two days the next weekend. And it was a low-key affair and similar to a craft show, but it was more fine art than craft. The next year, we upped it a little bit, got a little bit of money, got the black drapes and made it look more like a regular festival exhibition. So the exhibition was put on, and then a week later the tour was on. We found that it was a quick turnaround for the artist to go from one weekend to a tour weekend, so we pushed it to the next weekend for the tour, and there was 12 days just gaping. And I like live concerts. There's so many musicians in the area and on Vancouver Island in general. We cooked up the performances. So it's everything from singer-songwriters. We have a kids show with Captain Thunderpants and a burlesque show just to balance that out. And yeah, just a real variety of musicians and singer-songwriters, storytellers. They'll be in a different venue every night with a different show for 12 days. That's everything from a sit down with 20 people in a small little gallery to a complete full-on dance with 200 people. That was the third year we added the music. This is now the fourth year and we're getting just that much more well-greased. We've added a competition, actually three competitions in the exhibition weekend, where we'll be having live competitive art where public can come and watch people paint. They've got two hours to paint. The first day it's landscape, the second day it's portraits. They have to vote for their favourite. So it's involving the public to watch art actually being created.

Dave Graham: I think we've touched on the sort of the three sectors of this event, the juried exhibition, live performances, and the studio tour. Can you sketch out chronologically how that works one day to the next?

Sheena McCorquodale: September 12th and 13th is the fine art exhibition, and that's the one at the Lighthouse Community Centre in Qualicum Bay. Then from the 14th to the 25th, that's all variety of venues, and you can find all this information on the website, of course. But it's a different venue every night for 12 days, so that's from September 14th to the 25th. On September 26th and 27th, there are 24 studios that will be opening their doors between Union Bay and Dashwood, and that gives you 16 days of something to do every day. I know people who are building their holidays around it. Just come and enjoy the area. It's a lovely area.

Dave Graham: There's a mix of emerging artists and established musicians, and I'm curious to know how you come upon the final results.

Sheena McCorquodale: I have a really good musician, Kimberly McGregor, who has helped me choose who will be in the festival and who goes where. We had an overwhelming number of people apply to be part of this festival this year. It was a difficult choice, so we narrowed it down to 28 performances. It's everything from Malachy, who's a bright young guy. There's the bluegrass band. The burlesque show is just going to be great. Just a real variety. There's Pindian, who is stand-up comedy and storyteller. There's a variety. At any rate, it was a difficult choice making it all, and I think we really matched up the venues with the performances. So the tickets are online, and they're on sale at this point. Some of them will be sold out pretty quickly, so it's probably a good idea to get online if you're interested in it.

Dave Graham: You mentioned just before we began here, if I'm getting the meaning right, some rooms can accommodate, what, 20 people, and some 10 times that?

Sheena McCorquodale: Yes. My little gallery will be a 20-person one. The hall, which will have 200 people at a dance. The Fanny Bay Hall is 160 people. We have a beach house that will have 40 people in it. There's LoveShack Libations, who will have about 40 people. So there's a real variety of the type of shows matching up with the types of audience that come. There is also the kids' afternoon show featuring Captain Thunderpants. It's $25 for adults, but it's $5 for the children. There's also an evening of dance on Sunday night with a group that spans from Victoria to Courtenay, but it's modern contemporary dance, and they'll be reaching out to another dance group to put on a full night. It's 25 for adults and $5 for the children to go and see ballet.

Dave Graham: I think pretty much covers my next question, which was who comes out to these things? It spans all ages.

Sheena McCorquodale: Oh, yeah, definitely all ages. There will be the licensed dances and with those dances because you're going to a dance and you're not going to a beer garden you're allowed to have children there as well under supervision, of course, and definitely open to bring your kids to a dance, which I think is an excellent thing to do.

Dave Graham: You have a lot going on here and magnificent brochures. I'm just wondering how you fund this kind of thing.

Sheena McCorquodale: It's volunteer. It's primarily volunteer. I've just hired somebody to help with the social media, but other than that, it's all volunteer. We have really good support from our community. We have Tom's Food Village that always steps up to the plate, Bowser Builders, the Georgia Park Liquor Store, First Credit Union, Lighthouse Feed and Garden. The Salish Sea Market is wonderful for artists. Got Edie McPhetrin, the real estate agent, Comox Valley Airport, Arrowsmith Golf Course, and a number of other smaller donations that just want to see this go for the community. Big thanks to those supporters. We're also getting, fingers crossed at this point, hopefully getting a grant from the Heritage Grant. So there's a variety of ways of doing it, and of course, we're charging $25 per person for each of the live performances. The exhibition and the tour is free.

Dave Graham: You mentioned volunteers. How many are we looking at?

Sheena McCorquodale: I think we're going to be about 40 volunteers. Those volunteers are everything from decorating the stage to putting the chairs out. We have Joe, who is the chairman of the festival because he brings the chairs. And there's a variety of people who will be looking after the live performances and greeting people at the exhibition and making sure everything's going smoothly on the tour.

Dave Graham: As an artist having to take care of this enormous event, has your own work been impacted or otherwise affected by all this?

Sheena McCorquodale: Oh, yes, but it's a labour of love, so you do it. But yeah, I booked off three weeks, basically, that was just strapped to my computer creating the brochures and the website and the tickets and that kind of background stuff. But I have a background in graphic. That's my volunteer part of it. So everybody else putting all their efforts into it will create a really good festival.

Dave Graham: Just out of idle curiosity here, I'm wondering about your thoughts in terms of the artistry on Vancouver Island. And is there not a peculiar concentration of artists here, or am I just misreading things?

Sheena McCorquodale: There is of a certain variety, in a way. You might know that Qualicum and Parksville have the interesting distinction of being two of the oldest average ages in Canada. So there are a lot of people who have retired here, and frankly, it's the first time they've had money and time together. They go to all kinds of workshops. That in itself keeps artists thriving if they can hold workshops. And there's a lot of people who have finally discovered that they really do enjoy painting or sculpting or whatever it is that they're into. And we've got great facilities here with the old schoolhouse in Qualicum, and I love the MAC. And Jennifer at the MAC is just brilliant, what she's done. So we're very much affiliated with Qualicum and Parksville. You can find all the information on the festival, along with the tickets. You can purchase tickets online, and it's at route19a.com. And that has all the schedule for the performances, but it also has the information on all the artists' bios and links to their websites. So get on the website, and you'll get all the information that you need.

Dave Graham: Sheena McCorquodale, full-time artist. That is, when she's not organizing a huge arts festival. Wow, that lady has some fabulously diverse skill sets. The festival runs 16 days with a dozen plus venues, from a 20-person gallery to a 200-person hall, and every one of them programmed to match the room. You know, that kind of thing doesn't just happen. You'll find links to the festival in our story notes.

Peter McCully: It really does sound like there's something for every kind of art lover on that route.

Dave Graham: I'm a fan of Sheena's wire sculptures. They are magical, and Sheena is going to be participating in the studio tour during the closing weekend of the festival.

Peter McCully: You'll find links to our Vancouver Island webcams and the Vancouver Island podcasts at thepulsecommunity.ca.

Dave Graham: Yes, we have a growing list of island-based podcast links for you to explore. You can also find us on Apple, Amazon, iHeart, Spotify, TikTok, and YouTube. Plus, we're on Facebook and Instagram. And if you need to reach us, it's easy to leave a voice or text message. Just click on the contact link at thepulsecommunity.ca.

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Dave Graham: Hey, Peter, do you get many texts from your house?

Peter McCully: It sounded like you asked me if I got many texts from my house. No, Dave, my house does not send me messages.

Dave Graham: I didn't even know this was a thing, but my house says I need to get home to attend to some issues. The AI security camera says my lawn needs cutting, and the fridge says I didn't get enough protein at breakfast. Oh, hang on here. I'm just gonna send a text for everyone just to be quiet for a minute here.

Peter McCully: Well, you tell them, Dave. Meantime, we have another guest to introduce as we focus next on a local institution celebrating a significant occasion. Here's Marilyn.

Marilyn: Cheryl Dill has spent nearly three decades helping people across the Parksville-Qualicum region find work, change careers, and believe in what comes next. As executive director of the Career Centre, she has helped guide the organization, celebrating 50 years, a brand-new building, and countless local success stories.

Dave Graham: Hey, Cheryl. Welcome back to the podcast. Always nice to see you.

Cheryl Dill: It's always a pleasure to spend time with you, Dave.

Dave Graham: We wanna talk about the Career Centre, 50 years now, and marked with a new campaign, which we're going to get into. It's called Your Stories, Our Legacy. Before we get there, let's, on sort of a broader scale, look at the Career Centre, what it's about, the nature of its operations. Some folks think that this is an extension of the government or something. Explain.

Cheryl Dill: That's right. Sometimes we have to clarify and remind people that we're not the government. Even though we hold some contracts that we've successfully bid on with the provincial government, we're a not-for-profit society. We're a charitable organization. We've been serving this community since 1976, a very long time. We're really proud of that 50 years of success that we've had here, supporting employers, supporting individuals who wanna get back to work or find their first job.

Dave Graham: 17,000 job opportunities have been promoted through the Career Centre in the last 20 years, the figures state. Let me see, 20 divided by 17,000. That's a lot.

Cheryl Dill: It is a lot. That's a lot of counting jobs, isn't it? We take pride in the fact that we have a free job posting service through the careercentre.org. We have a countless number of jobs that we post on our website every year. Employers call in, they have a password, they get their own dashboard if they wanna enter it on their own, or we help them enter their jobs and their job descriptions. We also give a really good advice about what a good job posting looks like to attract individuals. We've really seen job postings evolve for the better in the last, I would say, five to 10 years. And now, one of the requirements is that the wages are posted, which I think makes so much sense. I mean, people need to know what they're getting into for that job opportunity, and whether that particular job's gonna be sustainable work for them, or whether it's gonna be a stepping stone to stabilize their lives with some income coming in while they work towards something else. It's been interesting to see how the job posting system has evolved over time.

Dave Graham: At any given time, how many... Are they called clients? How many do you have?

Cheryl Dill: We have, at this particular time, say for the month of July, we actually served 488 individuals in the month of July. Some of those individuals will carry on into the next month and maybe the next few months, and some individuals carry on for even longer than that. But on average, we serve about 2,500 individuals per year, getting them back to work, helping them sustain that employment that they have, or even going back to school. So we do a variety of types of employment supports, whether it's, “Oh, I need new clothing to get that first job. I need new work boots. I might need some protective gear,” or, “I might need to get that food safe or a certain certificate in order to be hired in that job,” or, “I have a job offer, but I just need this,” and we help outfit them literally or figuratively for that actual job. That's part of what we do. Some of those journeys to get that job may be really short, and sometimes we're prepared to work for people for more than 12 months. That's what we do. We do whatever it takes to help people secure that job and hold that job down.

Dave Graham: And at what cost to them?

Cheryl Dill: It's absolutely free, Dave. People are like, “What?” And that's why we've, for 50 years, we've honed in to the fact that what this community needs is it needs that type of support, that type of service, and for individuals of all abilities. And so the contracts we bid on are contracts where funds from the federal government are downloaded to the province, and we bid on those provincial contracts in order to take those funds and give them back to individuals who need that support, and it's also given back to employers to support them to hire and train individuals.

Dave Graham: Which we'll get into. Meantime, about a quarter of the people you serve identify as having a disability. What does that say about the role that the Career Centre plays in the community?

Cheryl Dill: I think that's reflective of our community. I think it's reflective of a lot of communities. More and more people are disclosing the types of disabilities they have. It may be a clinical form of anxiety. It may be that they're suffering with a mental health condition. It may be that they have a physical disability where they have a mobility device and they need some kind of accommodation. So disabilities can be pretty broad. I think it's wonderful that people are disclosing and sharing what their various abilities and what they need to be successful in the workplace, and we're seeing more and more employers being open to understanding what does it take to accommodate this individual because they have so many great skills. I just don't wanna limit their ability to work for us. So we're really happy to work with employers to help them understand. The other 75% of people coming in don't have a disability, and they're coming in for the same reasons as those who do. They wanna get back to work. They wanna find their first job. They want to retrain and go to school, have a career change, or they may be brand new to this community and they just need some help with their resume and understanding what the local labour market is all about, and we're here to help with all of that.

Dave Graham: Was it about a year ago you moved into the new building, which has amazing accessibility and just it's in a remarkable construction, isn't it? You must love it.

Cheryl Dill: We absolutely love it, and I just have to give credit to Bill Van Steen and Travis and Aaron, his team members who built this building. They've built a fabulous building. It's residential commercial. We do own the commercial element of it, and they own the parking lot right out front, so it's incredibly convenient for individuals coming in here needing some service. The bus is just two hops away. Inside the facility, it's incredibly inspiring for our staff and relaxing for our clients. It's just a wonderful workplace. It's also uniting for us because we were in a facility that was also wonderful for 20 years, but we were separated between floor three and floor number one. Now, we're all together in one space, and it really has improved our teamwork. It's improved our attitudes towards employment and being here in the office. It's bright. It's sunny. It's comfortable, and it's highly accessible. We're really proud of it.

Dave Graham: Now, you mentioned earlier about the program to offer wage subsidies to help local employers hire someone new, and in fact, in the last few years, you've placed hundreds of people that way. What does that program look like for the employer?

Cheryl Dill: Again, I have to give credit to the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction. So the WorkBC Employment Services contract that we hold allows us to work with employers and job seekers and to make that match. If employers are hiring, and they hire one of our job seekers, they can come with a wage subsidy up to $10,000 over a six-month period, or it could be longer. It can be extended if people wanna hire someone who've disclosed a disability. Essentially, that fund helps employers recover their training expenses. So basically, they submit proof of payroll, and we cut them a cheque up to $10,000. I mean, which employer would not appreciate that? We have so many small businesses that they're lifestyle businesses, and every dollar helps to offset those training expenses, and the training leads to sustainable employment. But when you think about those numbers, 500 wage subsidies over the last four years, that equates to $5 million back in the economy. A lot of people think, “Oh, you're just helping job seekers.” No, we're also helping employers. We're helping them post their jobs for free. We're helping them recruit, and we're helping put some dollars back in their pockets, and we're helping this local economy sustain that type of employment out there.

Dave Graham: The hiring fair has become the legacy event. 25 years now? I know.

Cheryl Dill: That's been a lot of hiring fairs, right? We're becoming quite an expert in organizing those, I have to say.

Dave Graham: How have you seen it change over the years?

Cheryl Dill: Well, you know, it ebbs and flows with the job market. When there are a lot of jobs and a lot of job seekers, you see a lot of activity at a hiring fair. So we've seen up to 55 employers over the years showing up at those hiring fair events. We've seen in some years winding down to maybe 30 employers, that not as many employers are hiring. But we've also seen growth from the employer side with larger kind of entities like BC Ferries, RCMP, BC Ambulance, BC Corrections wanting to recruit on a provincial level, so they're showing up at the hiring fairs too, which is great. From a job seeker point of view, we've always had really strong attendance at our hiring fair. The fewest I think we've had in the last 10 years might have been in the 255 kind of thing, but we often are at 400-plus job seekers coming to those events, so it's really worthwhile. Even though, you know, we're in a digital age, we're in an age where AI is really making an impact, that face-to-face kind of recruitment and time that employers have to meet job seekers and vice versa, it's still really highly valued, and that's really encouraging, I think, because that's where the rubber hits the road. You need to get together face to face with people and exchange communication and build your skills in person. Even if you're someone who works virtually, there still needs to be that meet and greet, and so we love to support that, and I think we do it really well. And the other way it's evolved is we've had it at different locations, so we're already planning for next year's hiring fair, and it's gonna be in Parksville here at the curling club. So we're excited about that.

Dave Graham: Coming up in September, a program called Motion and Momentum. Can you tell us about that?

Cheryl Dill: It's called In Motion and Momentum. You're right, you're very close, Dave. So that is a program that we're very grateful to the provincial government for some funding for, and it's open to individuals who've tried to find a job and haven't been successful. They feel perhaps stuck. Maybe they have some behavioural patterns that just are not helping them get some momentum behind getting out of the house and finding some work. This program is really about changing that drastically. It's about providing that empowerment to the individual to actually find what their strengths are from within themselves and create some positive change in their lives. So we've already offered one program. The feedback was phenomenal. We're really proud of it. We have a fantastic facilitator, Kendall, here on staff. She develops workshops, and she delivers workshops really well. Our clients just praise her so much, so we're really fortunate to have Kendall on staff. We're offering this program in September, and we're excited about having a new cohort. We've got a great learning facility. Part of that program involves a community project, and that community project is developed by the cohort themselves. We don't say, “You need to do this community work.” They come up with the community project. Okay. So in order to do that, they have to have that sense of agency and that sense of authority to make some decisions on their own, and that's what this is all about, empowering them to make those decisions to give back to the community.

Dave Graham: We'll circle back now to the 50th anniversary campaign, Your Stories, Our Legacy. Can you talk a little bit about the origin story for this?

Cheryl Dill: Absolutely. You know what we find is whenever we're out and about in community, first of all, sometimes we feel like we're the best-kept secret 'cause we hear, “Hey, we didn't know you existed.” “Oh, we were only here for 50 years.” Often what we hear when we're at events and when we're in employers' businesses of operation is “Oh, I know someone,” or, “I came to the Career Centre and this is what happened,” or, “I just sent my daughter to that program at your facility and it was fantastic,” or, “I know so-and-so who's in school now because of the funding that they received.” And the stories just ad hoc come forward. It really is our legacy. People ask what you do, and we really do help transform lives, and it's really what empowers our whole team. So we know already that there's thousands of stories out there. We're inviting people to share their stories, whether they're a job seeker and came through our organization years ago, or currently working with us, or whether you're an employer and you have a fantastic story of the best employee you ever hired with our support. We'd love to hear it, and we'd love to celebrate that. So we have a campaign where you can enter your stories online on our website. That's starting on September 9th. We've got prizes coming forward from employers, so we're grateful for some employers who have already begun to consider what they're going to donate to this prize for the stories that we're going to select. So in December, we're gonna make those choices as to some of our top stories and celebrate that. We'd love to have a legacy of capturing those stories in photography and have some of those in our facility. We've already got some great shots of the local community, Parksville-Qualicum surrounding area of employment in action, and we wanna carry that on. We know that there's individuals out there that we've supported who have started their own business, individuals that have been holding down jobs for a number of years that they loved, and they're very grateful for the support that they've had here, and we know that there are employers who just have some rave about some of the clients that they've hired from here, and we just really wanna celebrate those stories.

Dave Graham: There must be thousands and thousands of them, so get ready.

Cheryl Dill: That's right. I know. Our website might crash with all the stories. We can only hope.

Dave Graham: So you're directing folks with their stories to share to start with the website?

Cheryl Dill: Yeah, start with the website. Of course, if they prefer to come on in, they can share their stories with our employment consultants, with any one of our staff. We'll record that for them. So there's multiple ways, but yeah, go to our website careercentre.org, and you'll certainly find that legacy program there.

Dave Graham: What's going to be happening on November 26th?

Cheryl Dill: So on November 26th, that's when our whole 50th anniversary kind of gathering will be. We're partnering with the Parksville and District Chamber of Commerce because there's a lot of employers that we've served through that membership. We're gonna have a gathering that evening. We're inviting former board members and former staff. We've had countless number of staff over the past 50 years, so who knows whether we'll have many that are still around in the area. We know certainly a handful of them are, so we hope to see them. We just wanna have a couple of hours of celebrating from where we've come and to where we might go in the future. So we're excited about that.

Dave Graham: You just started the next thought, which was the future for the Career Centre. Here we are at 50 years. Where do you think you'll be at 75? Not that you'll be necessarily at the helm still, but-

Cheryl Dill: That's right. Hopefully, I'm doing something really fun as well, something different. I think that one of the things we did when our board considered purchasing our space to operate is we did build for expansion. One of the things that's on our strategic plan is looking at a social enterprise. Basically, what that is, a lot of people say, “What is a social enterprise?” But it's a business that we operate where we put people to work in there who may be challenged to find work in a traditional workplace, give them some experience for a limited period of time where they really lay down some solid skills, build that skill through actual employment where they're held accountable, they're paid. It's standard employment, but it is employment where we might be a bit more flexible to work with the challenges that come up. From there, they can launch into more traditional employment. So we wanna operate a social enterprise to that degree. What is that social enterprise? We're in the process of trying to figure that out. We're working with the Entrepreneur Hub, with the Parksville and District Chamber of Commerce, who's doing some research for us right now. From there, we're gonna take those research findings and look at what that's going to be. It could be that we purchase an existing business, or we develop a new entity altogether. So we're really excited about that. And so in 25 years, we hope that's a massive success, and we're growing that, and we're not looking back. We're looking forward.

Peter McCully: Cheryl Dill, 50 years and thousands of stories for the Career Centre and its clients and employers. What a wonderful way to celebrate the milestone. You'll find a link to share your story in our story notes.

Dave Graham: We're all about the story here, and we cater to the kids as well with our Skookum Kids Stories, featuring Captain Dave and the crew of the Mellow Submarine, and Peter and Gracie, the Eskimo Dog. And our kids stories now offer colouring pages to go along with each new episode.

Peter McCully: In this week's episode of Peter and Gracie, the pair go on a camera photo safari.

Dave Graham: Then there's our Radio Archaeology classic radio series, featuring original episodes of Dragnet, featuring Sergeant Joe Friday, and Gunsmoke with Marshal Matt Dillon.

Peter McCully: We're pleased to present a resilience project as part of our Pulse Community podcasts. Join Cindy Thompson of Parksville as she speaks with Carrie Kreiterman, an executive leader in Saskatchewan healthcare, as she shares her grief journey following the loss of five close family members, and how those losses led Carrie to rediscover the benefits of writing music and the value of making memories.

Dave Graham: This week's edition of Too Old or Movie Gold features a movie about the hilarity that ensues when three bachelors take in a fourth roommate, a baby. The movie was directed by Leonard Nimoy of Star Trek fame and starred Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson. Speaking of course, of Three Men and a Baby. It's put to the test. Is it too old or movie gold?

Peter McCully: You'll find these podcasts and more at thepulsecommunity.ca. And while you're there, sign up for our weekly newsletter. It will keep you up to date on the latest podcasts, guests, and contests.

Dave Graham: And that is it for another episode of The Pulse Community Podcast. Thank you for spending some time with us. We really do appreciate it. Now, I gotta be running along.

Peter McCully: Are you getting messages from your house, Dave?

Dave Graham: Yeah. In fact, I've been given a shopping list. Veggies, fruit, chicken. Yes, yes, all good. Nope, not buying liver. No on the low-fat cottage cheese. Yes on the orange juice and the bread. Oh, that reminds me, I have to have a talk with the toaster. Gotta get a handle on this floppy toast issue. Floppy toast. I mean, what the-

Rockin' Rhonda & The Uptown Blues Band: Here comes Peter, here comes Dave, oh listen. Bringing stories, making waves, no missing. Spinning tales in the podcast cave, so to speak. Laughs and insights everywhere - what a treat. Peter and Dave, they're on the mics. All right, join the ride. It's gonna feel just right.