Articles – John Barclay

An Active Activist

by David Shanahan
Published Feb. 15, 2024 in the North Grenville Times

Long before he was elected to the North Grenville Municipal Council in 2018, John Barclay had been deeply involved in community activism in the community. From the Oxford Mills Community Association to the Kemptville Farmers market, as Executive Director of the Old Town Kemptville Business Improvement Area (OTK BIA) to the Economic Development Committee, John served his time, as it were, gaining experience, community background, and a network of local groups and individuals before running successfully for Council. Following the last municipal election, he was named Deputy Mayor of North Grenville. Remuneration for councillors being what it is, John took on a part-time job, but his was an unusually public one.

In July of 2018, Jim Beveridge of the B&H – Your Community Grocer, hired John to help in his Produce Department. John had been advised that in order for him to run for Council, he would have to resign from the OTK BIA because, as a paid administrator of a municipal Board of Management, he would have a conflict of interest in running. John needed a job. Jim gave him one.

“I’m sure the Beveridges had bets on how long I would last: until the end of the campaign, six months; maybe a year?”, remembers John. “It was tough, but I hung in there and by the end of two years, I figured that I knew the job and what had to be done. I started doing weekly strength training with Richard Chartrand (sustainablesuccess.ca) in order to physically handle the work.”

In a nice piece of synchronicity, the B&H had served as one of John’s first connections with North Grenville.

“When I left Toronto in 2009 to move closer to family in Ottawa, I was absolutely done with the hustle and bustle of city life. My very first small-town experience was a lovely chat with a B&H cashier about bird seed, of all things. I felt very much at home. Over the years, I came to understand how important this store was to the social fabric of Kemptville, if not all of North Grenville and Eastern Ontario.”

For many years, the B&H was the dominant retail grocery store in this part of Eastern Ontario, outside of Ottawa, Brockville, and Cornwall. With the highway bypassing Downtown Kemptville in the late 1970s, traffic patterns around the B&H started to change and B&H saw significant declines in the summer with fewer tourists coming into the store. The decline in the downtown traffic over the last 20 years would have been considerably more if the B&H had exited as did most other larger retailers.

By 2011, John was working for the OTK BIA and volunteering on the board of the Oxford Mills Community Association. In 2013 he joined the Kemptville Farmers’ Market (then the Kinsmen Kemptville Farmers Market) as a non-vendor member of the Board, ostensibly to facilitate the Market’s move to the B&H parking lot where it remains today. Joining the BIA as their Executive Director in 2016, John recognized that the B&H was a key element in maintaining a vibrant downtown.

“At first, the job at the B&H was a means to an end, meeting expenses with a part-time job, but soon I came to realize the benefits of being so accessible to residents employed on the front lines of a popular downtown business. The Beveridges were very indulgent, to a point, of conversations I had with residents in the aisles while on their dime. For the most part, residents were respectful of the fact that I was working. That said, working at the B&H had definite political advantages, for which I’ll always be grateful.”

Just before Christmas last year, after five and half years at the B&H, John gave Jim Beveridge his notice. It was time to move on, motivated by a desire to have his weekends free once again and to use his experience working with nonprofits to raise awareness and to fundraise. On January 3, 2024, John began a new part-time job as the Executive Director of Community Involvement Legacy Homes (cilh.ca). Community Involvement Legacy Homes (CILH) provides independent affordable housing for persons with developmental and intellectual disabilities in Leeds and Grenville Counties.

“CILH does not provide the wrap-around social services and programming of organizations like Community Living North Grenville. It is a small non-profit charity that purchases homes with funding from various levels of government, private donations and funds from families and support networks and provides lifetime or legacy leases to tenants. We’re primarily involved in property maintenance and development. I’m excited about the possibilities to develop more opportunities for persons with intellectual disabilities to live truly independently.”

So, John will be a somewhat less visible presence around town now, but his involvement in the community has taken a different form and he remains one of North Grenville’s most active of activists.

Where I Stand – Part Two

(Published in the NG Times, Aug, 31, 2022)

Dear Editor

Re: Solicitor Generals’ Office comments on Judicial Review request (August 25, 2022)

In your article you write, “The statement by the SOLGEN’s office is in keeping with much of the information coming from that source over the past couple of years, in that it says little or nothing, and adds nothing to the issue.”

I couldn’t agree more.

On August 16, the day after the announcement of a Judicial Review, the Mayor, Council and staff had a meeting with the new Solicitor General during the Association of Municipalities of Ontario Conference in Ottawa. We were there to once again convey the concerns of residents and press for answers on key issues. Over the past two years, the Mayor has made public the correspondence between the Municipality and the Solicitor General’s Office; now all of Council was there to press in person. Where was the Ministry regarding our desire to have the surplus lands transferred to the Municipality and could they confirm that any costs related to the EOCC including policing costs, would be borne by the Province and not North Grenville. Platitudes and reassuring noises were made but we left the meeting with nothing of substance.

The situation is very frustrating and could be disheartening if Mayor Peckford wasn’t such a fighter. I know we will continue to press our case. It’s obvious, at least to me, that the Province knows it holds all of the cards; that it doesn’t have to respond with any urgency to our questions. They can simply wait it out. We are after all just a lower-tier rural municipality of less than 18,000 souls.

Last year during a special Council meeting held on June 22, 2021, I was very clear about where I stood regarding the construction of the Eastern Ontario Correctional Centre: “My support for the correctional facility is really conditional on the continued dialogue with the Solicitor General aided by MPP Clark, and having constructive positive conversations with them. (https://ngtimes.ca/where-i-stand/)

I still won’t oppose the construction of the jail, as I believe there will be benefits to the community in the short and long term. However, I am extremely disappointed in the lack of a constructive meaningful dialogue with the Solicitor General’s Office, and with the inability of our local MPP, Steve Clark, to make progress on this file.

John Barclay

Councillor, North Grenville

Being on Council

(Published in the NGTimes, Aug 11, 2022)

Friends, family and more recently, prospective candidates for Council have asked me, “What’s it like?”

Being on Council is challenging. Rewarding but challenging. Of all the roles a Councillor plays; Policymaker, Steward, Leader, Representative, it’s the representative role that’s the most challenging and contentious, in my opinion. This article attempts to illustrate why.

How do you balance the wants, needs and expectations of a single resident, small groups of residents or business owners against those of the entire community? Is it simply a case of the majority rules? How do you address competing interests? Do you use expensive direct democracy tools like referendums, plebiscites, or cheaper less accurate surveys to inform your decisions?

In North Grenville, we leave decisions on critical issues up to the judgement of five so-called representatives whom we elect to Council every four years. Five individuals with different backgrounds, interests, life experiences and by extension, different understandings of the larger community they’ve been elected to represent. They don’t always agree and so, ultimately it comes to a vote.

Election to Council has required a much broader understanding of the issues that impact this municipality as a whole. My focus has been on making decisions that are based on evidence rather than ideology or personal bias. It’s taken diligence and certain amount of self-reflection to try to get it right. Having advice and support from competent professional staff at the municipality certainly helps. Maintaining respectful communication and conferring with my Council colleagues has also been key to arriving at workable solutions to complex problems.

Engaging with the broader public daily, one quickly becomes aware of the often-competing interests and expectations that residents and business owners have. Unpacking, assessing, and addressing those interests and expectations has been one of the biggest challenges I’ve experienced being on Council. Making judgements about what best serves the common good can be tricky; decisions are sometimes very unpopular.

To further complicate things, the idea of a collective or common good is being threatened, in my opinion. Besides being imperfect and messy, democracy is inherently fragile. Defining what holds people together in an increasingly diverse and secular community is getting more difficult. Social media is fundamentally transforming the very idea of community. People increasingly self-segregate into virtual communities of like-minded individuals in ways that can make geographic boundaries less relevant.

Social media has also become an influential medium in how residents experience local politics and form candidate preferences. How do you take the measure of a person’s character if you never actually meet them face to face? How do you know they’ll make the right decisions for you and your community? For that matter, what is “your community”?

Luckily, North Grenville suffers less than other municipalities, in my mind, as it still possesses strong values of generosity, volunteerism and community spirit. Unfortunately, the ability to think beyond immediate personal circumstances is what I see lacking in more and more people.

For me there’s an intrinsic value in being involved with different community and non-profit groups. It’s wonderful to see what a group of people can accomplish if they have a common purpose or a shared goal. I find that energizing and invigorating. Identifying a common purpose and a way forward for over 17,000 residents and business owners, however, is a different journey. The recent Community Strategic Plan was a laudable attempt and perhaps the only legitimate document the next Council will have for guidance in pursuing shared goals.

I’ve concluded there is no single, correct approach to fulfilling the representative role of a Councillor. Being on Council requires making decisions that are often difficult and frequently unpopular. It requires having confidence in your own judgement; in trusting your gut; in having confidence that you’ve truly explored and considered what’s best for the common good, as you define it. I found the role of representative to be challenging.

To the curious, including prospective candidates for election to Council, I say, having the sense that you’ve made the right decisions for the right reasons for the community can feel extremely rewarding, at least for me it has. Best of luck to everyone in the choices you’ll be making.

Where I Stand

Published in the NG Times (July, 2021)

It’s always good to go right to the source to get your information. The following are transcripts of two comments I made during the Council Meeting held on June 22, 2021. They are part of the video public record.

[Starts – 01:19:47] Obviously, there are a couple of things I’d like to comment on, and I’ll try and be brief.

Issues of the Justice system and Indigenous rights are really beyond the purview of this Council. We all have our own personal feelings about the Justice system. Mine were formed during a 30-year career of producing educational resources, many of which dealt with social issues like the Justice system. So, I’m very well aware of the deficiencies of how we deal with offenders and how we treat victims of offences in the Province.

And Indigenous rights. Again, I think there’s very little that the Municipality can do other than symbolic gestures. We should really be putting pressure on the Federal government to make good on the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

So, as far as Victor … Victor, I’m surprised. You know, we had a fairly lengthy discussion after the March 23^rd Council meeting in which CAPP presented. I note that there’s other people that I had one on one conversations with attending tonight. Marie -Therese, hello. I think in both of those conversations with Marie -Therese and Victor, I was quite clear that when I’m talking about jobs, I’m not talking about jobs that would be filled by residents. I’m talking about employees of the correctional facility. From what I understand the ratio is 2 to 3 employees per inmate. So, if we’re talking 235 beds, I think it’s rather conservative to say 500 employees will be coming into this community.

In speaking, a study might be warranted about the economic impact. I know it’s anecdotal and Victor you might discount it, but similarly, I would discount some of studies that have been touted out about facilities in upstate New York. The American Justice system is very different from the Canadian Justice system. They have their problems; we have our problems but they’re both distinct and unique. So as Councillor O’Sullivan said, I welcome new programming and resources in terms of staff to help the residents of this facility to really turn their lives around.

But again, Victor, 500 or more people coming into this community during daylight hours when our local businesses are ready and willing to serve them – whether its food or gas or repairs or counselling, for example. I think it’s a boon for small local businesses that have certainly struggled through Covid to remain open. In terms of retention and expansion of those local businesses – that create a lot of employment – 80% of jobs are created by small business in this community – I think it is obvious to me. If you want to quantify some of my anecdotal information, you know, it remains to be seen. But I think I’m quite confident that business will be supported, that local businesses will be supported through the building of this facility.

[Starts – 00:38:27] My support for the correctional facility is really conditional on the continued dialogue with the Solicitor General aided by MPP Clark and having constructive positive conversations with them. So that our investment in tourism, in the revitalization of downtown Kemptville, in our economic support for small business isn’t undermined. And so, it remains to be seen how whole-heartedly I would support the correctional facility. It’s really conditional on going forward and how we resolve some these concerns as they are expressed by the community.

Thank you.

The entire streamed video recording of Council Meeting #29 (and others) can be found on the Municipality of North Grenville’s YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L32t1R00DlA&t=5415s) I would encourage concerned citizens to watch the entire meeting in order to hear, unfiltered, what my Council colleagues also had to say that evening.

Public Works Investments

Published in the NG Times (July, 2019)

In the past eight months as the Council Liaison to Public Works I’ve come to appreciate both the scale and scope of the work that a relatively small number of staff undertake on behalf of the residents of North Grenville. I’ve learned a great deal about what the Public Works department does, how it does it and how it’s paid for. I’m still learning. I thought I’d share some of the cost saving measures the department has undertaken that have saved the Municipality hundreds of thousands of dollars.

First of all, as I mentioned, Public Works does a lot with a little; it continually looks to optimize it’s operations. For example, this winter a resident wrote me a humourous email questioning the route that the snowplow took after every snowfall. The route resulted in more snow piled on his side of the road – could it not be reversed (ie. his side plowed first and the opposite side plowed last); even once in awhile? When it was explained that the route the plow takes is determined by minimizing the distance travelled, gas used and by eliminating switchbacks, he saw the logic and understood (right, Peter?). At first glance Public Works operations may not make sense to you but there’s always method in the madness. It’s hard to put a number to the amount of savings that this particular practice has produced over the years but here are three items that are easier to quantify in terms of savings:

1) LED Cobra-head Streetlights lower hydro costs.

With the help of a successful grant application to the Save on Energy Program, Public Works was able to jump start the replacement of bulbs in each of it’s 377 cobra-head street lights. With all of the lights replaced with LEDs, the associated hydro costs have been reduced by approximately $53,000 each and every year.

2) Waste Water Treatment plant anaerobic digester lowers heating costs.

Anaerobic digesters where part of the original plant construction, they break down biodegradable material during the waste water treatment process. The Public Works department optimized their use to heat the plant by using the recovered methane in place of natural gas. Staff recall previous budget numbers were in excess of $100,000 for the heating costs at the plant. (No financial details are available prior to 2006 based on an ironically titled file retention policy) Now they are considerably less; over the past five years those costs have fluctuated between $18,000 and $24,000 per year.

3) Hiring an in-house mechanic who services Public Works and Fire Services results in many savings.

Prior to the hiring of a full time mechanic, Public Works vehicle maintenance alone was $103,000 (2008); now it’s about $25,000 less (2019). Some creative sourcing of equipment and a bit of ingenuity has resulted in even more savings.

North Grenville has approximately 130 km of gravel roads that produce a lot of dust when travelled upon. It takes a lot of water to suppress it. The Oxford Mills Public Works Garage was able to build a water truck from a used trailer and two new plastic tanks at a cost of $22,442. The cost of purchasing a customized vehicle would have been in the neighbourhood of $100,000. The resulting vehicle now holds 28,000 litres of water.

But the savings don’t stop there. How do you fill two 14,000 litre tanks? After a flood at a facility in Brockville, North Grenville Fire Services Fire and Public Works were able to acquire their de-commissioned pump at no cost and after repairing it put it into service. It can pump water at 4,500 litres a minute. In other words, this re-purposed pump can fill both tanks on the truck in less than ten minutes.

These just a few instances where Public Works has been able to do more with less. With one of the largest budgets of all the departments in the Municipality, being able to make wise investments, to continually optimize it’s operations and to diligently find savings where it can is essential. I hope to report some more in the future.

How and Why I Serve

You often hear the phrase “I want to give back to the community”, as though it’s a choice. With me, I don’t think I have a choice; I feel compelled to do it.

Published in the NG Times (May, 2019)

In April I attended a meeting of Cadets at the request of Pastor Ken Gehrels of the Kemptville Christian Reform Church. Ken asked me to come and speak to the boys club about what it meant to be a Councillor as part of their civics program They sent me four questions in advance of the meeting so I could prepare. Three of the questions were pretty standard and predictable but one of the questions was intriguing and made me pause.

“How do your spiritual values affect the way you serve the community?” Good question. And I wanted to answer it first and foremost for myself. What are my spiritual values? How do they affect the way I serve as Councillor and finally how would I articulate them to a group of 10 year-old boys ?

I’m not what you’d call a practicing Christian, although I was raised to be one. I’d hesitate to call myself a secular humanist, too, because that’s not exactly my lived experience. I feel I have have a fairly strong moral compass and experience a rich spiritual life but don’t really share that inner life with other people. I felt I had a sense of what drives me to serve the community but I struggled to nail it down.

After a bit of soul searching I found a key to unlock the answer. Over twenty years ago I read a book by M. Scott Peck called People of the Lie. What remains with me today from reading that book years ago is an appreciation of the concept of grace. It was a real epiphany for me at the time. I decided that grace would be the anchor I would use for these cadets when describing how my spiritual values affect how and why I serve the community.

There are four or five definitions of grace but the one that resonates with me is that grace is freely given; it’s the undeserved favour and love of God (or however you conceive a higher organizing principle). So I said to these kids, “I believe that I live in a state of grace and because of that I feel an obligation to give back to others”. Service to others therefore allows me to continue to live “gracefully”.

You often hear the phrase “I want to give back to the community”, as though it’s a choice. With me, I don’t think I have a choice; I feel compelled to do it. For me there’s an intrinsic value in being involved with different community and non-profit groups and to being on Council. I find it energizing and invigorating. It’s wonderful to see what a group of people can accomplish if they have a common purpose or a shared goal – whether it’s building a gazebo or helping to run a Farmers’ Market. I get involved in volunteering and local politics because I feel lucky being in this community.

I lead a very busy life, full of all kinds of stressors: financial worries, time management issues, interpersonal relationships and so on. In my life, therefore, I try to make space for grace; to experience the feeling of grace. That means cultivating an attitude of gratitude on a daily basis. Everybody gets locked into their own circumstance with blinders on but on a global scale we’re in the tiny 1% of people who are not looking where the next meal is coming from, how to stay warm and dry, or not having missiles fired at them. So cultivating an attitude of gratitude and witnessing about your good fortune is good way to create the experience of living in grace. Being an optimist and a bit of cheerleader for North Grenville is part of that effort, too

There’s a lot of negativity out there in the community and you can absorb it or release it. Politics is messy and it’s frequently ego-driven. There are land mines all over the place. You have to be able to forgive people for over-stepping sometimes. The feeling of grace in your life gives you strength, it enables you to be true to yourself; to acknowledge your uniqueness and blessings and not to worry about getting the credit. I try to remember this when working with Council colleagues and residents.

Managing a municipality is a complicated endeavour; being on Council is a marathon not a sprint. Another way of living gracefully, for me, is trying your best and then surrendering to whatever happens. I’ve never achieved anything worthwhile that didn’t take patience and persistence. I’m looking forward to the next three and half years serving this community by being on Council and doing it gracefully.

We are the ones we’re waiting for

In 2017 I attended the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affair’s Teeny Tiny Summit in Merrickville. The summit was an opportunity to learn and discuss “scale appropriate” economic development. For all our much vaunted urban-style amenities, Kemptville is still very much a small rural town with all the typical development problems of other teeny tiny places, so I was very interested in attending on behalf of the Old Town Kemptville BIA.

The keynote speaker was Peter Kenyon, a self described “community enthusiast” from Western Australia. A dynamic speaker, he shared a number of amazing examples of how very small rural communities had transformed themselves from the inside out using imaginative, positive thinking community members rather than government-driven programs or philanthropy, The range of ideas and projects initiated by ordinary citizens to turn their community’s economy around was truly inspiring. Not that these ideas can be replicated successfully in other communities. Each found their own unique solution to declining population and job loss. The “take away” was the power of positive thinking and the confirmation that “People who care are a community’s greatest asset” (Paul Born)

I was reminded of what our community has accomplished by the vision and dedication of ordinary people; of what the Friends of the Library and the Friends of Ferguson Forest have accomplished; of what the various faith communities in North Grenville have built and I started to wonder might be accomplished in Kemptville by Friends of Downtown. Could it be, as Peter Kenyon suggested a number of times that “we are the ones we’re waiting for” to create a vibrant, thriving and resilient economy downtown?

The community of Oxford Mills got tired of waiting for the Municipality to replace the gazebo in Maplewood Park and did it themselves. Take a look at what they accomplished by having a vision and a belief in themselves. Great things can happen when people get together. When they share their talents, time and treasure in the service of an idea.

Does North Grenville want a walkable, bicycle friendly downtown with adequate parking; an outdoor rink and splash pad in Riverside Park; a trail running along the South Branch connecting Ferguson Forest to the downtown parks (Curry, Rotary, Post Office and Riverside). Does it want to preserve and celebrate it’s unique history and it’s built heritage? Do we want to retain and increase the number of unique businesses downtown?

This is a call to action to those with a positive outlook – to find others who share their vision of the type of downtown they want. Start figuring out a way to bring it about. Start a conversation with a neighbour or friend.There are some things money can’t buy and one of them is community. Community has to be built and built by participation.

(Photo: Liam Barclay)

The Old Town Kemptville Business Improvement Area has a Facebook page you can post to – find it at: https://www.facebook.com/OldTownKemptvilleBIA/. They publish a montly newsletter, subscribe to it here: http://eepurl.com/bnqf85. Both will provide you with information about issues and events downtown.

How to Build a Gazebo

Part One

In my 33-year career of producing video with and for non-profits, foundations and many levels of government, I never created anything worthwhile without patience, persistence and a great team of collaborators. Whether a 30 second Public Service Announcement or an hour long TV arts special, the challenge was always the same – how to overcome the myriad obstacles and complications invariably placed in your way. Replacing the gazebo in Maplewood Park last year was no different, at times it just seemed impossible to do.

Faithful readers will dimly recall the two-year struggle by the Oxford Mills Community Association (OMCA) to 1) get Council to re-instate the budget that was set aside to replace what was an iconic focal point of the park; 2) get Council to contribute part of the replacement costs; 3) get staff to provide specifications for gazebos on Municipal property; 4) get Council to conditionally grant permission to the OMCA to construct a gazebo using their own funds; and 5) get the Building Department to approve the project design and construction drawings. Then there was the task of raising the $11,000 it took to design, build and install the structure.

I’d like to write about the lessons that I hope have been learned. That a beautiful, well built, accessible gazebo is now situated in Maplewood Park is a testament to the kind of collaboration that is possible between the citizens of North Grenville and the Municipality. Hopefully we’ll see much more of it in the future, but only if a culture of cooperation and collaboration can be fostered.

Too often, in a fast growing community like ours, residents, Municipal staff and Council are at loggerheads. Expectations outstrip resources available. Public service positions demand more and more skills and capabilities. The situation creates the perfect storm for frustration, suspicion and mistrust. Staff and Council develop a siege mentality, while the general public becomes cynical and all too often, apathetic.

It doesn’t have to be that way and I believe it has to start with a change of attitude, led first by the residents of this community. They have to recognize that there will be obstacles in the way of getting what they want from Municipal government but they should not let it deter them. They should be persistent and, here’s the hard part, patient. Staff and Council are far from perfect; most of them are trying to do their best and some of them, unfortunately, are over-whelmed by the growing demands of their job.

There is a general lack of understanding by residents about how the Municipality works. Managing a Municipality is very complicated and people are too busy living their lives to pay much attention. When they do have a reason to interact with the Municipality they often feel crushed by the rules and regulations; wrapped up in the dreaded “red tape”. It’s incumbent therefore for both Municipality Council and staff to raise awareness of the regulatory environment they have to operate in and to clearly explain the process involved in doing almost anything in North Grenville.

It’s a difficult but necessary task for staff to put themselves in the public’s shoes and imagine what it’s like “not to know what you know”. They have to be ever diligent to find ways to simplify, clarify and effectively communicate to the public the process that leads to accomplishing whatever task is at hand.

For the general public, it’s also important to remember to be assertive but not aggressive when obstacles appear, as they always will. Again, persistence and patience is the way to achieve your goals no matter how complicated and outrageous they may appear at first glance. Don’t underestimate the power of public support either. Mobilize your neighbours. It’s amazing what can happen when a diverse group of people unite behind a common goal, things really start to move. A “can do” attitude and a willingness to martial often untapped resources, this is the power of community. This is how the gazebo in Maplewood Park was built.

Pop Star #3 – Erika Cuccaro

Erika Cuccaro created an excellent blog in 2013 that focused on the stories of individuals and businesses in Kemptville and District. “52 weeks in North Grenville” (52weeksng) ended in 2014 for a variety of reasons but I still hold it out as the model for local tourism writing.

Now four years later, she’s a Haven Maven and we’d be smart to keep her and her partners in town. Recently we’ve woken up to the economic possibilities that tourism brings and we’re suddenly looking at the South Branch of the Rideau River as an asset.

(R to L: Shelley Mitchell, 2017 Pop-Up Shop Steering Committee and Erika Cuccaro, 2017 Pop-Up Shop Sponsor secure 209 Sanders as a Pop-Up Shop loaction)

This past year Erika’s company “James Street Writing Company” was the third 2017 Kemptville Pop-Up Shop Program sponsor. The other two were Rob Noseworthy’s Westerra Homes and Neil Pringle’s Pringle Brothers Construction . There’s a strong creative business sector in Kemptville – which is to be expected being so close to a large market like Ottawa. Erika’s company is just one of many creative businesses that exist here by choice and who are community-minded by nature.

As Kemptville grows and our recreational infrastructure improves, look to people like Erika to play a large role in building tourist interest in Kemptville and the surrounding hamlets. North Grenville’s reputation as a generous community is confirmed by the number of businesses sponsoring important programs, local events and fundraisers. Businesses like James Street Writing Company.

A full 2017 Kemptville Pop-Up Shop Evaluation Report is available for download

Pop Star #2 – Rob Noseworthy

Kemptville Pop-Up Shop Graduate wins New Business of the Year Award at the 2018 North Grenville Breakfast Banquet.

Rob was there at the very beginning. (Apr. 22, 2016)

May 18, 2018 – Presentation of the 2018 New Business of the Year by Robert Noseworthy of Westerra Homes to Shulamit Bar Levtov of Compassionate Support for Stressful Times.

April 6, 2018 – Compassionate Support for Stressful Times – Grand Opening and Open House

September 15, 2017 – Robert Noseworthy of Westerra Homes (L) presents his sponsorship cheque to Deb Wilson (BIA Chair) and John Barclay (BIA Executive Director) outside the first Pop-Up Shop Location (9 Clothier St. E)

April 22, 2016 – Presentation of the Pop-Up Shop Program to North Grenville’s Economic Development Advisory Committee with a request totalling $2,500 – Rob Noseworthy of Westerra Homes commits $500 as a corporate sponsor of the Program through Westerra Homes. Staff is directed to find money within the existing Eco Dev budget.

A full 2017 Kemptville Pop-Up Shop Evaluation Report is available for download