Page 13 - SLPOA Spring 2014 Newsletter

SPRING 2014 NEWSLETTER SHARBOT LAKE PROPERTY OWNERS’ ASSOCIATION

2013 Lake Links Workshop This presentation is not available. Angus McAllister

The Lake Landscape – From Political is President of Fathom6 Research (formerly
McAllister Opinion Research). Angus is a leading
to Practical Canadian Public Opinion Researcher who has
surveyed public attitudes on environment issues in
The 2013 Lake Links Workshop was held in Perth, over 25 countries and tracked Canadian trends for
Ontario, on Saturday, October 19th. This year’s nearly 20 years. Aside from his amazing depth of
workshop focused on strategies for community knowledge, Angus brings a great sense of humour to
engagement. Representatives from local lake his presentations. The result is an informative,
associations provided examples of hands-on entertaining package of useful insights that will
strategies for bringing lake communities together to provide significant value to understanding what
protect, improve and celebrate the health of their works and what doesn’t work in reaching and
lakes. engaging people.
Terry Rees, from FOCA, outlined some of the
changes that have happened in Ontario including
information on current regulatory changes, roles of
government and what we need to know to manage
our lakes in the future. As it turns out every level
of government has a responsibility in the health of
our water but this has led to too many chiefs and
not enough Indians so nothing happens unless the
citizens take matters into their own hands. Based
on this it is up to lake associations and property
owners to make the small changes that help to
improve the health of our lakes. View or download
Terry Rees' Presentation (click here).
Angus McAllister, President of Fathom6
Research, presented fascinating statistics about
individual perspectives and behaviours. Participants
were invited to participate in an exercise to write
the worst engagement pitch, and then the best
engagement pitch, in an effort to broaden their own
perspectives when trying to involve community
members in their organizations, associations or lake Hummingbird Moth
goals. The exercises were done to encourage the Picture supplied by Barb Wilson
knowledge that telling
everyone that the end is
coming is usually
ignored. It is better to
develop a solution and
encourage people to
engage than to tell them
to change. If this path is
taken then people usually
change to support the
changes that are
occurring.

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