Understanding and Creating Impact in Rural Canada

Are you creating the impact in your rural community in the way that you want to? 

How do you know you're actually making a difference? 

Creating impact in rural communities also means that we need to understand what impacts we want to make.  Being able to identify what actions will make the difference and measuring those actions or outcomes takes much critical thinking.  This is a tricky area where we need to combine the skills of visionary thinking with practical action and measurement.  This roundtable conversation will be exploring the best ways we as individuals and community organizations to improve quality of life in rural Canada.  Join us for a Big Exchange Roundtable discussion on what are good measurements, connecting those measurements to quality of life, and how to make sure your actions are creating the impact you would like.  Our next discussion will be led by Dee Ann Benard and Nienke van Bezooijen on October 28, 2020, 1-3 mst.  

Dee Ann Benard  is the Alberta Rural Development Network's inaugural executive director. After earning her B.Sc. (Biology) and M.Sc. (Plant Pathology) from Simon Fraser University, Dee Ann moved to Edmonton in 1994 to work with Alberta Agriculture.  Eventually, she joined private industry to manage the Alberta operation of Integrated Crop Management Services (ICMS), Inc. Later, she moved to the Alberta Research Council (now called Alberta Innovates) in Vegreville where she worked first as a plant pathologist, and later in business development. In 2004, she joined the newly formed Agricultural Research and Extension Council of Alberta (ARECA) as executive director, a position she held for over five years.Dee Ann served as a member of the Agriculture and Food Council for several years, where she held roles such as Chair of Advancing Canadian Agriculture and Agri-Food and Treasurer. She is an active volunteer in her community and in her professional life. Dee Ann enjoys skiing, kayaking and hiking.

Nienke van Bezooijen started her working career as a nurse and after 25 years in healthcare, top- management, she started her second life as an entrepreneur with her first business in 2008. While working as a consultant, she exchanged knowledge with entrepreneurs and she became passionate about training and coaching. She travelled all around the globe to learn these skills from the top masters in the field of speaking in public.  Nienke is a catalyst for the new future based on global collaboration through differences.  Leaving the old style of the patriarchy she is paving the path for the transformation to a balanced world in the synergy between men and women. Inclusion, cooperation, transformation, consciousness, wisdom and listening beyond words are characteristics Nienke is known for.


This next Big Exchange will take place on October 28, 2020, 1-3 pm mst.

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