The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

10 BusinessLink, Wednesday, April 23, 2008 The Georgetown Choral Society presents Georgetowns 100 voice community choir sings Best Loved Choral Works from Great Popular & Classical Composers Georgetown s 00 voice community choir sing Conducted by A. Dale Wood Accompanied by Bev Foster Friday, May 2nd, 8:00 pm and Saturday, May 3rd, 8:00 pm Georgetown Christian Reformed Church, 11611 Trafalgar Road Tickets are $20.00 and are available at Bergsmas Paint and Wallpaper (Georgetown Marketplace), The Freckled Lion (56 Main St., Georgetown) and Alexandre (333 Mountainview Rd. South), from any choir member or on our web site at www.georgetownchoral.ca The Main & Miller Plaza (corner of 8th Line & Miller Drive) Georgetown South 905-702-9982 your makeover is waiting. see the new red lemon. 905-877-4411 100 Armstrong Ave. Georgetown www.fraserdirect.ca Colour Digital Copies starting at 39 (Business rates available) We now do laminating. 119 Mill St., Georgetown 905-877-7122 copying@csprinting.ca FOR FREE DOMAIN REGISTRATION (.com .net .org) use coupon code independent WEB SITE HOSTING STARTING AT $5.00 http://www.ec-webhosting.ca Tickets on sale HERE! OPEN 7 DAYS Brett Worby, CFP Certified Financial Planner 348 Guelph St., #4 Georgetown Tel. 905-873-1877 Fax: 905-873-1878 email: bworby@pipfs.com Relay For Life 2008 For more information contact Sue: 905-451-4460 ext.21 REGISTER A TEAM! Spend 12 hours of fun, friendship and fundraising to beat cancer. Take turns walking, running or strolling around the track in a non-competitive relay. Celebrate Survivors. Light a Luminary. Join the biggest cancer event to make the biggest difference. Experience the magic and excitement of being part of a nationwide event raising funds in over 480 locations across Canada. Register your team today. Youll never feel better for staying up all night! June 6 - 7, 2008 Gellert Community Centre Georgetown Register online at: www.cancer.ca/relay Bona Lea Allard has volunteered with theChamber since becoming a member in2003. Her volunteer efforts began with the membership committee and she soon found her niche with the Women in Business Committee. Bona Lea eventually became chair of that committee and has just recently completed her one year term. Bona Leas volunteer efforts extend beyond the Chamber to include working with her childrens school council and participating in field trips. Bona Lea has also worked closely with the yearbook committee in a technical capacity to assist in the creation of a beautifully designed yearbook. The Brampton Teachers Curling League has benefited from Bona Leas website development skills as she has helped set them up and continues to maintain their Internet presence. She has also worked on the annual bonspiel committee, the ladies golf day committee and has participated in strategic planning with the Board of Directors at the Brampton Curling Club. Bona Lea has lent her business and leadership skills to other corporate ventures such as the local BNI (Business Network International) Chapter, as their education coordinator. In this capacity, she was responsible for a weekly 2-5 minute presentation to train the other business members about the BNI program and how to improve their networking skills. When asked why she volunteers, Bona Lea replies, I get to help people and I also have the opportunity to do things I wouldnt ordinarily have been able to do. She also says that there is great satisfaction in helping someone move in the right direction by teaching them something. While there are several benefits to volunteering that help others, it has been beneficial to her business as well. The networking opportunities that have presented themselves as Bona Lea has volunteered have proven to strengthen her business. Sometimes we forget how important networking can be. You never know who youll meet. Bona Lea Allard Ricon Consulting By Marnie Hughes, Communication Artistry Lessons of a volunteer in Haiti Giving, in whatever form money, time,energy, goods and services often haspayback. The payback may be a tax deduction, opportunity, recognition or good feelings. Recently I discovered an unexpected benefit of generosity learning. When the experience is bigger that you are, the learning curve is steep and the personal payback is huge. Its my third mission volunteering in Haiti with Team Canada Healing Hands, part of Healing Hands for Haiti Foundation, an international NGO specializing in rehabilitation medicine and training programs. Im at an orphanage for disabled, abandoned children on the edge of the capital, Port au Prince. Haiti is only five and a half hours from my house, an hour and a half off the coasts of Miami or Cuba. It shares the island with the Dominican Republic. Haiti is number 146 of 177 countries on the 2006 UN Human Development Index, while Canada is # 4. The woman in front of me is patiently feeding beautiful two and a half year-old Martine, who has no feet but is otherwise normal and very happy running around in her new prosthetic boots. Around her are twenty or more other children, also clean, dressed, fed, and looked after, rescued from the citys General Hospital, all abandoned by overwhelmed parents for whom their childs physical or mental disability is too big a burden and a taboo. A few nights ago this childcare worker was raped by bandits who invaded the small one storey, cement block house at night. She worked the next day; today, nothing about her complains although her pain must be immense. The woman sitting beside me is a retired New York City school bus driver, Madame Blaise, founder of the orphanage. She is using her pension to help these kids in her homeland who have no guardians or advocates. She despairs that her other helpers were abused and may not return to work and that everything of value was stolen. We spend a day helping them clean up, take stock, look after the children and provide the medical assessments and care we came to deliver. At the end of the day Madame Blaise shows us a miracle. Proudly she takes us to town for a tour of the orphanages future home, a recent donation. Its a large, modern, secure building in a better district and it will properly house three times the number of children. Her mothers helpers will be safe there. Now she is smiling, not for the money we collected for a new generator, but for a future that looks better than today. Back home, these lessons occur to me. Some people, like these three - a baby girl, a woman and an older lady - are tough, resilient, and can experience some small happiness with what they have, rather than just misery with the rest of it. Many of the things we know how to do, as individuals or as organizations, can be of value in helping others, not just in sustaining ourselves in our lives or businesses. The gulf between those able to give and those in need is growing like the gaping hole in the ozone layer above our global village. Its dangerous. And, as employees, businesses, and families, as individuals or communities, there is opportunity in giving, some of it bigger than a tax receipt - and learning is one the most unexpected. * http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/ Eric Doubt President, Communication Associates eric@commassoc.ca www.commassoc.ca Member, Board of Directors Healing Hands for Haiti Foundation www.healinghandsforhaiti.org Martine, at Home for Handicapped Children, Port au Prince, Haiti, November 2007.