This series is designed to introduce you to our current, future, and even some past board members. We have new members joining the board soon, and wanted you to have an opportunity to get to know them, as well as the folks who are currently serving. Meet Chris Robertson, and find out why he was inspired to join NextGen. *** Similar to many young Capers, I left the island for work and to explore new opportunities. I wasn’t forced to leave to find work, I was employed in our family’s insurance brokerage. Leaving a family business was a tough decision to make. I decided that I wanted to try something different and escape the tangles that can find their way into family business. Off I went to the big city of Halifax. I guess looking back at it, I could be accused of chasing a girl. At the time my girlfriend (now wife) Susan was enrolled in the pharmacy program at Dal. Halifax would be home base for 10 years. We had a lot of fun in Halifax and made a lot of good decisions. The best decision resulted in us getting married. We were loving life. Next came our son and our priorities began to change. After a health scare with my mom, my wife and I realized home was calling. There was no pressure to come home, it was something we both wanted but never really discussed. We wanted to be closer to our parents now and be there for them when they really needed us. We also wanted our son Luke (2 at the time we moved) to see his Grandparents more often than holidays. We were fortunate in that Susan’s employer created a position for her on the island. We were left to figure out what I would do for work. Continuing in a sales gig based from the island was not something I wanted to do. Time on the road had grown old and I don’t like being away from family for too long. This seemed like a great time to open a business. The decision to move back to be there for our parents had us thinking…..how will others support their parents as they age? After all, we had more close friends living out West than we did in Cape Breton. We realized an opportunity and decided to open Home Instead Senior Care Cape Breton. We have been back in the Cape for 5 years. We added to the island’s population by welcoming our little girl (Anna) into the family. We have faced additional family health challenges and were happy we were in Cape Breton to help. Anna and Luke have a great relationship with Nana, Papa, Granddad and Nannie. Home Instead Senior Care continues to grow month over month. A lot has transpired over the past 5 years and we wouldn’t change a thing. We have a lot of work to do to keep more young people in Cape Breton. It is important to me that we be here to encourage youth and support the decisions they make. Whether someone decides to leave to gain experience or stay in Cape Breton to work, we need to support their growth. The business community in Cape Breton is very supportive of young entrepreneurs. Youth should be given the opportunity to meet and network with these supporting individuals. I am excited to be a part of NextGen because I want to support and encourage others to try new ventures and take risks. I also want to highlight the importance of volunteering in the community and supporting programming aimed at children. Successful children’s programs like Hockey, Soccer, and Basketball will ensure that young families have options to keep their kids busy. I believe that youth are our future and being a part of NextGen will allow me to foster a supportive environment where youth can thrive in all aspects of life and community.
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This series is designed to introduce you to our current, future, and even some past board members. We have new members joining the board soon, and wanted you to have an opportunity to get to know them, as well as the folks who are currently serving. Meet Erin Gallagher, a long serving board member and co-chair of the board. Find out why she was inspired to join NextGen. *** I joined the NextGen Unama’ki board in 2014 because I believe in investing in Cape Breton youth and young professionals by providing them with a platform for community engagement. I was first introduced to NextGen in 2011, when I worked on a profile project, during a six-month term position with the Partnership. I found it so refreshing to meet and interview young professionals, in communities, all across Cape Breton Island, who were experiencing success in their career paths and made the decision to build their lives here. I think it’s important to continue to highlight and create dialogue around young professionals who experience real success here. NextGen Unama’ki and the Partnership host the Vital Awards every November and we continue to be pleasantly surprised by the number of stellar nominations we receive year after year. I look forward to celebrating young professionals, community leaders and organizations that are providing meaningful employment opportunities for youth, every year. I believe in exploring ways to engage young professionals and youth and providing them with the opportunity to have an active voice in helping to shape strong Cape Breton communities. Like many Cape Breton youth and young professionals, I lived away from Cape Breton for a bit. A few years after I returned home, I chose to apply for a position with United Way Cape Breton to allow myself the opportunity to help youth on a broader scale. United Way Cape Breton strives to improve lives and build community by engaging and mobilizing local community members and groups to work together on challenging community issues. We have prioritized helping local youth succeed in all aspects of their lives, from birth through the school years to the transition into adulthood. One of the reasons I love living here and being from Cape Breton is the pride we take in helping to make our local communities be the best they can be. I have the opportunity through my job, as well as, my role with NextGen Unama’ki to work with people who care so much about Cape Breton and strive to make our local communities vibrant. I’m not naïve to the challenges Cape Breton faces, but I work at United Way Cape Breton and volunteer with groups like NextGen Unama’ki because I want to be part of the conversations and actions that lead to fixing the issues and obstacles that face our local communities. There are many dedicated people working to make Cape Breton communities stronger, healthier and more vibrant. I feel fortunate I get to spend my life here, close to my family, my husband Craig and a small network of close friends and workmates who have become some of my closest friends and make going to work a pleasure; all the while, living on one of the most beautiful islands in the world. That said, sometimes, you need to go away and come back to realize what you have in your own backyard. The group of individuals I have the pleasure of sitting on the NextGen Unama’ki board with also care deeply about creating strong, vibrant communities in Cape Breton and want to make certain younger people are part of that process. With the support of the Partnership, and so many like-minded individuals who have a vested interest in engaging with young people, I believe we will be successful in creating strong, healthy, vibrant, local communities, where we can live happily, surrounded by family, friends and caring, passionate community members. *I’d like to take this opportunity to mention, I only have one year left with the NextGen Unama’ki board, as I will be turning 40 in July 2021. We will welcome new board members in September and help them transition into their roles as part of our succession plan. We are confident the new members will amplify our mission of engaging in youth and young professionals as they explore new and creative ways to do so. Keep an eye out for their blog posts come the Fall. This new series is designed to introduce you to our current, future, and even some past board members. We have new members joining the board soon, and wanted you to have an opportunity to get to know them, as well as the folks who are currently serving. Meet Allison MacDonald, a long serving board member and co-chair of the board. Find out why she was inspired to join NextGen. *** When my husband and I decided to attend a NextGen focus group for the Creating an Island of Choice: Young Talent Attraction Strategy project back in 2015, it was a decision pretty much made on a whim. Things were busy at our respective workplaces (in fact, I was only a month and a half into my new job in marketing at Protocase), and we had a young 18-month old at home who was keeping us plenty busy. I was vaguely familiar with NextGen Cape Breton, having done a brief, yet wonderful, stint working at the Cape Breton Partnership fresh off of my maternity leave, before landing at Protocase permanently. But the premise of NextGen's mission -- to engage, connect and inform young people in Cape Breton -- and the idea that these focus groups would gather feedback and opinions in order to develop clear, concrete strategies for making Cape Breton an island of choice for young professionals, were too intriguing to pass up, busy schedule be damned. NextGen Cape Breton seemed to be perfectly tailored to my interests and personal experiences. After all, I was one of the many young professionals flocking home after years away. Both born and raised in Cape Breton, my husband and I had attended university in Halifax, then spent four years in Calgary before making our way back to Halifax in 2011. Once our daughter was born in 2013, we made the decision to pursue employment in Cape Breton, seeing it as the perfect chance to put down roots and be close to our families. So the idea of being able to weigh in on my personal experience of being born and raised in Cape Breton, leaving for several years, and then moving back home, quite simply, was too good to pass up. Although the focus group was over five years ago, I remember there being several lively discussions around a series of topics. What did it mean to be successful in Cape Breton? What was Cape Breton missing for young people? Where did Cape Breton already excel for young professionals? Leaving the focus group, I felt satisfied that I had at least had my say on what I felt were the challenges and the opportunities for young people to thrive in Cape Breton. But it left me wanting more. More involvement, more chances to weigh in, more opportunities to meet young people in Cape Breton across a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences. So when a staff member from the Cape Breton Partnership mentioned to me a year later that the NextGen board had a few openings, I took literally no time to consider applying for one of the spots. (I had just given birth to my second daughter the month prior, so I suspect I was still in the newborn haze period, and perhaps not thinking clearly!). It just seemed like an extension of a journey I had already started. The NextGen Cape Breton team was putting the finishing touches on its final report, Creating a Prosperous Future: Young Talent Strategy for Cape Breton Island. I was excited to find out what strategies and opportunities the report would determine would be best for Cape Breton's youth to move forward in a positive way. At the heart of it, I joined NextGen because I truly believe Cape Breton is stronger because of the young people who choose to remain here -- or return here after years away. Cape Breton's only way forward to prosperity is to have a healthy, active population of young people who are encouraged to pursue high-quality post-secondary education, try new business ventures, have leadership roles in the community and be able to express themselves. I'm not saying I have all of the answers on how we can move forward. Far from it, actually. But I do know the people who make up the NextGen board are dedicated individuals with passion, ideas and respect for one another. We are committed to trying new things, growing our current initiatives and reaching out beyond our own personal circles, with the ultimate goal of making Cape Breton stronger. With a year left in my tenure as co-chair with Erin Gallagher-Lynk, I’m excited to see what more we can do to engage and connect youth in Cape Breton Unama’ki --all over the island. This new series will introduce you to our current, future, and even some past board members. We have new members joining the board soon, and wanted you to have an opportunity to get to know them, as well as the folks who are currently serving. The first person we'd like to introduce you to, was a long serving member and although he's moved on to new endeavours we wanted to share this post he wrote before his departure from the board. Thank you Tyler, for your many contributions to NextGen Cape Breton. ***** Tyler SackI first learned about ‘brain drain’ during my 6th grade social studies class. The teacher explained to us that young people were leaving Nova Scotia for education or work and not returning home, but moving to more populated areas in order to work for organizations that offered better pay and opportunity. This trend was presented as an unfair practice and the class was assigned groups and asked how we would solve this problem. I remember feeling a sense of guilt or pressure during the class, looking back it was a strange activity for that age. I’m not sure that it was essential to that day’s lesson plan but more that the teacher wanted to inspire us to stay and build a life our hometown in the future. Overall many students were hopeful that we could find meaningful work locally, but in 6th grade those thoughts and considerations faded when the bell rang and we got to play soccer during lunch. Before finishing middle school I would move from Cape Breton, first to Shubenacadie, and later as a teen to Halifax and eventually to Guelph, Ontario for graduate school. My girlfriend and I agreed to return to Nova Scotia to start our careers following graduation and I could not help remembering my 6th grade social studies class on brain drain. My move back to Cape Breton wasn’t planned. Initially I planned to move back to Halifax but while visiting family in Membertou I decided to stay a bit longer and spend the summer not worrying about my career just yet. Needing money however, I took on a short-term position where I would meet an employer who convinced me to move back to Cape Breton and join her startup full-time once my contract ended. The move and career path were unplanned, but I decided to stay because of the collective attitude of the community. I met a lot of people who were starting their own businesses, and I found their confidence inspirational. These people wanted to see change and were willing to take action. I’ve talked to many people about future of Cape Breton, and the conversation tends to shift to wondering what sector or industry is going to revitalize the economy, what could come here that fills the void left by the fishing, mining, and steel? Personally, I don’t believe there is any one thing that will dominate innovation and growth, and it may not even be economic development that drives this change. I anticipate that the future of work will be more remote and people will be able to maintain careers anywhere in the world. We will have the freedom to choose both our job and our community and not lose out on one because of the geographic constraints. From this perspective, being the ideal community is about how we relate to one another and recognizing and integrating new people into the community in a meaningful and dignified way. My goal is to see Cape Breton as a place of social development, where the community is healthy independently from its economy. |
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