Some people may not know, but in 2007 my younger brother Sean passed away suddenly. It was a horrible shock for my family and his many friends. It has been a very difficult thing to come to grips with, we still miss him terribly.

Last year we established the Sean Nicol Legacy Fund with the Selkirk & District Community Foundation. As a perpetual endowment fund the donations raised will be held and invested forever. The income generated by the investments will be used to issue grants to local charities working to promote social justice. In particular, the fund will seek to support project and programs delivering affordable housing, food security, and economic and social empowerment. To learn more about the fund, visit www.seannicol.org. You can also see some great photos on our Facebook site.

On April 13, we (Sean’s family and friends) held the first annual Shaw BBQ for Hope fund raiser dinner. Below is an article that appeared in this week’s Selkirk Record describing the success of this event. I am so grateful for the hard work of the planning committee who put this on and all of the family and friends who made this possible. I am also grateful for the event sponsors:

• Shaw (Title Sponsor)
• George Hacking – Century 21 Jefferson and Associates (Presenting Sponsor)
• City of Selkirk (Presenting Sponsor)
• Centum Mortgage Choice (Presenting Sponsor)  - Check out their special donation offer for Selkirk residents
• Call J Team Remax – Matt Evans & Jamie Sasley (Presenting Sponsor)

and all of the table sponsors:

• Greg Dewar, MLA Selkirk
• Peter Bjornson, MLA Gimli
• Selkirk Autobody
• BFI Canada
• Kyle Swystun
• Jason Langlois
• Lorne Nicol & Family
• Duane Nicol & Family

We were overwhelmed by the turnout and support. Through the generosity and hard work of his friends and family, Sean ‘s legacy will forever make a difference in our community.  If you’d like to keep up-to-date with the activities of the fund – please Like the fund on Facebook!

I am so proud of the work of the  Selkirk Transit partnership. The City of Selkirk were recently won the 2013 AMM Municipal Excellence Award. This award is given to municipal governments who have demonstrated excellence with the creation and management of a program or service. It is an honour to be recognized by our peers!

Selkirk Transit follows a unique and innovative delivery model. Not only does it provide the much needed service of moving people round our growing community – but it also follows community economic development principles. It leverages mutually beneficial partnerships between non-profit organizations and the city to deliver a much needed service at a financially sustainable rate. Click here to read our submission to this award program.

Below is a copy of the Selkirk Record story on the presentation of the award by Selkirk Council to our community partners Interlake Employment Services and the Selkirk & District Handi-Bus.

As you may know, being a councillor in the City of Selkirk is not a full-time job. Outside of council, I work for Assiniboine Credit Union (ACU) as the Manager of Marketing & Communication. I enjoy my work and I am proud of the company I work for. I’m proud to work for a financial co-operative that understands and strives to live the values of financial, social and environmental sustainability.

Vote Duane Nicol for the CUES Next Top Credit Union Exec

Last year, I was recognized by the Credit Union Central of Canada with National Young Leader Award. It was a tremendous honour. This year, I’ve been nominated and am a contestant in the Credit Union Executive Societies’ Next Top Credit Union Exec competition. It is an international contest for credit union leaders under the age of 35. Just to be nominated in an honour. I am the only Manitoban, and one of only 3 Canadians in the running.

There are three stages to this competition. In the first stage, contestants create a short video to introduce themselves and to talk about a project they are leading in their respective credit union. My video explains ACU’s exciting Intranet Rebuild project.  Contestants must encourage people to visit the CUES website and vote for their video. To make it to the next stage, my video must be one of the top 15 vote recipients.

 I really need your help. If you could, please visit the link below and vote for me.  Each legitimate email address may cast one ballot, so that means you can vote with a work and a personal email address. The more the better really.

Voting began July 20 and closes at 3pm ET on July 31. The voting period is very short, so if you are able to help, please visit the site as soon as you can and cast your vote. The online ballot is on the right side of the page. They are extremely careful with your email address, and don’t use it or sell it. If you choose to not receive the e-newsletter, you won’t get anything more from them other than the automatic vote confirmation email.

 Visit this page to vote. It takes less than a minute! http://nexttopcreditunionexec.com/

Thank you to everyone who takes a moment to help out! At stake is an opportunity to receive $20,000 in executive leadership training. Not only would this help me in my work at Assiniboine, but I know that it would help me in my work as a city councillor. 

Please feel free to share this on facebook or twitter if you can! This is a very competitive contest, and I could use all the help I can get!

I think this was the best Canada Day we’ve ever held. We had such an array of talented acts covering a number of different musical tastes. We had more vendors than ever, with and even wider selection of food…including two mini-donut vendors. Always a favorite on Canada Day. I loved the addition of the hoser cousins of Bob and Doug. Those guys were hilarious. It was a nice way to keep people engaged between musical sets. I think there were more people there then last year too. We don’t have an official estimate, but I think we easily had six to seven thousand. And the fireworks, incredible. What a show!

The Selkirk Fire Department volunteers decided to compress the show a bit so that there were more explosions per minute. Those guys do such a great job every year. Every year I think, there is no way they can out do themselves – and every year they prove me wrong. They tinker and tweak and add new types of firework to the show. You know they really do more with less every year. They have had the same budget for fireworks for the past 5 or 6 years now, and every year the cost of fireworks goes up, like everything else so that means they can purchase less, but you’d never know it from the show. They are truly artists! On a wow-per-dollar value scale, I would put our show up against any show around. Any show. That’s a 100% the work of our Selkirk Fire Department volunteers and our display partners Arch Angel Fireworks.The Canada Committee will definitely be looking at ways to increase our fireworks budget for next year.

Our vision for Canada Day is to make Selkirk THE place to be. Every year we add something new, something that will add excitement or bring in a new group of people. We have a “doors-open” philosophy. We want to bring people to Selkirk for the whole day; to experience all of the great things we have going on in community. Our park, our pool, our skatepark, theMarineMuseum, our shops and restaurants, our waterfront and our community spirit. We see Canada Day as our best opportunity to market Selkirk as a progressive and spirited place to live, work and play.

More important than this though, is the social capital that great events like this build in our community. Community is more than just streets and buildings, it’s the sense of connectedness and belonging. Canada Day is bar-none the best day of the year to do this. We are at once celebrating our connectedness as a country and as a city. It’s a day to be both a proud Canadian and a proud Selkirkian. I think our Canada Day celebrations help to build a sense of community pride within our citizens.

This year we added the Queen’s Jubilee 5km fun run and walk to our list of events and I think it was an absolute success. It creates a opportunity to include a new group of people in the day’s festivities and what a great way to showcase our jewel of a park. Linda Rosser and her group of volunteers did an amazing job. I know that next year will be even bigger and better.

The Manitoba Avenue street party was something that the Manitoba Avenue Merchants added last year and I think it just adds so much to the day’s festivities. It’s planned and put on by the merchants and organizations themselves and is just a wonderful way to engage the community. They do such a great job!

So much hard work goes into putting on this event. We have an army of awesome volunteers, a passionate crew of City of Selkirk employees, the RCMP our fire department, our generous sponsors and a small but mighty Canada Day committee. All of these folks are headed up by Angela Petrash our CanadaDay co-ordinator. She’s the Macgyver of community events. I swear she could host a rockin’ block party with a paper clip, bubblegum and the bark of a near by tree. She is simply amazing! Her leadership, and the work of all these people are the reason Canada Day is Selkirk so successful.

Well, after years with the same old static website, I’ve finally enlisted the help of a professional. My new site will allow me to share more information, more frequently, and in a more timely fashion. My hope is to be able to share more photos, video and information and that by using the WordPress platform, you will be able to provide feedback in the form of on-page comments. The site is a bit sparse right now. But come back soon, there will more to come.

If you are on twitter, follow me @duanenicol. Thanks for stopping by.