Lanark County Seeking Volunteers to Assist with Business Retention and Expansion Program

From Lanark County

Lanark County is currently running a Business Retention and Expansion (BR+E) program, to support businesses across the county. Over the summer and early fall, we will be interviewing businesses people in the area to determine what they need to remain successful and to grow further.

We will then use gathered data to create an Action Plan to help support the real needs of businesses in the area. This data is extremely important, as it will also inform further economic development strategic plans for Lanark County, as well as new grant applications, events and new project development, depending on the needs and opportunities identified.

Lanark County is seeking for volunteers who are active in the community to help us conduct the interviews in their area.

Volunteers need to attend one training session. The first training is on June 12 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Lanark County Administration Building (99 Christie Lake Road, Perth). Please register by emailing Tim Woods (details below) prior to the day.

Following the training, volunteers will be asked to work in pairs and volunteer to interview at least two or three businesses over the next few months. Each interview will last about an hour. More information is available at www.lanarkcounty.ca/grow and interested businesses can sign up there as well.

Later in the process (January) volunteers will be invited to read through the data to help create an action plan. Attendance at that event will be optional, but it will be an interesting, creative and important part of the process – and there will be some very good food for us at that event!

If you are interested or have questions about this volunteer opportunity, please contact Tim Woods, BR+E Coordinator, at twoods@lanarkcounty.ca.

There will be additional trainings later, so feel free to reach out to Tim if you can’t make the first one, but you’d still like to be a volunteer.