The Challenge 4 Communities 2011
Week 1
The first challenge: An essay of approximately five hundred (500) words or less, outlining the benefit your project will be to your community. See the essays below.
Week 2
The second challenge: Create a Facebook Fan Page to promote your idea and market it to the region. Check them out. the links are listed below.
Week 3
The third challenge: Create a YouTube Video promoting your project. Check them out. The links are listed below.
Week 4
The fourth challenge: Submit a radio ad advertisement for a 30 second radio commercial. (Submitted in paragraph form.) Click on the speaker icons below to view the ads.
VOTING WAS ALLOWED ONCE every 24 hours FROM EACH COMPUTER IP ADDRESS.
The Challenge 4 Communities project 2011 has been finalized. Violations of the rules have caused delays in determining the winners. As a result, the Board has made the following decisions:
- Newsask committed funds and determined that voting irregularities occurred.
- The Board has removed all votes deemed to be irregular. (As per clause 8.5 of the Challenge 4 Communities Official Rules: “Where the integrity of the audience online voting system is compromised or the audience online voting system is otherwise not functioning, as determined by Newsask in their sole discretion, Newsask reserves the right to make all final decisions in relation to the Challenge”.)
The Board congratulates the Challenge 4 Communities project winners and reminds all participants their decisions are final.
These are the official results:
| Project | Votes | Place |
| Wild Bird Seed Production | 3105 |
1st |
| Nibwakawigamig Language Festival | 1021 |
2nd |
| Kip Recycling Program | 787 |
3rd |
| Sunshelter over Sandbox for Children's Playground | 604 |
4th |
These are the projects in the order that they were received:
1. Wild Bird Seed Production (Business Club of TMSS)
In a small community, such as Tisdale, local businesses are the back bone of our community. In developing the Business Club, we are giving opportunities to young individuals to experience entrepreneurship. With 19 members, grades ten to twelve, we are one of the largest clubs in our school. So far we have had presentations from small business owners, human resource workers and visited our local bank branch. It has furthered our knowledge of loans, business plans, and business practices. As an important part of every agenda, we are meeting and learning from very successful entrepreneurs from our community.
The project we have decided to move forward with will focus on our goal of using products that are grown by local producers, has a definite benefit to the community, has the ability to become a long term business, and we will involve other community partners.
Our project involves a creation of a nutritious bird seed mix, using locally grown and processed seeds. Out of the seed varieties available to us product research will help us decide what the most nutritious mix will be for the general population of birds. We have to develop a packaging, marketing, and distribution strategy. Our goal is to market the product not only locally but throughout the province.
Proceeds from winning The Challenge 4 Communities will be used for the following;
- Set up and put in place a marketing strategy for our business.
- Compare products from other small business owners.
- Gather information about creating a healthy, nutritious, wild bird seed mix.
- Look at the possibility of building a partnership with Sarcan to have them provide labour for the bagging and boxing of the finished product.
- Look at additional products we can use as tied selling opportunities.
- Develop a business plan which will determine the ability of the business to succeed. The business plan will also be required for financing if needed.
The benefits to our community will be immense. By succeeding in our small business we can look at growth and expansion in the near and distant future. In the event of expansion, we would be creating jobs and helping the economy in our community. It would give us better chances to expand our reach in the province and may interest future customers and mass buyers.
We hope by creating our business in our younger years it will help us along the way when we are experiencing life as an adult, and will help us make educated decisions. By hearing our story of perseverance and hard work, others will see that the opportunity for a small business is just around the corner. They will see us as role models and hopefully be inspired to create their own business from nothing. Just as we are doing.
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 Click on the YouTube Link or go to YouTube.com and search for "Wild Bird Seed Production - Ornigourmet" |
 Click on the speaker icon to view this contestants radio ad. |
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2. Metal Sunshelter Over Sandbox for the Children (Kipabiskau Cabin Holders Association)
Our playground for all children and young adults has been the focus of the Kipabiskau Cabin Holders Association for several years. We have purchased some equipment by having fund raisers in the summer. The area is wide open with no shade whatsoever. It is used by campers, cabin holder’s families, and people who visit the park on a daily basis.
With health concerns about the damage the sun can cause, we would like to protect the children. It is mainly preschoolers of course that play in the sandbox.
 Click on the Facebook link or long in to your Facebook page and search for " Kipabiskau Regional Park Playground" |
Click on the YouTube icon or go to YouTube.com and search " Kipabiskau Regional Park Playground " |
Click on the speaker icon to view this contestants radio ad. |
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3 Nibwakawigamig Lauguage Festival (Nibwakawigamig - Kinistin Education Centre)
The Saulteaux language festival will include approximately 200 students representing various grade levels from the surrounding native and non-native schools. The students will engage in various workshop activities that will utilize the Saulteaux language within a Saulteaux cultural context as one cannot separate the culture and language. A passport system will be used to ensure student participation in all the workshops. The projects will include Saulteaux Bingo, Saulteaux Word Challenge, cultural crafts such as dream catchers and bracelets, learning to make bannock, and drumming and singing in the Saulteaux language. All the activities will utilize the Saulteaux language and culture in many forms, as well; students will be awarded prizes through the games and passport system by awarding prizes.
As an educational leader for the Nibwakawigamig Education Centre I am a firm believer that affirmation of cultural identity and language is a critical component to communicate to First Nations children that their cultural heritage including language is important and has a place within their home, community, and in a learning environment. This belief is also stated within the community’s vision and school mission statement that learning is inclusive of culture and language. Based on this the language festival will broaden the knowledge, awareness, and use of the Saulteaux language and will communicate that language is a scared gift and has a special place in the Saulteaux culture.
The provincial curriculum also requires that learning opportunities and experiences include First Nations culture and language in the numerous strands as stated in the core curriculum. The Saulteaux language program within our school taught as a core subject is allotted specific instructional hours which is not sufficient for language fluency. Based on the lack of instructional time it is evident that other means of transmission and intergenerational learning and sharing be utilized. Another important aspect, the children within our school do not speak their heritage language, which is Saulteaux, and as a result, speak English as their first language. The current Saulteaux program teaches our children the Saulteaux language as a second language. Based on this, collaborative effort and initiatives such as the proposed language festival is absolutely necessary to create a “language shift” to provide opportunities and experiences for intergenerational transfer of the Saulteaux language. Research has shown that children require at least ten years to learn their first language, and when children learn a second language, they require a minimum of six years to acquire proficiency in the second language for academic purposes. With this in mind, the Saulteaux language taught as a core subject hardly meets the time frames, and providing other opportunities to learn and practice Saulteaux language for intergenerational transfer is absolutely necessary.
I highly recommend the proposed Saulteaux Language Festival be given serious consideration to maintain, preserve, and intergenerational transfer, an opportunity to collaborate, build partnerships, and strengthened relations between the schools, students, parents, and communities and instill pride and encouragement to learn the Saulteaux language.
| Click on the Facebook link or log into your Facebook Page and search for " Nibwakawigamig Language Festival" |
Click on the YouTube link or go to YouTube.com and search " Language" |
Click on the speaker icon to view this contestants radio ad. |
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4. Kip Recycling Program (Kipabiskau Nature Trails Volunteer Group)
Our group would like to expand the recycling program at Kipabiskau Regional Park. Over the past few years at the park, the cabin holders volunteers have held bottle drives on the long weekends throughout the summer and while these have been successful, we realized that a more permanent on-going program would be beneficial, so this past year we ran a trial program, putting a borrowed privately owned trailer by the dumpsters so that cans and bottles could be dropped off at any time. This worked well so we want to purchase a trailer, put signage on it stating its intended use. We would also like to make two recycle bins and place one by the beach and one by the playground to help encourage park patrons to recycle rather than just toss bottles and cans into the bushes along the nature trails and roadways or into the lake.
This is a sustainable project which encourages co-operation between park patrons and our community groups that promote park stewardship and environmental responsibility. The funds raised from the recyclables are used by the cabin holders association for improvements to the park so all money stays in the park. By expanding the recycling program we hope to increase this income so that all park patrons can benefit from the improvements. (To date playground equipment has been added with these funds, as well as new tables and chairs for the hall.)
| Click on the Facebook link or log in to your Facebook page and Search for " Kip Recycling Program" |
Click on the YouTube link or go to YouTube.com and search "Kip. Recycling Program 2011" |
Click on the speaker icon to view this contestants radio ad. |
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5. Carrot River Greenspace Project (Carrot River Economic Development)
| Clink on the Facebook link or log in to your Facebook page and search for " Carrot River Greenspace Project" |
Disqualified due to non-submission of YouTube video. |
Check back Nov 25 for the Radio Ad link. |
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Thanks to everyone for your votes
When the votes are tallied, the project with the most votes will get the 1st place prize of $3000, Second place is $2000; Third place is $1000; Fourth place is $500.
The Challenges
- Submit with your application and an essay of approximately five hundred (500) words or less, outlining the benefit your project will be to your community. You may include a photo with the essay. The application must be received by Community Futures no later that November 4, 2011.
- November 10, 2011 - Create a Facebook Fan Page to promote your idea and market it to the region. Responsibly encourage your Facebook networks to join your fan page. Positively represent any partners and Community Futures Newsask. Click here for help to create a Facebook page.
- November 18, 2011 - Create a YouTube video promoting your project. Click here for help with YouTube
- November 25, 2011 - Create an audio advertisement for a 30 second radio commercial to be submitted in writing (paragraph form).
Check back Dec 2 for the final tally.
Newsask will require a status update on the winning projects within six months of the declaration of prize winners. If the project has not been completed by that date, status updates will be required at six month intervals until project completion.
Click here for the complete rules and regulations
2011 Challenge 4 Communities
