Work. Family. Life.

Why I chose not to fly across Canada this week for a Tweetup

If you know me at all; then you will know that I have a love affair that has been going on with Prince Edward Island for about ten years now.  Over the years I have visited PEI, lived there, been part of a small business that operated in Summerside and have generally come to consider myself a Part Time Islander By Choice.  There is little doubt that PEI is my second home.  So when @peihouses and @aprilennis (in above picture) began to coordinate the PEI Tweetup events, it only seemed to make sense that I would hop on a plane from Vancouver to be there.  I enjoyed having the chance to connect with so many of the people that I know or consider to be friends on the Island and felt it was a worthwhile investment in building face to face relationships.

Fast forward to today, to this PEI Tweetup, and you'll find that I won't be there in person tonight.  Why?  Well, that is because life is full of hard choices; especially when you are the owner of a small business.  Having recently made the decision to shift the focus of much of my work and to truly dive into tasks that are necessary, I realized that I would be smarter to invest my time and energy directly in my new business goals and the related planning.  I actually calculated the number of hours that I would lose by flying, sitting in airports and then recovering from the whole travel whirlwind and came to understand that the smart move would be to say "No" for this time.  Not an easy decision due to my strong connection to the Island and to my colleagues and friends who are there.  No, not easy - but smart for me and my business.  So for tonight, I will be content to follow the #PEITweetup hashtag and feel good thatwww.aprilandjane.ca helped to sponsor the PEI Twitter Awards for 2011.  I will also feel content knowing that I made the right decision for me and my business.

Are you the owner of a small business?  What hard decisions have you faced when trying to manage your business?

What are the issues that bring people to this blog? Many!

Below is a list of the key words that people have searched for in recent weeks and months to arrive at this blog.  These are not listed in order of relevance, rather I have placed them in alphabetical order so as to see similar items grouped together where possible.  It is interesting to see the range of items that attract people to this site.

"Early Childhood Educators Loan Assistance Program "
"early intervention" speech
"Kellie Leitch" Globe and Mail
"Mary Polak"
"patti bacchus, chair"
"sadaf parvaiz"
"Victoria Sopik"
(http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/pubs/occup-travail/balancing_six-equilibre_six/index-eng.php
(vancouver) secure status
+kindergarten +ontario +"full day" +ece
$10 billion in education grants
20
2009 call for proposals in Canada
2009 evaluation of parental leave
2009 statistics stay at home moms
2010 all day kindergarten ontario
2010 full day kindergarten bc
2010 new members list contact of Abbotsford Farm and Country Market @hotmail.com
2010 ontario full time program kindergarten
2010 parental leave extended in canada
2010-2011 kindergarten program full days ontario
3185 Willingdon Green Burnaby, BC
4 year olds in school by 2010 (BC)
5 years old kindergarten will begin to be delivered in schools throughout British Columbia in Sept,
a healthy work environment
accessing early maternity leave benefits in bc
According to the recent HELP (UBC) report commissioned by the Business Council of BC, "BC has a six
actionplan.gc.ca
advantages of New Brunswick’s New Brunswick’s International Strategy
Alberta bc requirements for working at child care services
alberta child care certification for foreign trained people
alberta child care regulations
Alberta licensed day care balance sheet
all day kindergarten + bc
all day kindergarten 2010
all day kindergarten 2010 in BC
all day kindergarten bc
all day kindergarten bc october 28 2009
all day kindergarten ontario
all day kindergarten ontario oct 2009
all day kindergqrten bc 2010

Tweet deals from Westjet...who are all a Twitter

From a Press Release today:

 Twitter account will give guests access to great deals

	 CALGARY, June 26 /CNW/ - WestJet today announced the
introduction of a new service that leverages the power of 
Twitter to provide its guests with instant access to great deals. 
Those Twitter users who sign up to follow "WestJet" on twitter.com 
will be provided with seat sales, special offers and
other uniquely-WestJet opportunities. This Sunday, June 28, 2009, 
the first of WestJet's Twitter deals will be made available to 
those individuals following "WestJet".
	 "We are a young, vibrant and healthy company," said 
Richard Bartrem, WestJet Vice-President, Culture and Communications. 
"We need to employ all media possible to reach guests and 
prospective guests to offer them relevant information and great 
deals. 
Today's announcement is a reflection of how social media has 
become a staple for many of our guests and our WestJetters. 
The viral and word-of-mouth nature of social media is perfect for 
companies with great offers, great products and fun cultures 
like WestJet.
	 "We are encouraging as many people as possible to sign 
up and follow us on Twitter.com before Sunday, June 28, so that 
they are in the know with the first of many wonderful deals."
	 In addition, each day from Sunday, June 28, to Thursday, 
July 2, WestJet will be offering its followers on twitter.com 
one trip for two people anywhereWestJet flies in Canada. 
Visit WestJet's Twitter site at twitter.com/westjet
for more details.

	 

Way to go Westjet

Travel across Canada this Christmas week has been an awful experience for many due to the severe winter weather conditions. Despite this, Westjet pulled out all of the stops to try and keep their customers happy.  Compare all of this service to the experience some Air Canada passengers had trying to get to Toronto. Way to go Westjet! 

From a Westjet Press Release earlier today:

At one point in time, in the wake of the severe weather, WestJet was
faced with as many as 4,500 guests who would not have made it home in time for
Christmas if the airline did not demonstrate its can-do attitude.
     "We regret we were unable to get this number down to zero," lamented Ken
McKenzie. Despite our best efforts, 130 guests remained to be flown, which is
the equivalent of one flight, as of December 25th."
     Here is a breakdown of what WestJet spent between December 20 and today,
in an effort to get our guests home.

     <<
     -   More than 6,000 hotel rooms were provided free of charge to stranded
         guests at a cost of more than $500,000
     -   More than 25,000 meal vouchers were provided to guests in airports at
         a cost of approximately $220,000.
     -   $250,000 on ground transportation including taxis and chartered buses
     -   Aircraft were chartered from third party airlines at a cost of
         approximately $325,000 to assist in clearing the backlog of stranded
         guests.
     >>

     Above and beyond the dollars and cents, there are hundreds of stories of
WestJetters who went the extra mile during this period, including one employee
who ran 10 kilometres to work in minus 20 degree weather after his car broke
down, and countless office staff who manned check-in counters, baggage belts
and other locations.
     "I am enormously proud of WestJetters for their many acts of selflessness
to help our guests," said WestJet President and Chief Executive Officer Sean
Durfy. "When you see Executive Vice-Presidents flying aircraft on Christmas
Day and so many others taking time away from their own family celebrations,
you know you have a team of people who are completely focused on caring for
our guests."

Oh my goodness....

May 14, 2008 - VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) -- An immigrant family left a 23-month-old boy in the Vancouver airport and learned he was missing only when contacted during the next leg of the trip.

Jun Parreno, the boy's father, told The Vancouver Sun the mix-up occurred Monday as he, his wife and two grandparents of the child, J.M., were scrambling between their arrival in Canada and a connecting flight to Winnipeg on Air Canada.

Running late after having to unpack and repack all their luggage, "we had 10 minutes before boarding," said Parreno, who was emigrating with his family from the Philippines. "We were running for the gate."

He said he thought his son was with the three other adults, who were running to the gate ahead of him, and they thought the little boy was with him.

Instead, in a scenario similar to the movie "Home Alone," the toddler was wandering alone between a security checkpoint and the flight gates, said Angela Mah, an Air Canada representative.

"We were called by [security] who told us one of the security people had a toddler in tow," Mah said. "He doesn't speak English, so we found a Tagalog-speaking agent who has been looking after him."

There was no boarding pass for the youngster because he did not have a separately assigned seat, so there was no indication in the airline's computer system that someone had missed a flight, nor had there been any panicked calls from anyone on a flight missing a child, Mah said.

That's because the family was scattered in different parts of the plane to Winnipeg and still didn't know the child had been left.

Air Canada staff began checking flights that had left, and "we eventually determined who his parents might be ... and the flight crew talked to them," Mah said. "They didn't realize until then that the baby had been left behind.

"We're not aware of this ever happening on an Air Canada flight before."

The parents were put into telephone contact with the little boy, and Parreno was put on another Air Canada plane to return to Vancouver to get him after the family's flight arrived in Winnipeg, with the airline covering the cost of the two additional flights, she said.

Parreno had tears in his eyes when he returned to Winnipeg holding his son.

"I am relieved everything is OK ... but I was shocked," he said. "The staff at Air Canada took good care of him."

Finally gave in...

  Yes...I finally gave in to the iPod touch temptation...worth every $.  I can see how this is going to save me big time on Rogers data charges on my Blackberry when I travel across the country.  Getting set to do another flurry of plane rides in April and May thanks to the Air Canada Spring Get Away Pass...also worth every $!