The Trochu Journey

At the one year anniversary of our exciting "Ignite Tour", our town is feeling the impact of the ACE experience. Since our last newsletter reporting, we have seen an active Fall of serious planning, grant applications and fundraising by our pro-active Trails team including individual donations, Town, and corporate/businesses. There are high expectations once the matching grant process is complete!

The Skateboard Park and Family Fun Centre groups are realizing slower momentum, and the benefit of merging all efforts toward making the Trails project a single priority at this time, harnessing all this learning and experience for a future time when these projects are in the works!

The news of our designation as “The Pinkest Little Town in the West” was received in October which recognized the outstanding participation and community involvement in raising the most money during the 14 day "Wild Pink Yonder Ride" for breast cancer. This announcement coincided nicely with the ARPA Jasper Conference where we could share the good news. The Community Building segment was well done by the 11 ACE Communities who contributed their heart-warming stories. I am delighted to see the Trochu Journey six-minute video featured on the ACE Communities website…looks great there!

We have a community gathering booked for January 5, 2011 as a very fitting year- to- the-day reunion where we will have everyone back together for an update and to hear their valuable feedback. Future events are already in the works starting with a New Year’s Eve traditional fireworks display to kick-off what promises to be the best Centennial celebrations ever!

Trochu marks 100 years and we have more community leaders coming forward to help plan this party than ever before. We will update on this as the year unfolds but will just mention that our 2010 ACE Movie in the Park event, promises to be an annual close of school blast for our kids. It is booked to go again as part of the Centennial plans for 2011 and beyond… stay tuned for more exciting plans throughout our big year!

In closing, I think it is worth mentioning that an unprecedented four women ran in the municipal election in Trochu this past fall; two with success at the polls. Personally, I must attribute some of the decision to make this step, to the encouragement and positivity I have felt throughout the ACE experience. Our community, strong and progressive in many ways already, has definitely become even more cohesive, with leadership starting to emerge anew. Our communities will go where we lead and the more tools and skills we can gather and use to this end, the better for all

Update from ACE Leader Val in Trochu