By Kim Hutchison
Staff Reporter:
The Central Alberta Economic Partnership (CAEP) Ltd. was first developed in 1998 and is noted as being the first regional alliance in Alberta. It consists of 42 Central Alberta communities whose mission is to continually enhance the sustainable economic prosperity across the Central Alberta region by harnessing the collective strengths of its communities, business and governments.
By CAEP’s promotion of Central Alberta, all member communities have access to new opportunities from “in-region” and “out-of-region” interests. It also helps potential investors better understand the local interests in projects and the business opportunities that exist in the region.
The CAEP Annual Achievement Awards were developed to recognize members that develop and adopt innovative, leading practices in the CAEP region ultimately playing a role in the continued prosperity and diversification of central Alberta’s economy through programs/initiatives and Ponoka was a 2008 CAEP Achievement Award Nominee in the municipal population ranging from 3,210 to 10,000 category for the Interactive “Discover Ponoka” CD-Rom. The CD-Rom expands upon the general promotional video idea through its use of feature pages that have links to documents and live web link allowing pages on the website to be updated separately.
As long as the web page is updated regularly, most of the CD-Rom will be as well which allows it to be easily updated without the expense of reproduction, also saving time for the site selector.
On Dec. 11 CAEP had their Fall General Meeting. Award winners were announced immediately following a presentation by guest speaker, sr. economist for Alberta Treasury Branch, Todd Hirsch. Winners received trophies from Chair Dale Barr and Vice Chair Al Kemmere.
While Ponoka did not win, Mayor and CAEP board member Larry Henkelman felt the nomination is something to be very proud about.
“Considering the amount of areas CAEP covers, being one of the finalists is quite an acknowledgement for the town and for our Economic Development Officer Carey Keleman,” said CAEP he said. Keleman developed the promotional tool as a “one stop” information source.
Winners, determined by a panel consisting of five independent judges, were the town of Castor for the Paintearth Lodge Expansion, (population under 1,000), town of Innisfail for the Welcoming Communities Pilot Project, (population of 3,510 to 10,000), and the city of Red Deer for the Mayor’s Task Force on Ending Homelessness (population over 10,000),
At the The CAEP Board of Directors for 2009 were elected at the meeting as well. For the complete list of members, participating communities and more information on CAEP, visit www.centralalberta.ab.ca