The Citizen, 2015-07-02, Page 22THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JULY 2, 2015. PAGE 23.
Trina O’Rourke and her plan for
the Cotton Harvest Quilt Shop took
top prize at the Win This Space gala
finale at the Seaforth Golf and
Country Club on Saturday evening.
O’Rourke beat out four other
finalists and 28 total contestants to
win a rent-free business space in
either Brussels or Seaforth for a year
as part of the contest that was hosted
by Huron East and sponsored by
Huron County, the Huron Business
Development Corporation (HBDC)
and the Small Business Enterprise
Centre (SBEC).
Huron East Economic
Development Officer Jan Hawley
said that the number of contestants
whittled down quickly.
“Twenty-eight submitted their
business ideas,” she said. “They
were all accepted and met the
criteria of the zoning. From there, 24
ended up taking workshops that
were fairly intense and we ended up
with 12 business plans.”
The program included a chance
for anyone across Ontario to submit
an idea for a business to be hosted in
Seaforth or Brussels. After that,
contestants were taken through
business plan making workshops
and other training sessions to
prepare them for being an
entrepreneur.
Hawley said that the event and
program both went better than she
had anticipated.
“That event was a total success but
the program itself was a total success
before Saturday night,” she said. “Of
the 24 that finished their training,
two had already dropped out to open
their businesses on their own, which
was a great thing to see.”
Hawley explained that if the
contestants rented space, they
became ineligible to win, but they
encouraged them to continue with
the workshops to make their
business as much of a success as
possible.
Seaforth Fitness, a gym opened in
Seaforth’s downtown by Jared and
Heather Gowen, went through the
entire process.
Max and Judy Bickford also
dropped out of the contest and plan
on opening a fine art and graphic
design business in Seaforth in the
near future.
Hawley said the competition
sparked a change in the community
and has resulted in several other
businesses opening in Seaforth and
sparking a ‘rural renaissance’ in
Brussels.
“We’ve had a number of
businesses start up in the
community,” she said. “The Win this
Space initiative has been a real
catalyst for change.”
Hawley explained that she had
started with 11 potential empty
storefronts in Seaforth and she was
concerned there wouldn’t be one left
for the winner.
After being named the winner,
O’Rourke addressed the media and
said that she had a lot of fun
throughout the program, but also
learned a lot.
She said that the classes in the
program were fun. She also said they
started out fully attended, however
that changed.
“We all had to watch as people
started dropping out,” she said.
“Creating the business plan was the
toughest part.”
O’Rourke said she was hoping to
secure a storefront in downtown
Seaforth through the program,
saying she had her eye on a site that
included both space for her to run
her quilting and fabric business but
also had space for her to run classes.
She said she had people lined up
ready to teach classes for when the
venture falls in to place.
O’Rourke has already earned the
rights to some exclusive fabric and
has plans to use those rights to make
connections with the community,
having already got in contact with
Jennifer Triemstra-Johnston who
will be running a fashion design
course at the Centre for Canadian
Rural Creativity in Blyth shortly.
Cotton Harvest Quilt Shop will
hopefully open on Sept. 1, according
to O’Rourke
The gala, which saw the five
finalists engage the judges in a
Dragons’ Den style competition,
saw local entrepreneurs, dignitaries
as well as, of course, the judges.
Each contestant was given time to
present their business plan and
answer a specific question about the
future of their business.
Local dignitaries like Huron
County Warden Paul Gowing, MPP
Lisa Thompson and MP Ben Lobb
were present and expressed how
Continued from page 22
director of the Electric Company
Theatre in Vancouver, no doubt had
her hands full in telling a clear and
concise story. But with her veteran
touch, the story moves quickly, but
not too quickly.
Again, at the show’s heart are
Schmeiser and the playwright and
the relationship they develop over a
number of years of interviews and
throughout the dozens of twists and
turns the case takes.
They also supply the play’s most
intimate moments, rare person-to-
person dialogue in a story that is
often, through various avenues,
spoken directly to the audience
through the “fourth wall”.
Fox is excellent as Schmeiser, a
farmer who is, at the same time, both
smarter and more determined to win
than he lets on. At times, Fox’s
Schmeiser appears to be at the end of
his rope, whether through exhausted
mannerisms or his deliberate,
thoughtful speech cadence, showing
more about Schmeiser than words
tell.
Thompson is equally smooth and
natural as the playwright, displaying
genuine interest and fascination with
the case that captivated her the
minute she first read about it in the
newspaper.
She, too, finds herself at her wit’s
end at times, wading through
notebooks, interviews and
transcripts, all just to uncover what
happened in Schmeiser’s field in the
late 1990s – one small incident that,
in many ways, sparked a global
revolution pertaining to the public’s
consciousness of its food.
Like the ongoing debate over
GMOs, Seeds leaves the audience
with no easy answers. It is a mystery
missing the dramatic pulling back of
the curtain, tidily wrapping up the
“whodunnit’ narrative with a big,
pretty bow.
It isn’t there, because it doesn’t
exist, but prepare to have your mind
poked and prodded in all the right
ways along the way.
Seeds runs at the Blyth Festival
until Aug. 8. For more information,
call the Festival box office at 519-
523-9300 or visit online at
www.blythfestival.com.
O’Rourke’s quilt shop takes Win This Space
The big winner
Trina O’Rourke was the big winner for the Win this Space
contest hosted by Huron East. After a special Dragons’ Den
style presentation to six judges on Saturday night,
O’Rourke’s idea for the Cotton Harvest Quilt Shop was
picked to win free rent for a year on a Huron East main
street (she has chosen Seaforth) and thousands of dollars
of other prizes. While a storefront in either Brussels or
Seaforth had been offered to the potential winner, all five
finalists named Seaforth as their intended destination if
they won that night. (Denny Scott photo)
‘Seeds’ an important
agricultural journey
541 Turnberry St., Brussels
519-887-9114
413 Queen St., Blyth
519-523-4792
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The Citizen
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By Denny Scott
The Citizen
Continued on page 24