Loading...
The Rural Voice, 1993-11, Page 12"Our experience assures lower cost water wells" 92 YEARS' EXPERIENCE Member of Canadian and Ontario Water Well Associations • Farm • Industrial • Suburban • Municipal Licensed by the Ministry of the Environment an DAVIDSON WELL DRILLING LTD. WINGHAM Serving Ontario Since 1900 519-357-1960 WINGHAM 519-886-2761 WATERLOO WE WANT YOUR GRAIN! Corn Soybeans Feed Grains Quality Oats Damaged Grains CASH & FORWARD CONTRACTS Call us today for Quotes Dave Gordon Elizabeth Armstrong Richard Smibert Ian Carter london agricultural commodities, inc. 1112 HYDE PARK ROAD HYDE PARK, ONTARIO NOM 1Z0 519-473-9333 Toll -Free (519) 1-800-265-1885 (416-705) 1-800-265-1874 8 THE RURAL VOICE Keith Roulston Individual people make the dference Like most people in Canada (and apparently in much of the world) I can get pretty cynical about politics and politicians. After a while you begin to wonder if it matters who sits in the seat of the prince minister or cabinet ministers. I'd come to accept the old adage that if you wanted to see how important you were, put you hand in a bucket of water, take it out again and the hole left was the hole you would leave if your weren't here. I suppose I got to thinking about how important an .ndividual can be when a member of the Bruce County International Plowing Match was telling me enthusiastically how with a man like Jack Cumming heading things up, Bruce County could accomplish anything. I also began to look at the dynamics of a few organizations in which I have been involved. In a couple of cases, organizations that had been very successful were suddenly floundering. Previous leaders had departed, either to new jobs or because they were just worn out, and the people who took their places had lost the vision that made the organization tick. In other cases you could see younger organizations that seemed to have a future when certain people were at the meetings but floundered without their leadership. Our rural history has been enriched by community action, by people getting together to do more than an individual can. Yet look closely at that history and you'll see over and over again it was one or two individuals who rallied the community to work together. Most of our communities are where they are because of the vision of one pioneer who decided to stake out a village in the wilderness. He may have see the potential of a stream that could be dammed up to power a mill. He may have seen the conjunction of primitive trails growing into roads that would speed commerce across the land. He may have seen a perfect spot for a harbour. He envisioned something that nobody else did that caused him to start a town there. Businesses? Most were the product of one person with a sense that there was a need and he or she could fill it. Most public services like hospitals, even service clubs, were initiated by one person's drive. The problem is there are too few people with vision. Most people are ready to let things go on the way they are or lack the confidence to put forward a good idea they have. Most people are waiting for someone else to take the lead (and perhaps complaining because nobody is, or that those who are, aren't doing it right). A lot of us who are sitting back complaining about politicians aren't doing a darned thing to change our community (or country) ourselves. We're sitting home watching Full House or out line dancing. We're not at a Home and School Association meeting or a Federation meeting. We're not leading single-handed campaigns like that woman from Kincardine who gathered clothing for people in Somalia. We're not organizing new ways to stimulate our local economy, from farmers' markets to community festivals. It's so easy to sit back and pretend there's nothing we can do. It takes not only courage, but hard work, to make a difference. It would have been far easier for Jack Cumming and the people in Bruce County to sit back and let some other county host the 1993 IPM. The hundreds of volunteers had little to gain for themselves in taking the risk, yet everyone is better off for their effort. So you want a better country? Province? Community? What have you done about it? Because one person can make a difference.0 Keith Roulston is editor and publisher of The Rural Voice as well as being a playwright. He lives near Blyth, ON.