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The Huron Expositor, 1983-09-28, Page 2•# IP 01. • .1M1 vyh(0'. :6',14;u,` 1' 1+ r 1 ,� ), r eo - t fnap Mfl6d, s�t►�{vin�'f lit fro. f� ineorii*Iftlfi 0#11010:,,411.4$ kited i':f872 a ., 527'024,0 12 M�1nSt � #t � -+�" Publiahedat-SEAFQRTH, ONTARIO Wednesday mornIng SuapiNghlfe, Nfandging Edl'ttSY., docelYn prier, Publisher Member' Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario Community Newspaper Assocf(tlpn, On Audit - BureaM«olGlrculetlon A member etre Ontario Press Cpuncll - Subscription rates: Canada $17,75 a year (In advance) ' outside Canada $50. a year (in advance). Single. Copies - 50 cents each WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1983 Second plass mall registration number 0698 Jobs are scarce We all know at (east one of them, the bright young people, In theory our hope for the future, who are unemployed. But Instead of feeling hopeful and bouyant, instead of using their enthusiasm and energy to produce what Canada needs, they feel snubbed and helpless. We can't blame them. One In five Canadians aged from 15-24 In the labour force is unemployed. It's a statistic that's not ekpected to Improve before 1985. But It's more than a statistic. How does a young high school student feel looking around the classroom and knowing one In five fellow studentswill go from school to a big fat zero? How does a 22 -year-old college grad feel after 43 interviews and no job? In hard economic times there's little room for our young people to try their wings, get experience and a stake in the working world. Britain has had some success with a program that places young students directly into British industry. The job opportunities are heavily subsidized by government and though British industry has no international reputation for efficiency and productivity (putting it gently), the -program appears to be working. At least'young people have a chance to learn skills, to prove they can do a job, to contribute to their community. Several prominent Canadian Liberals, including Senator Jacques Hebert, friend of Pierre Trudeau and founder of Katimavik, want a new government department to bring together all existing bits and'pleces of young programs. Mr. Hebert's proposal calls for co-ordination, organization and a strict upper age limit for all department employees. Half those without jobs In the country are 700,000 young Canadians. While Senator Hebert acknowledges that simply putting a youth ministry together won't create many jobs, he says it may provide some hope and confidence for our young people and show them their government is concerned. f\le's right. Even the prime minister admitted on Friday that youth unemployment is severe and creating social discontent and uncertainties. A new you ministry, if it means plenty of bureaucratic spending won't help. Jobs wit create more confidence and hope in our young people than anything else. Other countries have the same problem. We can learn from their experience, take the best of what works for them, set up a scaled-down youth ministry that's penny pinching but avoids duplication, and get • moving. - S.W. Fair fare FAIR TIME means snack time. Eating a candy apple is Mary Lou Stewart. Natasha Belrnes of Listowel, Ilke other kids, loves candy floss. Lineups were long for free popcorn at the Pioneer Seed booth. Jason Prescott and friend, Sandra, decided the squash was too big to eat. (Photos by Wasslnk) Fair is for all If you' re a kid, the highlight of the 138th annual Seaforth Fall Fair was probably a candy apple. Or winning first prize for your vegetable man or your, whole wheat muffins. If you're an adult who's attended 10 or 20 of those fall fairs during your years iP Seaforth and district, perhaps you liked the fashion show best, or the 4-H club exhibits. But whether it was your second Seafortt` fall fair or your 32nd you'll probably agree that last weekend's fair was outstanding. The extra room helped. There was plenty of space In the new arena for commercial exhibits, a talent show, craft and fitness demonstrations, 4-H f club displays and top crop winners. Browsers could see the latest from local businesses at the same time as others took a rest in the arena hall and) watched local entertainment. If anyone doubted the need for the round house, the unusual bld building the Agricultural Society has decided to restore, the fair proved It's still important. As they have for probably 60 years, the area's children headed straight for the round house as soon as the parade ended to see who won what. Agricultural produce was there too. In fact every building, and the livestock area across the tracks, emphasized what Seaforth's fall fair is all about: farming, and the cooperation between town and country that makes this area tick, A great deal has changed in 139 years, but that hasn't. To its credit the Agricultural Society has moved with the times and tries hard to expand the fair, to come up with new attractions to add to the basics which have been there for years. The days of town businesses closing for the fair have passed. Opening Friday night and Saturday gives everyone a chance to attend. The Agricultural Society has made an effort to welcome new directors, to stay open to new ideas and leave room for change. But, as the work on the round house shows, the society recognizes the importance of our history and traditions too. That's a nice, Seaforth-like balance. All those who enjoyed the fair say thanks. - S.W. Game without winners on't ignore the awkward customer The awkward customer. We all have them. Let's face it, sometimes we are them. Yeah, come on, admit it. Maybe we are kept waiting. Perhaps we think someone in a business has treated us rudely. Or maybe we just got up on the wrong side of the, bed and the day has continued in that vein. In all of the above situations, we're apt to be a bit awkward with those who wait on us. Then there are the awkward customers who are that way by plan. They delight in causing trouble. They're ornery. You can't please them no matter how hard you try. So don't try? Understandable as that reaction is, it doesn'-t work. For an unhappy awkward customer can slander you and your company all over the place. And an unhappy awkward customer can make you so angry that you are ineffective for the reit of the day, or sometimes the week. It's in the interests both of consumers and those with something to sell to keep business gogncAllang 10 Scoy American`: Peters and Waterman say in their best Geller, In Search of Excellence that. the strong businesses are those whicl'ii oq are 4)1401 about providing good service. `ljo �(lJ! g©fi) \n% f�lj LL SCS iBM answers every customer complaint between them pleasant and productive. And minutes", without being overly apologetic. within 4£f hours. Top Walt Disney execs although you may never please the person "i don't know what's the matter with people spend a week .each year dishing out ice who's deliberately awkward, there are who work here", and then get things done. cream and parking cars amusement parks. techniques to deal with him or her, just as , "Now, is this the size you prefer?" . S there, are ways to help a customer who's That's the key really, to dealing with even At a Bata Ltd. shoe plant customer returns . having a bad day and taking it out on you. the rudest customer: solve the problem, then . are planted right inside the door so that GETTING ALONGg t on with the business you both want to do, employees pass them every day 'as the 'The' techniques areh't ju'i helpful with "ignore the unpleasantness. Refuse to take it entet the9p1ant. 'n the US , ter, G' mei •'ltusiness...they're essentially ideas on get-,personally...the,:,.,ctitstomer isn't attacking has. a toll-free number,,.Qtt.:h11 itS, package ting along with people. You can use them,m ' you...it's just his or her style. Or. as a film and gets 200,000 calls a year froth the school class, at a party or at the church on the topic i sa* recently 'suggested; "you customers. Customer calls apparently pro, group's bazaar. don't have to turn him into a nice man...just vide a lot of ideas for product improvement. First you've got to calm Mr. or Ms. into a customer." Companies want to know, want all Awkward down. You can't do business In' this competitive, mobile, hassled old employees to know, what customers are together while the customer is angry. world, how we treat each other will thinking. insistent, reasonable, rational explanations increasingly determine everything from r Those who produce the goods and those are fine but a long drawn-out speech can fuel where we spend our hard earned bucks to who use them are in the best sense partners, the anger. Apologize - for the specific how -much we enjoy life. , And if one partner is awkward.�tlte of her problem, "I've been waiting for 10 Big companies are learning this. A pair of 'side can't ignore it. C The third wave is great but will it happen? Alvin Toffler brought his "Third Wave" predictions about the future to television recently in such a tantalizing way t could hardly wait for the future to arrive. it is Toffler's theory that there have been two great waves ofcililization in the past and we are on the crest of a third. The first wave came when some genius decided to plant crops instead of being a nomad. wandering around harvesting wild crops and hunting animals. This gave Man stability. The second great wave came with the invention of machines when Man moved more and more away from the land and into larger centres to factory jobs and an easier home life. The Third Wave, Toffler says, will come with the marriage of computer technology and modern communications. He admits that the new technologies will bring great dislocation to people who depended on the old technologies for jobs but he quickly goes on to the exciting part of the new wave of. civilization. The Third Wave, he says, will bring more individualism and freedom, in many ways letting us go back to the First Wave period and still take the comforts of As the nuclear arms race continues with both the Soviets and the Americans manufacturing bigger and better ways to blow us all into oblivion, some of us join peace groups to protest against the threat of war. But many of us feel like helpless pawns in a game of war played by world leaders. The stakes of this game, however, are too high and there are no winners. Perhaps world leaders could change the rules so that their game is more like the one played by an American Civil War hobby group. Staging mock battles at authentic historical battle sites in the U.S., members of the hobby group re-enact the four year war between the Confederate and Union soldiers, wearing $600 authentic all-wo01 uniforms. While they use ammunition of grains of gunpowder In muskets, rifles and cannons to produce casualties and survivors, the beauty of this game is that the casualties get up after the battle and go to a dance enjoyed by all participants. In fact, participants say the best time is afterwards when the guys sit around the campfire and sing war songs. They satisfy their hunger to do battle but nobody gets hurt. Ronald Reagan, Yuri Andropov and any 'other world leaders who want to get In on the game could get together once a month to stage a mock nuclear war. They can have their fun while the rest of us sleep eaeler at night knowing it's just a game, - S.H. modern life. He sees a renewal of small town and rural life, for instance. SCALE The industrial period, he explains, needed economiesof scale and thus forced people to congregate in large centres. People were forced to conform because mass production only worked when thousands, even millions, of identical units could be made. Transporta- tion became the most important single factor in deciding which cities would grow and which would die. Toronto, Hamilton and Windsor, for instance, became important centres in Canada because of their proximity to the large population centres of the U.S. By growing they also became the • major population centre., of Canada and thbs perpetuated growth. Toffler sees this ending as we become more and more an information society. The show pictured the new generation, a woman working on a computer terminal at home while hubby and the kids made supper; a man returning to a shack in the mountain with a huge satelite dish beside it to design computer programs and beam them back t, the city. It was a very hopeful vision for those of us who don't feel cities are the zenith of civilization. THE WAY THEY ARE Hopeful, but will it happen? 1 may be"an old cynic but my money says it won't. Centralizing tendencies have been underway in our society for hundreds of years. There are many powerful people and industries in whose interest it is telteep things going the way they. are. Take for instance, what has already been happening in the new computerized world. Many of the great advances in.new, smaller home computers, have been made by individual entrepreneurs. We've been flood- ed with Horatio. Alger success stories from California or Ottawa. In 1981 a Britisher came up: with a tiny microcomputer the size of a suitcase. That year he sold 8,000 computers. in 1982 he sold 110.000. worth more than S200 million. This month he is nearly broke, just struggling try keep going. Meanwhile companies like IBM which have always been huge are taking over more and more of the new' market. Eventually. predictions go, only a handful of the present companies will survive. Chances are it will be the people who are already giants who will survive. They've got the money to let them survive mistakes and • buy the best people and ideas for the future. - Small companies die quitely. Governments can't afford to let a Chrysler die. Small towns like Uranium City die naturally. Governments can't afford to let big cities die. The new age will likely be co-opted by the giants of the old age. The big industries and big cities will find ways of making use of the new technology to continue their present course. People will continue to have to live in cities because that's where the work is. I hope you're right Alvin. 1 hope I'm wrong. But 1 doubt it. Just wait until next summer ��gc�aQ © opcgi by N110 gI BOaq Where do the summers go? i know where the winters go. They go on and on and on. But Canadian summers seem to pounce out of a frigid spring, flourish like an exotic plant, and wither and die two months later. 1 was looking forward to this past summer. Lots of golf, swimming. loafing, reading, a good visit with my grandboys, and arriving back at school for the last four months before 1 quit tanned. fit, keen. Planned to do some fishing, a lot of walking, and some traveling, probably to the Maritimes. Well, as Casey Stengel of the old Brooklyn Dodgers used to say, "Wait till next year. We'll murder the bums." i've played golf twice, despite the beautiful weather, because 1 haven't had a leg to stand on: my right one. Next year I'm going to have it sawed off,at the ankle and a tin foot implanted, as the great Douglas Bader did, when he lost both legs in a flying accident, got some artificial ones, and went back into combat as a fighter pilot. Next summer, I'm going to swim every day at one of the great beaches in Canada, even though 1 have two perforated ear -drums. I'm going to the Maritimes if i have to hitchhike. I'm going to catch a trout if 1 have to resort to a stocked pond. 1 can't whine too much. 1 did have a good visit with the grandboys. I have a new one now. He used to be Balind, but the kids at school teased him for having such a funny name, so he forthrightly changed it to Ben. Summer jo 4fl 4h* @drrWo The staff of the Canada Employment Centres for Students in Goderich and Exeter would like to thank the many people who made this year's Hire -a -Student campaign such a success. First on the list are the student employers themselves, who not only contributed to the success of our offices, but assisted in making higher educations available to a number of students. Summer jobs have always played an important role "n assisting students to pay for their school costs and this year has been no exception. On behalf of the country's future doctors, architects, farmers, dentists, lawyers, mechanics, carpenters, engineers, managers, secretaries, politicians, nurses, whatever, thank you for hiring a student. Next, we would like to thank, the town business people for donating prizes to the 1983 Canada Employment Centre for Students Art Contest, for displaying our pasters in store windows, and for letting us Interview them for our Hire -a -Student Week articles. Your efforts are greatly apprec- iated. And Ben he is now. Not many people change their name at seven., 1 also did a lot of reading and loafing. preferat the same time. But it's hard to do both at once when your wife is talking ceaselessly about how she has stopped biting her fingernails, how she is planning to lose Please see page 3 lay important role Are high schools were also very hetplul. Wheth r we needed help with the art contest, yers, tips on how best to assist students n finding summer jobs. or leaving messages for the students, area hig/r schools were very Supportive. Special mention should be given to Dave Bieman of the Huron County Board of Education, Jay Campbell of Earl Campbell's Jewellers, and the Bluewater Cable TV, as well as area libraries, banks and grocery stores, each of whom greatly contributed to the 1983 Hire -a -Student campaign. The most important feature of any community campaign is getting the message to the public and this year's Hire -a -Student campaign was no exception. However, our job was made much easier by the outstanding coverage we received from area newspapers. Thank you. Finally, we would like to thank the staff of the Canada Employment Centre for their willingness to answer the many questions we always seemed to have. Sincerely, Kathy Caldwell Student Placement Officer Patti Down Student Placement Officer Angelina Arts Supervisor Canada Emploment Centres for Students Goderich and Exeter Tourist booth? My suggestion for the old police station is a Tourist Information Booth. We could make it very attractive with picnic tables and trees. Thank you Mary Ritchie Correction A story in the Sept. 21 Huron Expositot was in error when it said conditional options have been obtained from neighbours of the proposed lanai"i site in McKilIop township. The terms of conditional options to be presented to the neighbours have beep agreed upon by Seaforth council.