13th Annual Women in Business Workshops

**This is an old article that was originally posted in 2019 and may have outdated information**

Another successful Women in Business workshop series has come and gone in the blink of an eye. Registration started at 9 am and by the first half hour half of the registered participants had already arrived. By 10 the workshops we’re ready to start.

The energy in the room was high and only got higher when the first speaker, Daria Malin, kicked things off with her presentation on Starting Over…Again. Daria led the participants through a step by step process to hit the reset button when it came to career, business or everyday life. Interwoven into her presentation were her own real life examples of when she had to start over again including in a one year span in 2012 when she lost her father, her mother was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s and her new house burned down. That year alone Daria attended 8 separate funerals including her fathers. Daria began to develop the tools to help reset her life that she was passing on to our participants.

Over lunch the audience heard from Susan Bater, who is in charge of the Community Futures Entrepreneurs with Disabilities program in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Susan shared stories of successful entrepreneurs that the Community Futures Program had helped along with some programming that they offered for entrepreneurs with health conditions. She encourages the participants to reach out to their local Community Futures offices if they needed help.

Our other lunch time speaker, Dolores Miller, was able to give the audience an up close look at the ups and downs of being a small business owner of Northern Lights Art studio. Her presentation spoke about what the important things were in owning your own business and what mistakes every entrepreneur makes and what has helped in her success.

Our afternoon session was hosted by Jacqueline Almeida. Her topic was Beliefs and Barriers that affect your life and business. She spoke of her own experiences of growing up in New York City and her parents’ home country of Ecuador and how one simple negative experience as a child shaped her formative years. She used other life incidents to “confirm” that mistaken negative belief about herself until she was 40 when she decided to write her new life story that would be one of positivity and achievement and refused to dwell on the negatives. She encouraged all the participants to begin to rewrite their life stories from that day on by celebrating the positives in their own lives that made them the successful people they could be.

Of course no Women in Business event would be successful without the assistance of our volunteers and sponsors. Tabitha Burr returned as our emcee and did her usual outstanding job of keeping us on time and helped make the event flow. Other volunteers that day were Linda Hyrniuk, Wendy McKenzie, Wanda Fietz, Jordan McDonald, and Visions North Board member Glen Watchel. We would also like to thank Daniel Fingarsen for his technical help.

Among our many sponsors were the Community Initiatives Fund, Community Futures Entrepreneurs with Disabilities program. Saskatchewan Ministry of the Economy Trade and Export, Cogent Accountants. Saskatchewan Metis Economic Development Corp (SMEDCO), University of Regina, Prince Albert Photocopiers, Wendy’s Prince Albert, Pizza Hut Saskatchewan, Prince Albert Inn, Cameco, SaskTel, Northern Enterprise Fund (NEFI), National Aboriginal Capital Corporation Association (NACCA), TKB Law Saskatoon, Women’s Entrepreneurs Saskatoon, Northern Light’s Casinos, Co-Op, Square One, Saskatchewan Indian Equity Fund (SIEF), Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technology (SIIT) and Comfort Inn, Prince Albert

A special thank you to Deb Wrightson and Transwest air for donating the grand door prize of trip for two from La Ronge to Saskatoon. As well as one night’s accommodations donated by Holiday Inn Downtown Saskatoon and $150 cash from Community Futures Visions North.

Finally no mention of the workshops would be complete without a special thank you to Visions North’s own Jean Powell whose vision and hard work all year round make this a great annual event.