15th Annual Women in Business Workshops

**This is an old article that was originally posted in 2021 and may have outdated information**

It’s been a couple of weeks since we held our 15th annual Women in Business workshop series in La Ronge and we would like to take the time to give some thanks and acknowledgements.

The day kicked off with Linda Hryniuk, our emcee, welcoming everyone and giving the participants an overview on how the day was going to unfold. She then proceeded to introduce our first speaker of the day, Ashlyn George of Lost Girls Guide to Finding the World. Ashlyn’s workshop broke into two different segments. The first was about how she turned her passion travel, into a business. She talked about her triumphs and mistakes along the way as well as some of the challenges and obstacles and how she overcame. She also spoke about the meaning behind her business name, Lost Girl. With all her travelling she felt she was still searching to find out more about herself and her future.

Ashlyn’s second workshop focused on how she used social media and how it helped grow her passion into a successful business. She shared tips and best practices she had learned over the years.
Thank you, Ashlyn for an entertaining and informative morning.

Over lunch we heard from Magnolia Perron from the National Aboriginal Capital Corp Association (NACCA) about the women and youth programming that NACCA offered to all of Canada. She mentioned the micro loan program that was coming that would be used to support Indigenous entrepreneurs.

Magnolia was followed by Deb Prodahl of Deb’s Pantry. Deb is a local La Ronge entrepreneur. She worked in the medical profession all her life. She started up a small spice business in 2008 from scratch, just as a sideline. After her retirement from the Medical Clinic in 2012, she began a small pantry business to keep herself busy. The preserving direction is a true passion of hers and it has grown beyond her wildest dreams. Much like Ashlyn, Deb spoke about the hurdles she had to overcome and the steep business learning curve she has too master to make her business the success it has become.

Thank you to both Magnolia and Deb for taking the time to join us.

Our final speaker, Tammie Leonard of Inspired Action Motivation & Consulting, finished our day with helping the participants to have a mindset to accomplish their goals, whether it be for professional or personal goals. Drawing on her own struggles and how she pushed through them to get to where she wanted to go. Tammy talked about some focusing exercises and affirmations she used every day. The top takeaway was how to use journaling every day to set your goals and evaluate how you are doing on a daily business.
Thank you Tammie for your informative session.

As always, the day couldn’t have happened without our many sponsors including the Community Initiatives Fund, The Lac La Ronge Indian band, Square One, BDC, Saskatchewan Indian Equity Foundation (SIEF), SaskMetis Economic Development Corp. (SMEDCO). Prince Albert Photocopier, Cameco and the Government of Saskatchewan.

Finally, no event gets done without committed volunteers. Thank you to Linda Hryniuk as our emcee, Wanda Fietz and Magnolia Perron. Also assisting were Visions North Board members Bruce Fidler, Julianna Ballantyne, Glen Watchel and Mervin McDonald.
Congratulations to Visions North’s Jean Powell for spearheading another successful Women in Business workshop series.