The holiday season is filled with opportunities to
celebrate! Glittering parties, delicious food and
festive drinks are available in abundance but a
safe ride home isn’t always as easy to find. Port
Me Home is a professional designated driver
service that opened in June 2014 and has cars
stationed in Port Stanley, St. Thomas and
London.
Owner Dawn McKinlay was operating a house
cleaning business when she realized that a need
existed in Elgin County for a designated driver
service. Instead of calling a cab when you are
out, call Port Me Home and they will get both you
and your vehicle home safely. This service is
perfect for Christmas, New Year’s Eve and
Birthday parties as well as weddings and stag
and does.
Port Me Home only charges users for the trip
home and not for the distance to get to the
pick-up location and is particularly affordable for
a group of several people.
“We are less expensive than a hotel room and
you don’t have to worry about going to pick up
your car the next morning,” said McKinlay.
They are open from 5:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. Friday
and Saturday nights and Sunday nights of long
weekends. The service is available 24/7 for those
who call and pre-book their times 24 hours in
advance.
In the future Port Me Home hopes not only to
offer designated driver services but to offer
services to take people to their doctor’s
appointments and surgeries. Certain surgeries
such as cataract surgery, laser eye surgery and
wisdom tooth surgery forbid people from driving
home by themselves. Instead of requiring friends
and family to take time off work to drive them to
and from appointments, Port Me Home will be
available.
Port Me Home can be booked by phone, e-mail
or text. For more information on Port Me Home’s
services visit www.portmehome.com, or call/text
519-495-9858
Good quality information is essential for
individuals looking to make career decisions in
an ever changing economy. This information can
also be very useful to employers looking to
recognize key employment trends and plan for
future growth and development of their
organizations. In March of 2014, the Elgin
Middlesex Oxford Workforce Planning and
Development Board in partnership with the
Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities
and the London Economic Development
Corporation launched www.worktrends.ca in
order to provide current local and regional labour
market information in one convenient and easy to
use online location.
The resource is designed to be useful for several
different groups including students, job seekers
and employers. It provides users with accessible,
up-to-date and relevant data including market
conditions, industry information, changes in the
internal and external business environments,
future hiring and employment trends, wage and
salary expectations and education and training
information.
Job seekers are able to see what companies are
hiring by viewing an on-site list of active job
boards in Elgin, Middlesex and Oxford Counties.
They can research the training they will need to
apply to these jobs and can get an idea of how
much money they can be expected to make.
This type of information is also extremely useful
to students trying to decide on a sustainable
future career path. They can use the website to
get an overall picture of the viability of entering
certain occupations in the area, what they can
expect to earn in each occupation and what
education and training they will need to pursue
this type of occupation. There is also a section
on the website dedicated to resources for newly
landed immigrants and persons with disabilities.
Employers and human resources professionals
can utilize www.worktrends.ca to get a better
idea of what competitive wages are for a
particular job or occupation, get an idea of how
many qualified people in the area can fill these
jobs and to determine the potential future growth
in an industry. The website also has resources to
teach employers how to better accommodate
employees with disabilities.
The data found on www.worktrends.ca comes
from Stats Canada, a variety of independent data
providers, government ministries and the
EmployerOne Survey that is administered to
local businesses each year. Data can be
searched by job or by industry and results
displayed compare trends from Middlesex, Elgin,
London, St. Thomas and Oxford to trends at the
provincial and national levels.
It was clear to new Chief Administrative Officer
Paul Shipway that the Municipality of Bayham’s
computer and communications technology
system was in need of significant updates. The
system operated on old servers, used outdated
equipment and was heavily reliant on paper files
located at the main municipal administration
office in Straffordville.
Municipal staff was spread out over five separate
locations including the main municipal
administration office, fire and emergency
services, water treatment facilities and public
works and each of these locations used a
stand-alone computer system. These five
stand-alone systems had no connectivity to one
another and staff requiring documents stored on
other systems needed to request them by e-mail
or visit the location in person.
“Municipalities are required to be fluid and
responsive to the needs of citizens,” said
Shipway. “Operating in silos does not allow us to
be as responsive as we would like to be.”
An organizational review identified that a modern
and intuitive computer technology system was
crucial to the staff’s ability to do its job in an
efficient and effective manner while meeting the
complex needs of the community.
Improvements to the system will include
transitioning to a single terminal server
environment where all municipal staff, regardless
of location, can search and access the same
documents quickly and easily. Additionally a fast
and stable internet connection will be brought to
the municipal office through the installation of
fibre connections. Fibre connections are thinner
and lighter than metal cables, are less
susceptible to interference and have a much
greater bandwidth, meaning that they can carry
more data. These updates will ensure that
Bayham is able to adapt and compete in an
increasingly technological world.
The need for high speed internet to ensure the
economic vitality and viability of rural
municipalities is one that is recognized not only
by the Municipality of Bayham, but by the
Western Ontario Warden’s Caucus and the
Southwest Economic Alliance with their joint
SWIFT initiative – to bring ultra high speed fibre
optic regional network to everyone in western
Ontario regardless of where they live.
For more information on the Municipality of
Bayham visit www.bayham.on.ca and to learn
about the SWIFT initiative visit www.wowc.ca.
