Community Ideas (writing) 1

(~*~)
Hello,
I recently discovered an opportunity knocking in my local community that asked for volunteers interested in the areas of writing, photography, and graphic design. All of these are already interests of mine, and I do have past experience from personal projects and volunteerism. So of course, I sent a message asking for more details. The details were not quite clear, so I have asked some more questions and I am awaiting a reply. Until then, I can only do part of what was requested.
This 1st part, is the ideas for writing...
NOTES:
> This is only a partial list, as it was "off the top of my head" when I first got the email (had no interruptions).
I am sure in time, this list may turn into a "B'list" (Big list).
> Not in any particular order.
(~*~)
MY IDEAS LIST
1. With so many great programs for the kids/ youth, what about for us parents/ adults that also want to learn what's offered to the younger generation? Example: tech learning
+
2. Each holiday has history, and relevance for today. - How have we tied it together and kept tradition through all these years? Example: Day of the Dead
+
3. Every season has valued qualities. In what ways does Waterloo Region celebrate each season, and how do we differ with our celebrations within each city, and from city to city - are all connected and sharing celebrations? Example: Fall Harvest
+
4. Summer brings on the fun with Festivals and many other kinds of activities and events. 
How many can we list for the awareness of our community? Example: Is there a grand list that the cities/region hosts listed so everyone can access it through City Hall or something?
+
5. What builds a culture?, How does our region, and each of our Tri-cities (including Guelph) within build their own?, What has created traditions?, & What has aided global causes (if any)?
+
6. Community dances for different age groups/ all ages. Why are there so few, and where are they?
My Idea for this one: 
Schools and community centers are the perfect locations, as they are already spread throughout our communities and easy to find/ get to. Community dances can help foster/ grow a community by bringing people together in a comfortable/ fun setting. Parents and students can get to know each other better (even when not dancing), dancing can be a great form of exercise, it can be an event to look forward to for all ages, and it can be themed or not and include/ introduce local/ school bands. I honestly don't know why there are not more of them - and free or super cheap.
+
> Room for more here...
(~*~)
Until I add to this/ next round...
Take Care & Safe Travels!
Chris S./ C.E.S.
.

The College Application 1

(~*~)

Hello,

This is my latest "Le Challenge" that came from my school when I tried to fill out the "general" awards, bursaries, grants, and scholarships application. Every part was simple, but then I came across the fact that I needed to write 2 essays for it to be complete. The cut off date: TOMORROW (Oct.7, 2016). I started this tonight, and yes it took me all night but it will be worth it if I get it. Otherwise, it can be added to my inspirational/ motivational blogs that may help others. With that said, I am sharing the first essay with you here.
WARNING: It is a bit lengthy of a read.

Career Goals, Passions, & Commitment

To talk about my career goals, passions, and commitment to my field of study/ life, I have to begin with explaining my passions and who I am in these regards. I am a highly-creative, design-minded individual that loves forms of freedom (ex. Dancing), technology (with all its potentials), and the creative process. I am very fair-minded, community (globally) and quality oriented, and I am not afraid of change for the better – in fact I often bring it upon myself. My passions are within all these areas and more, as I have many interests and much inspires me. I consider myself to be a life-long learner, and often aim to keep myself and others inspired/ motivated through sharing efforts involving positivity (in many ways), community building, and of course self-improvement. 

My career thoughts include my interests in areas of creativity, design, and technology specifically; as I want to include all of these in any job I do in my life. My dream job would be to work in an entrepreneurial-type, community & technology-driven local company. One that’s not afraid to: try new things, improve on things (like the company BASF), or hear me out with some of my many ideas/ improvement thoughts. As I often have many, I prefer to share them if they may help. Just ask my C programming professor, about my time travel card’s contents during the scavenger hunt - team “Syntax Error XYZ”.  A couple of examples that comes to mind are Communitech and Desire2Learn.  

As I wish we already lived in the “Jetsons” (yes, the cartoon/ movies) era, some of my career dreams/ goals include (but are not limited to) the following (not in any particular order):

1. To work with my design-minded-highly-creative brain that loves tech! – For any job I do (as mentioned above). 
2. To establish a specific brand/ trade name (already know a few options I’d love to do in different areas), and start making high-quality tech-involved products/ services. 
3. Technology induced designs (I LOVE the ideas/ thinking behind the “MYO arm band” from Thalmic Labs. I discovered this company during my career exploration portion of my “Focus for Change” class at the Conestoga College Waterloo location. 
4. To be like “Edna Mode” (movie: The Incredibles) with tech-involved designs for clothing/ costumes/ props that I can offer to the public as products. This one could also fit with #2 above here. 
5. This is one of my bigger goals! To build the software (and possibly hardware) for the pieces inside the PC/ laptop/ etc. for building customizable super PCs. I love that I am finally in my course to learn for this one! 
6. Yes, sorry I am not sharing this one publicly.

And lastly, I am not currently seeking employment due to my course load as I am in my first year of software engineering technology (co-op option I am hoping for). I just want to learn and gain experience at this point. When I do obtain employment, I am fine with working for others as it is always a good learning experience and I enjoy helping others where I can. If it changes into an entrepreneurial position over time, I am fine with that too. And I don’t know in which service area it may be in – public, private, or non-profit; but I am good with trying them all just to see the differences. As I appreciate diversity, and personally wish that I could learn about 8 more languages - other than only English.

As for the discussion of my overcoming or continuing to face obstacles (financial or otherwise) while pursuing my post-secondary education: I feel that is best left for the "Financial Need" essay, as it asks for me to share it there also.

If you would like the link to some of my motivational blogs, please don’t hesitate to ask. Thank you for this chance to get you better acquainted with me. I appreciate it.

(~*~) 

Thank you for reading it to the end here if you did. 

Until next time...

Take care & Safe travels!

Chris S./ C.E.S. (*@^@*)

The College Application 1

(~*~)

Hello,

This is my latest "Le Challenge" that came from my school when I tried to fill out the "general" awards, bursaries, grants, and scholarships application. Every part was simple, but then I came across the fact that I needed to write 2 essays for it to be complete. The cut off date: TOMORROW (Oct.7, 2016). I started this tonight, and yes it took me all night but it will be worth it if I get it. Otherwise, it can be added to my inspirational/ motivational blogs that may help others. With that said, I am sharing the first essay with you here.
WARNING: It is a bit lengthy of a read.

Career Goals, Passions, & Commitment

To talk about my career goals, passions, and commitment to my field of study/ life, I have to begin with explaining my passions and who I am in these regards. I am a highly-creative, design-minded individual that loves forms of freedom (ex. Dancing), technology (with all its potentials), and the creative process. I am very fair-minded, community (globally) and quality oriented, and I am not afraid of change for the better – in fact I often bring it upon myself. My passions are within all these areas and more, as I have many interests and much inspires me. I consider myself to be a life-long learner, and often aim to keep myself and others inspired/ motivated through sharing efforts involving positivity (in many ways), community building, and of course self-improvement. 

My career thoughts include my interests in areas of creativity, design, and technology specifically; as I want to include all of these in any job I do in my life. My dream job would be to work in an entrepreneurial-type, community & technology-driven local company. One that’s not afraid to: try new things, improve on things (like the company BASF), or hear me out with some of my many ideas/ improvement thoughts. As I often have many, I prefer to share them if they may help. Just ask my C programming professor, about my time travel card’s contents during the scavenger hunt - team “Syntax Error XYZ”.  A couple of examples that comes to mind are Communitech and Desire2Learn.  

As I wish we already lived in the “Jetsons” (yes, the cartoon/ movies) era, some of my career dreams/ goals include (but are not limited to) the following (not in any particular order):

1. To work with my design-minded-highly-creative brain that loves tech! – For any job I do (as mentioned above). 
2. To establish a specific brand/ trade name (already know a few options I’d love to do in different areas), and start making high-quality tech-involved products/ services. 
3. Technology induced designs (I LOVE the ideas/ thinking behind the “MYO arm band” from Thalmic Labs. I discovered this company during my career exploration portion of my “Focus for Change” class at the Conestoga College Waterloo location. 
4. To be like “Edna Mode” (movie: The Incredibles) with tech-involved designs for clothing/ costumes/ props that I can offer to the public as products. This one could also fit with #2 above here. 
5. This is one of my bigger goals! To build the software (and possibly hardware) for the pieces inside the PC/ laptop/ etc. for building customizable super PCs. I love that I am finally in my course to learn for this one! 
6. Yes, sorry I am not sharing this one publicly.

And lastly, I am not currently seeking employment due to my course load as I am in my first year of software engineering technology (co-op option I am hoping for). I just want to learn and gain experience at this point. When I do obtain employment, I am fine with working for others as it is always a good learning experience and I enjoy helping others where I can. If it changes into an entrepreneurial position over time, I am fine with that too. And I don’t know in which service area it may be in – public, private, or non-profit; but I am good with trying them all just to see the differences. As I appreciate diversity, and personally wish that I could learn about 8 more languages - other than only English.

As for the discussion of my overcoming or continuing to face obstacles (financial or otherwise) while pursuing my post-secondary education: I feel that is best left for the "Financial Need" essay, as it asks for me to share it there also.

If you would like the link to some of my motivational blogs, please don’t hesitate to ask. Thank you for this chance to get you better acquainted with me. I appreciate it.

(~*~) 

Thank you for reading it to the end here if you did. 

Until next time...

Take care & Safe travels!

Chris S./ C.E.S. (*@^@*)

CS50 - Scratch

(~*~)
Hello,
As some may know, I am on my journey of learning CS50 (computer science) before I enter into my next course/ program at Conestoga College. This is my first experiment with "Scratch" as I am only in the first week, and this exercise was actually pretty simple once I finally decided what I wanted to do. I will share more here as I experiment further.
Experiments List: 
~ My 1st

C.E.S. - Entrepreneurship

(~*~)
Hello,
As many know, I believe in helping others if I can. With this in mind...
The big reveal...
The request:
I was emailed tonight and asked to do a survey that would take 5 minutes.
(~*~)

Questionnaire Entrepreneurship in Canada

Dear Sir, Dear Madam

My name is Pieter-Jan Dierick and I am a student MBA International Relations at KU Leuven Campus Brussel. This year I need to write a Master Thesis. The subject of my paper is Entrepreneurship Policies with a special focus on Canada. For us, Belgians, Canada is an interesting country as it has a provincial structure and there is more than one official language, just like in Belgium. For me, this subject is especially very interesting because I was raised with an entrepreneurial background and I believe this can help me in my future job career later.

The questionnaire contains two parts. The first part contains some general questions helping me to sketch your profile. These questions are not compulsory. If you rather like to stay anonymous it is possible.

The second part contains questions concerning entrepreneurship and the governmental policies affecting them. After of each question I have put between brackets information about the answer I expect. At the end of the questionnaire there is space for some additional information about entrepreneurship in Canada you wish to add. It would be very helpful if you could answer the questions as broadly as possible. The more information I gather the better analysis I can make afterwards.

Thank you in advance for your response.

Pieter-Jan Dierick 

The outcome:

This was a bit of a "Le Challenge" for me. It took a lot of research (see my post on this topic - "Sharing Research... (^&~) Are you thinking of being an entrepreneur?" on Facebook - Collaborative Endeavors Studio page), and a lot longer than 5 minutes. Why? Because I am not familiar with the answers for the questions that were asked. If you want the links I shared, feel free to ask me in a message. Thanks
P.S. This was shared from a word document, so please excuse the fact that the numbers are outside the blog area for some reason... Thanks. 

General Questions

1.       Name:

2.       Gender:  F

3.       Function: Assistance of positive thinking and self-improvements

4.       Company: Chris S.’ Projects/ C.E.S. (more a home for my many ideas)

5.       Main sector of activity of the company: Inspiring Positive Growth, Creativity, Collaborations, and Community Building – Globally.

6.       Province of Origin:  Ontario

7.       Province where job is located: Ontario

Questions about entrepreneurship

1.   Is the general mind-set in Canada in favour of entrepreneurship? (Yes/No/No opinion)

Yes there are many that do this naturally, and there are many that discover it through different activities/ ways. I seem to fit in both categories here.

2.   Are there enough/ too many / too little entrepreneurs in Canada? Why is this good/bad?

There are ……………….. and this is …………. because ……………………………………….

There seems to be a good amount, as it contributes to a large portion of our economy.

Yet just as there is always “room for improvements”, I think there is always more room for Entrepreneurs too.

3.   What is your opinion on the importance of entrepreneurship for a country? (2 or 3 sentences)

I feel it is a vital contributor to any economy, and to the growth of our species/ planet in general. It helps to grow ideas that may already be started but not complete, just as much as it grows new ideas, innovations and technology to contribute to our global society. I say this because any “world-changing” idea can be introduced to the rest of us now with the use of the internet, and with the right tools and knowledge can be grown/ adapted to suit anyone.

4.   Which role does a government need to take in entrepreneurship? (Your opinion in two or three sentences)

I feel they need to take on a more supportive role in the areas of advocacy, leadership, resource assistance, and finances (to say the least). A couple of areas in particular that could really use a “make over”, are the taxes, and the cost and “red tape” that one must go through to get something patented – it’s overwhelming and too expensive for most (like probably 90% or more of the population can’t afford it). It is well known that many small to medium sized start-ups don’t necessarily last more than 5 years, and it’s a shame for the many with brilliant ideas.

5.   Do the entrepreneurship policies differ in the provinces? Which differences?(Yes/no and just 1 or two examples)

(Examples of policies in favour of entrepreneurship: incentives for start-ups, adapt education to create entrepreneurial skills, lower start-up cost for a company, public procurement focussing on young enterprises, investment funds, ….)

Yes, they seem to with provincial leadership - the cost of taxes, bureaucracy, “red tape”, and amounts of support (in general).

6.   Are the national, regional and provincial policies (for entrepreneurship) complementary? (yes/no) 
Not sure I would say complementary for small businesses as much as I would think (from all the research for this survey) for the government. As nationally, regionally, and provincially all seem to all have similarities – too costly, not enough actions taken after promises are made, too much “red tape”, and more negatives.

7.   Do you think different regions/provinces need a different approach? (Yes/No + one or two reasons)

No. They all need the same approach – more action and help, and less greed from the government.

8.   In which areas the national and provincial governments should invest more to improve entrepreneurship? (1 or 2 examples)

The national and provincial governments should invest more time in researching what it’s like to be a small or medium-sized start-up, so they can have a better perspective to SEE what is needed in all areas for improvements ACROSS CANADA.

9.   What are the best entrepreneurship policies in Canada? (2 or 3 answers)

I have read a lot on policies, and I am still not sure.

10.   Are companies / sectors involved in the decision-making process for policies? Should this be done more/less? (Yes/No & Yes/No)  

They are in the sense that they can have a say, but it’s whether or not the government does something to improve on suggestions or not that matters most here. Yes this should be done more.

11.   Are there major differences in how big (<more than 100 employees) and small and middle companies are treated by the government? Which differences? (Which companies get best treatment? & 2-3 examples)

Not sure, it’s hard to find a comparison of these online. So far I have found that the smaller companies seem to pay higher/ more taxes.

12.   Did the government install a good educational framework in favour of entrepreneurship? Is this necessary? Why (not)? (Yes/No & Yes/No & 2-3 examples of good/bad educational framework & 2-3 examples of why this is or isn’t necessary)  

Yes. & Yes, it is vital to our economy to gain more knowledge so we can better find our way through the “forest” of the entrepreneurial path.
Based on my research for your questions, what I have gathered/ my opinion…
Educational Framework:

Good: it is throughout the many school systems, and there are incentives throughout/ across the country. 

Bad: Too much “red tape”, high cost of taxes, and not enough communications of information in general. Ex. Funding is available, but it’s not so easy to access it. This needs to be improved on.

Why this is necessary:
~ To encourage and grow our entrepreneurs for now, and in the future of our economic community.

~ For the continual positive growth of people (in general), and the progression of mankind.

13.   Is it easy to start a Business in Canada? And are there enough incentives to make it succeed? (Yes/No & Yes/ No)

Yes. & Yes if you know enough information, can research it/ know the right people to ask.

14.   Are there Canadian governmental policies in favour of entrepreneurship that also should be used in other countries? (2 or 3 examples)

Not sure, as I have not done the research to see what other countries have in place for their policies compared to Canada.
My opinion/ best guess:
~ Both the government and start-up businesses/ companies to stay friendly, unbiased/ fair, and willing to brainstorm on a regular basis (per month/ quarter/ year).

~ Be willing to alter/ change any agreed upon ideas if needed, to enable fair treatment to all parties involved.
~ Be willing to act on the agreed ideas in a fair and timely manner.

15.   Extra information about entrepreneurship ( If you wish to add some additional things about entrepreneurship in Canada you can write it here)

My opinion from my experience/ findings through research:

There is a LOT to research on this topic, and the thought of getting “out there” in the business world on your own/ as your own business/ company can be very intimidating – especially when thinking globally. If you know what you want to do, it’s only the first step. There is much to think about, research (research your heart out), learn, and do/ organize to get started. Once this is written/ typed out, it makes things a lot easier. The time to seek resources within the local community is at hand (if not already looking), and a business plan can be developed. More steps will follow after this.
(~*~)
If you can help Pieter-Jan Dierick out, and answer these questions...
Please do and email it to me at chriss.projects@gmail.com, so I can forward it.
Thanks so much!
(~*~)
Until next time...
Take care & Safe travels!
Chris S. (*@^@*)
.