A budget can be a tricky thing to configure, especially when it’s three girls studying sciences and arts trying to do it. While Aunt Z hit the tennis court for her weekly lesson, the three of us talked in dollars, trying to estimate the expenses and revenues of the new projects we are taking on this summer, over Chez Cora’s heavenly crepes, eggs, and fresh fruit! In addition, we prepared for the big meeting we had in the afternoon with a few of our Aunt’s contacts in the business and entrepreneurship fields.
Lisa Chandler, Coach for Business Owners and Professionals at Chandler Coaches and Anita Nowak, Integrating Director at The Social Economy Initiative at McGill University took our meeting in a direction we hadn’t anticipated. After giving them an overview of how our organization has evolved over the past four years and explaining our plans for the future, they asked some big questions I don’t think we’d thought of before: What would you like the next five years to look like? What are your wildest dreams about where this movement of yours could go? Overwhelmed and imaginations spinning, we didn’t have immediate answers to these questions, but they definitely gave us lots to think about. Lisa and Anita also helped us work through some of the big questions we had been struggling with – Should we attempt a boys camp session? How do we get the word out about Residential Camp? Many thanks to these incredible women for their time and advice, it was very much appreciated!
It was also great to have 12 year old CSP alumna, Julia N. at the table – she helped us keep the discussion camper-focused and was wonderful at attending to the needs of Lisa’s adorable one-year old daughter (whose presence inspired us for the future)!
