Nova Scotia

I am chair of the Kingswood Elementary Sping Fair this year. It is the largest fundraising effort the school has all year in order to assist with educational programs and financial assistance to children who need it.

This year's event is "Fun with Heroes" and I am looking for anyone who knows how to arrange for the military to have a presence. I have firefighters, the police, hospital represented but I would like to have military there to acknowledge their sacrifices. This is Kingswood's fifth year anniversary and want to honour veterans as was done with their monument donated on an event for it's first year.

I would greatly appreciate any effort, contact or suggestion.

Thank you.

I will be providing a FREE workshop in various locations throughout the Halifax Regional Municipality during February, March and April. The schedule is as follows:

February 17 - Sobeys Tacoma Drive, Dartmouth 7:00pm - 8:00pm
February 24 - Sobeys Cole Harbour Road, Dartmouth, 7:00pm - 8:00pm
February 25 - Century21 Trident Realty, 942 Cole Harbour Rd, Dartmouth, 7:00pm - 8:00pm
March 3 - Sobeys Panivista, 622 Hwy 7, Westphal Dartmouth, 7:00pm - 8:00pm
March 4 - Atlantic SuperStore Joseph Howe Drive, Halifax, 7:00pm - 8:00pm
March 10 - TBA
March 11 - Century21 Trident Realty, 942 Cole Harbour Rd, Dartmouth, 7:00pm - 8:00pm
March 17 - Atlantic SuperStore, Lower Sackville, 7:00pm - 8:00pm
March 18 - Century21 Trident Realty, 942 Cole Harbour Rd, Dartmouth, 7:00pm - 8:00pm

Bookings at the Public Library will be posted shortly.

Please call 229-5799 or email tina.parker@century21.ca to RSVP as space is limited.

I look forward to meeting you!

As I set out today to write my BLOG for the day, I stopped for a moment while logging into Active Rain and thought....... I don't have time to write today!

I HAVE WORK TO DO!!

Yup, work, you know the kind that you do to sell houses and book showings... etc.etc..

Today's work is going to be very different thought. I have website work to be done. Did you see my post from yesterday? Did you see the 72 wicked comments! Active Rain people know their stuff and now I have some catching up to do.

I had no Idea that my blog yesterday would bring such a flurry of activity!

You start out searching for answers and then this huge resource we call "Active Rain" with all it's industry professionals come to you with such energy and enthusiasm that you cant help but get caught up in what you are doing.

Yesterdays post was a huge eye opener for me. I didn't know I had so much to learn about this Google world. I know that some of you took the time to actually visit my site and offer feedback on what it is we are doing.

MY THANKS TO YOU FOR THIS!!!

Lenn you are truly a wealth of knowledge on this. I think someone referred to you as "the matriarch of this community" I appreciate you taking the time to visit my site and offer your valued opinion on some of the house keeping items I should attend to first. I am now reading your recommendation.

Justin Messer, Nick Snow thank you for the information on... I will do just that.

Tim Maitski, another great comment... I will look up your friend that you sent and gather some information. With regards to my Meta tag and Meta description, I am in the process of changing this as we speak thanks to your comments. As well I have removed the video as you are right, THAT IS NOT ME! I am way more relaxed than that. I do look a little stiff. Nothing a beer or 2 couldn't solve!

Carole, James, Claude, Christopher, Austin,

Micheal Russell also offered much of the similar info as above.

I heard all your comments. I will do the work!

I have always attended courses that offer information on growing your Real Estate Business, but yesterday's comments were by far the most informative advice I have received thus far on this sort of stuff.

I know that we are all busy and it takes time to just understand and get a hold on this competitive business. I plan to take my day to make the changes that are necessary to put my plan into action thanks to all of you.

I look forward to tomorrow's blog, if I dig myself out from under the work that I have to do today!

Family farming has been made unprofitable by the provincial and national agricultural policies of the past decades. Increasingly farmers feel pressured to sell their farmland for development. That temporarily solves the farmer's financial problems, but the long term consequences for us all is devastating . . .

We need solutions to help farmers and in my opinion we need to keep real estate development out of farm land. Below is a video I helped film and edit on a local food project in Nova Scotia; it just makes sense.

From the opening line of the video, "Maybe you, maybe you got to go out on the street and say dammit all, look are we crazy? are we are going to lose a history of 400 years of food production because nobody thought about it? Start thinking about it!" The "radio show" 4 minutes into the video is hilarious :-)



Did you hear the entire interview with the farmer from the beginning quote? It starts 13:45 into the video. Paul Colville is on-fire and pretty much sums it all up here.

Let your voice be heard please come to the event on Wednesday the 27th at the Halifax Forum by the The Nova Scotia Agricultural Land Review Committee. Yes this is today! The Halifax Forum is on the corner of Young and Windsor. The meeting is in their multipurpose room which you enter from the Young Street side.

For more information here is the link to "The 2008 GPI Atlantic Report, Farm Economic Viability in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island:" http://www.gpiatlantic.org/publications/naturalcapital.htm

Local Food in Nova Scotia - Halifax Farmer's Market from Mike Smith on Vimeo.

Nova Scotia, Are YOU on a quest to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Get Recognized?

This post is a result of two posts by my friend Richard Weisser down in Georgia. The first post was "How do you expect to get drenched in the rain if you don't even want to get your feet wet?" dated 5/21/09 in which he offers 6 suggestions to those of us here in Active Rain. In addition he also offers his personal guarantee "So, for those of you that want to succeed at blogging, I offer you this challenge. Before you throw in the towel, write at least one hundred quality posts before you make your value assessment. It takes that long to develop the correct skills and disciplines and also to create a body of content large enough to have a significant SEO impact on your business. Now that is some guarantee wouldn't you say? Richard then follows that post with another post titled "Achieving national celebrity status as a result of ActiveRain blogging becomes a reality! (of sorts)" where he talks about a recent interview with Realtor Magazine on line where he was interviewed about blogging for business. So, IMHO, Richard is not only a celeb but one that knows where of he speaks.

With the numerous posts talking to newbie's here in Active Rain on how to be a success in their blogging venture to improve their visibility to the public I am setting out on a quest. I am not going to suggest things to newbie's or those that are less active on AR; I am on a search for some of these folks for introduction to our AR family. Here is my 3 step plan:

1. Go on a state by state search and post between 5 and 7 people each Saturday
2. Then you the MEMBERSHIP will be able to see and encourage them by responding to their most recent post
3. A NEW qualification, the post must be done since January of this year.

The end result will be, hopefully, an increase in activity with more members becoming visible. Now there is a really BIG problem with this plan. I will not be able, my rule, to suggest those that have not done a post and posted their picture to their profile. You see there won't be any secret agents, lenders, stagers, inspectors, etc. shown. Sorry, if you want to be considered I need to see who you are, sorta like your picture on your business card.

Today I am looking at Nova Scotia, where Active Rain has a total of 180 AR members as of this morning. I would say that Tina Parker #1 and Paul Viau #2 could have some competition coming up behind them. So, say hello to:

Alastair Buchanan with A&H GMAC Real Estate in Dartmouth, NS.

Kelly Pidgeon with Exit Realty Optimum in Halifax, NS.

Naomi Schriver with RE/MAX Options Inc. in Halifax, NS.

Lindsay Maillet with Exit Realty Metro in Bedford, NS.

Carole Pelletier with Exit Realty Optimum in Halifax, NS.

Be looking for your state coming soon to a post near you. Next I will be off to Quebec; if you know of someone celebrating a birthday in Quebec next week just email their name to me and I will acknowledge one person.

Please stop by and encourage these guys and gals and let's see if we can improve some of the participation. Thanks for stopping in.

If you are looking for a very simple way to move up in your standings for the state that you live in, here are three small suggestions:

Make one comment on someone's blog post.....Just pick one of the Featured Posts and read it then comment on what you read and

Complete your profile and then if you are looking for other suggestions,

Click here and here and here for more help.

Thanks to Active Brad Andersohn and Jeremy Blanton for their contributions. BTW, don't let these guys scare you they are really docile.