Rural Routes

With a new year comes afresh new look for the magazine. Inside you’ll find great articles on importantrural water issues and initiatives.

With municipal elections coming up in October 2010, the AAMDC wanted toprovide some insight into what it means to be a rural elected official in Alberta.From recent legislative changes to online campaigns, from expert advice togovernment resources, we’ve got you covered.

In this issue,we take an in-depth look at rural connectivity. We look atexamples of different technologies and profile several rural communities dealing with the challenge of delivering high-speed Internet to their residents.

Inside this issue of Rural Routes, we take a look atmunicipal sustainability. Over the past months, municipalsustainability has been an important topic of discussio namong rural municipalities and government officials.

The winter 2011 Rural Routes features a number of resources for municipalities, including information on several AAMDC toolkits.

Inside the magazine you’ll find:

• Rocky View, Cochrane and the RancheHouse Accord our municipal feature delves into the creation of and continued success of the RancheHouse Accord, an award-winning inter-municipal agreement between Rocky View County and the Town of Cochrane. The feature includes interviews with the CAOs of each municipality.
• A Proposed Municipal Sustainability Strategy
• Sharing New Ideas: the Municipal Excellence Network (MENet)
• The Alberta Fire Chiefs Association – Supporting Local Fire Services
• Featured toolkits include include:
  • Integrated Community Sustainability Planning (ICSP)
  • Municipal Careers Awareness Toolkit: a Simple Approach
  • Citizen Engagement Toolkit
• Trade article: Damage to Natural Rubber Supply Leads to Increase in Tire Prices

The Summer 2011 edition of Rural Routes (Issue 41) deals with rural municipal health care issues in Alberta. 

Thriving communities are made up of healthy citizens. With such vastness and diversity in its rural areas, however, Alberta presents a number of unique challenges to health care delivery.

Our summer 2011 edition of Rural Routes takes a look at rural health care from the perspectives of rural health care practitioners and service providers.

We are fortunate to include interviews with several rural physicians who took the time to offer first-hand insights into rural health care delivery. Dr. Albert Harmse shares his experiences as a foreign rural doctor serving the St. Paul region.

In our municipal feature as well, foreign rural physician Dr. Johnson Fatokun talks about how he was recruited by the Smoky Lake region. Recruitment committee member Shane Pospisil shares Smoky Lake’s efforts to recruit and retain physicians along with its regional partners.

Other health care perspectives in this summer issue include the Alberta Rural Physician Action Plan (RPAP)’s recruitment and retention efforts.

The Leduc-Beaumont-Devon Primary Care Network offers perspectives on Primary Care Networks and their roles in providing local solutions to health care needs.

Alberta Health Services shares information on EMS dispatch services, while AAMDC Trade supplier MapTech discusses its unique voice-guided GPS navigation system for rural 911 providers.

The Alberta College of Paramedics tells us how paramedics are expanding their scope of practice to help improve the delivery of rural health care.

The Alberta Pharmacists’ Association takes a light-hearted look at the history of pharmacy in Alberta with a feature on the Castor Pharmacy Museum.

In non-health care news, the Municipal Climate Change Action Centre (MCCAC)—a partnership between AAMDC, AUMA and Alberta Environment—introduces its new TAME Buildings Initiative.

In this issue of Rural Routes, we follow up our spring/summer elections issue with a post-elections guide to municipal government for new councillors, including:

• Welcome to the AAMDC: an Introduction to the Association
• AAMDC Fall 2010 Convention Information
• Municipal Feature: First-term Elected Officials Share Their Experiences
• AEOEP: The Alberta Elected Officials Program
• Why do People Become Councillors?
• Surviving Leadership: Work-life Balance for Councillors
• Intra-council Cooperation
• Alberta Rural Municipal Administrators' Association (ARMAA)
• Municipal Supports--the Peer Network for Municipal Dispute Resolution
• What's Your Role?
• Social Media Use Post-election: Some Tips