For Wollaston Township’s Reeve Barb Shaw, the Rural Ontario Municipal Association conference was a chance to continue to grow in her role as the head of the Township.
“It was absolutely all about learning for me,” Shaw said when talking to My Bancroft Now after returning home from Toronto where the conference was held. ROMA is apart of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. It brings together Reeves, Mayors and councillors from throughout Ontario to share experiences and learn from various speakers. Shaw says that she was able to attend thanks to help from Hastings County.
She says the experience was “inspiring and terrifying.” Shaw says what she learned from other attendees and the speakers will be valuable to her over the next four of her term as Reeve of Wollaston. Shaw says she’s happy to be bringing back new best practices, changes to legislation that council needs to be aware of and plenty of new funding ideas for the projects the Township wants to work on.
“If I’m facing any new challenges I can pick up the phone and call another Reeve or Mayor in Hastings County and lean on them for support,” Shaw said about the networking she did while at the conference.
“I have a notebook full of notes and I’m working on documents to share with council members,” Shaw said. “We will continue to look at training and education and sharing that knowledge as we move forward,” she continued.