Do this with your family

Do you remember a particular tree from your summers past? Is there a tree your family gathers beneath and has shared history with you? Here's your chance to do something with your family this summer.

A province-wide program to identify trees across the province with stories was announced today by Trees Ontario. The Heritage Tree program celebrates those trees that have cultural or historical significance to the community or province.
Heritage Trees could be those around which a community has held an annual picnic for the past 100 years, the tree that was planted to commemorate a coronation or other important international event, a tree that was planted to celebrate the life of a soldier or one in an historically designated neighbourhood. The trees should be part of the fabric of that community.
Anyone can nominate a tree by registering on the Trees Ontario Heritage Tree web site (http://www.blogger.com/www.heritagetrees.on.ca). A nominated tree is evaluated by a Trees Ontario representative based on the following characteristics: its historical and cultural importance to local and broader community; rarity of species; prominence based on size and age; aesthetics and/or artistic peculiarity; and its physical conditions and expected longevity. The evaluation criteria can be found on the Heritage Tree web site.
If the tree meets the above criteria, it will be placed into the Heritage Trees online database. If identified as a Heritage Tree it will also be recognized with a certificate.
A Heritage Tree is usually more than 70 years old. What sets them apart is the important cultural and historical significance they represent. “If these trees could talk, they could provide an intriguing history lesson about the people and land around which they are rooted,” said Michael G. Scott, President and CEO, Trees Ontario. “For the communities and people that enjoy, celebrate and nurture these green giants, they are a source of pride, full of rich memories and stories that they can now share.”
The Ontario Urban Forest Council’s (OUFC) Heritage Tree Toolkit formed the basis for the Trees Ontario Heritage Tree program. “The toolkit was developed in response to the public’s interest in identifying heritage trees in the community,” said Jack Radecki, Executive Director, OUFC. “OUFC is thrilled to be working with Trees Ontario to launch the online provincial program.”
“We are pleased to be working with OUFC to extend their Heritage Tree Toolkit into a province-wide program available to the public,” Scott continued. “We look forward to receiving nominations from across the province and to reading wonderful stories about important trees in our province.”
Trees Ontario has already begun working with other agencies to identify some trees that could be nominated. These are currently under review by Trees Ontario representatives and include trees from Aylmer, Cataraqui, Collingwood, Prince Edward County and Toronto.
Another important aspect of this program is the opportunity to collect seeds from recognized, native Heritage Trees, thus ensuring that the tree’s seeds live on. Trees Ontario plans to work with local communities to locate and collect these seeds. Growing trees from native seeds is important as those species have adapted to the regional environment over thousands of years and are more likely to survive.
For more information on Trees Ontario and the Heritage Tree Program, visit http://www.blogger.com/www.heritagetrees.on.ca.

Jack Welch gets into videos.

Listening to business leaders is a great way to leap frog your own company, and the business podcasts on iTunes are one way to get access to the best business minds in the world.
One of my favourite podcasts is Jack and Suzy Welch, listed under BusinessWeek. Each week, Jack riffs about business, with Suzy pushing for clarification. It's a great listen. Jack is now starting his online university and all I can say, this is the new way of education.
Here is the next level of Jack and Suzy's show.
RT @jack_welch: Web show- It’s Everybody’s Business (with Microsoft) View it here. http://bit.ly/6dCCF

Those tasty green shoots turn out to be weeds

Worries about the economy are keeping market analysts up at night. I appreciated getting a good news story from Lynn Lewis at Scotia Mcleod, Toronto to help understand the situation.
Green shoots turn out to be weeds, says Ross McKitrick, Financial Post:
The four problems are: the diluted balance sheet of the U. S. Federal Reserve; Obama's deficit binge; the growing wave of "Option-ARM" mortgage resets in U. S. real estate; and the California state budget crisis. We need to watch how these issues develop over the summer to know whether a recovery later this year will be possible. Those green shoots could be weeds.

China will boost your bottom line

Guest Blogger this week is Dr. Michael Power, Strategist for Investec Bank, South Africa, who is on the left of the photograph. Dr. Power predicted the housing bubble popping to the exact month. I think he was so clear headed because he is not situated in North America and is not as biased by the driving wish to see economic growth return to the Western World. Here he talks about the need to be in the Chinese market. Private equity knows this but it is good to get reminded. Check out Dr. Power:

My forecast for the various parts of the global economy can be summarised as follows: the closer your economy is integrated to the Chinese economy, the more V-shaped your recovery is likely to be. The corollary of this is that the further away – broadly speaking, the more Western-oriented – your economy is from China, the more leaden-footed its recovery will be. That said, because of the base effects of Q4 ’08/Q1 ‘09, year-on-year GDP growth in Q4 ’09/Q1 ‘10 will show significant improvement in Western GDP growth patterns. But this uptick will flatter to deceive and thus be something of a false dawn: the balance of 2010 will show that the underlying GDP growth profile of the West will remain lacklustre and that the real recovery will have to wait for 2011 and beyond. In short, the West’s recovery letter will more likely be a ‘W’. How ironic yet appropriate that the Dubya era will sign off with a period of Dubya-shaped economic growth!
And, off in the far distance, there is a second debate coalescing along the lines of “Even if the US does have to endure a W-shaped recovery, just how robust will that final up-leg be?” The fear is that it might not be the incline of a steep hill but rather that of a gentle slope. Furthermore, the fear is that the new trend GDP growth rate it will gravitate towards will be materially lower than the old, pre-2008 level of 3.0% to 3.5%; 2.0% trend is the whispered number. If so, then perhaps the US (and most likely most of the West with it) is indeed turning Japanese.
You can reach Dr. Power at his email address - michael.power at investecmail.com

Building Canada - one business at a time

Here's an email that inspires me.

Dear Jacoline:
As previously indicated, here is proof of the value of your book. Cheers! Rolf Eichfuss.

(Rolf features in Money Magnet and he is tireless in his quest to help Canadian entrepreneurs.)

Hello Rolf,
I am will be returning your copy of "Money Magnet" to you tomorrow. I used temporary markers to highlight useful sections of the book. As you can see from the attached photos, I pretty much covered the whole book.