After arriving at the Arctic Island Lodge, I was relieved to have my own room (and not sharing with the assistant manager, which she was also pleased with). Time to load up on groceries for the week and settle in for the afternoon and evening before the training starts Monday morning.
My stay at the hotel was decent, though the wi-fi signal was poor, and there weren't enough staff to provide housekeeping every day - this wouldn't have been so bad, but I ran out of coffee!!
The weather was very cold. Most days were 40 below feeling like -50 to -60. Luckily, just like home, it doesn't take more than 15 minutes to get from one end of town to the other, and most places I needed to be were within a 5-10 minute walk from where I was at any given time.
Just about every STOP sign in town had a hand print in the corner. I liked it.
This is Lena. She works for one of the agencies that provides funding to the Daycare. She also makes beaded jewelry. She was at the training all week, and we all got a kick out of her. I'd never seen her joker side before, as it was always straight to business, but it was so good to see this side of her! This is also an excellent example of what most Inuk women wear in the winter: Handmade parkas and kamiks.
And of course it was nice to see some beautiful sunset skies!
As for the training, I learned a lot of basic accounting: credits, debits (which in accounting are actually reverse to what they are in banking), assets, revenue, liabilities, and expenses. I learned some fancy equations, and then how to input all of our financial data into Sage 50 so that we have current financial information at all times. The trick now is to enter into the system every single invoice, bill, payment, withdrawal, bank charge, late fee, donation, fundraiser.. (you get the idea) since April 2013. SO much work, but once we're current, we can apply for so much more funding and finally be able to get the kids some new materials!
It also helps that now I actually know what I'm doing and what happens with money. All of what I learned can also be applied to my personal finances...bank reconciliation, etc. I'm not quite a chartered accountant, but I'm getting there!
I also had a chance to check out the Cambridge Bay Childcare centre, which is HUGE compared to ours, and has been open the longest in the Kitikmeot region. I didn't get any pictures, but it looks like just about any typical centre. Lots of colours, lots of materials, etc. I was jealous that they have separate rooms for each age group, as well as a staff bathroom, a big office and a staff room! Is it too much to wish that we'll get a new building one day that I can design??
