Assets, revenue, liabilities and expenses

As some of you are aware, I spent last week in Cambridge Bay for accounting training, specifically geared to using Sage 50. After only having been home for a week since my Christmas vacation, I wasn't feeling too keen on leaving for another 8 days, mainly because my nephew is learning so much these days and I don't want to miss a thing, and also partly because CamBay is farther north, colder, and I didn't know anyone there.

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?? 

focusing on the process

A few things came up this week that put orientation on hold, but we did manage to get in a good day of playing and talking about the importance of open-ended materials and focusing on the process rather than the product. Here's some documentation of Wednesday afternoon:

Two of the staff simultaneously started making houses:

It was a little bit tricky for some to move away from "school work"

 I wonder if you can guess which one I made!

Make it better

Despite all of the hard work over the past 3 weeks to get the renovations going, it doesn't look like we're going to meet our target to open by the end of the month. We've only had a few volunteers here and there, and with all of the repairs needed on the building, progress is way too slow.

I haven't been doing much aside from work, and life has been fairly uneventful since Mom & Dad left just over a week ago.

The teachers did get to town last week, so hopefully I'll get to know a few of them and maybe make some friends.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how I can bring the best of who I am to my new position. One professor told me before I left that since she's known me, she noticed that I was always able to take something and make it better. I hang on to that now as I feel the struggle with the slow progress and I have to force myself to think about how it will be better, even if the process is taking longer than we expected. It's important that I keep in mind that change is an extremely slow process, and that not all change is going to happen when or in the way I would like it to.

There are some changes that are happening quickly. It's starting to get darker earlier (around 9:30), and the sky even gets completely dark for a few hours during the night. The sun still starts rising around 5 am, but the day and night light is becoming much more like what we're used to in the south.

I'm anxious to get the programming done for at least the first month so that I feel at least somewhat ready for when we finally get to re-open. I'm also anxious for staff training. It is so far out of my range of experience to do week-long training on every aspect of working in an early learning setting. I definitely have a lot that I need to learn before I can train the new staff. The training is such a crucial part of implementing a new program and making change, so I'm definitely open to any tips or advice from those of you who have experience in this area!