In the movies, reporters are always uncovering complex political scandals, hobnobbing with the powerful or, at the very least, frequenting interesting bars and drinking expensive scotch.
The reality is a little more mundane: meetings, long hours and learning strange technical information about things such as sewage treatment plants and independent power projects, which none of our friends and family want to hear about. Also, our budgets don't quite run to nice scotch.
But every once in awhile, there are privileged moments.
A few weeks back, I wrote a column about my fears that this community's decision-making tends to be dominated by naysayers looking to entrench the status quo rather than visionaries looking to take the Coast beyond its "retirement community" label and create new opportunities - particularly for the young.
In my two years working in this field, I've never seen anything to match the response I got from that column. So thank you, Coast Reporter readers, for your kind words.
But the privilege of my role comes not from getting credit for an idea that was already out there, but from having the opportunity, in Coast Reporter's pages, to throw down a gauntlet before a whole community and watch for takers.
And here's the thing: there are takers. There is dynamism on the Coast, and there are visionaries. Probably not enough yet and certainly not cohered in any way. But you're out there. And I know this because of your emails and phone calls and letters to the editor.
But more than that, over the last few weeks, there have been indications that the visionaries are starting to mobilize - particularly on this topic of creating employment for the Coast's young people.
Last Thursday, I was in Pender Harbour to cover their first Live Here, Work Here, Stay Here event, which is looking to pair young entrepreneurs with both the cash and the savoir-faire of older cohorts - an idea which is poised to take off in other Coast communities.
Even as I write, the Sunshine Coast Community Foundation is working on putting together a workshop May 14 called Attracting, Retaining and Employing Young Adults on the Coast.
And beyond that, I can't count the conversations I've had with community members who are keen to address the issue of the Coast's missing demographic. So as a community, the will is there to make this happen.
Which takes us to the hard part: How?
Cards on the table: I haven't a clue how to solve this one. By virtue of my job, however, I've heard some interesting ideas floating around. Here are a few:
What if we looked for ways to pair young people with business owners on the brink of retirement, so as to retain the young while protecting the Coast's access to businesses and services?
What if we looked at developing kids' entrepreneurial skills further in the school system, given the practicality - and high rates - of self-employment on the Coast?
What if we tried to develop a Coast-wide strategy to target and attract one or more specialized industries or service areas, so as to create more white-collar jobs?
So there's my two bits. But to solve this problem, we're going to need to pool our ideas as a community and decide which are ultimately the soundest. So for those of you with ideas, I encourage you to write us letters, come out to events where these topics are up for discussion and actively help build a community-wide solution.
Consider the gauntlet again thrown down.
