Picture it: 2005 — YouTube had just appeared, and nobody knew about it. Smartphones didn’t rule our hands and minds yet, and life was just a bit different from today. Back then, it felt like the air itself was full of anticipation.

In 2005, I started working in the semiconductor industry as an ASIC Physical Designer, drawing chip layouts and taking them from initial concept to a manufacturing-ready layout. My work involved planning how different components were arranged and connected within a chip, optimizing the layout, and resolving design and technical constraints throughout the process.

While it may sound pretty boring for non-tech people, I loved my job. I still do! I always found the design process exciting.

You see, with the chip floorplanning, you have a fixed area, constraints and rules to follow, blocks that must go somewhere, paths to reach them. You measure. You draw. You verify, because your opinion of the layout is not evidence that it works. You iterate.

And then, suddenly, it all makes sense. The moment when all small pieces come together, creating the whole picture, perfect in its precision, is the absolute best. I have always believed there is some kind of unspoken beauty in precision.

Beauty isn’t something you add at the end — it’s what precision looks like when it’s done right.

Thoughts about the versatility of “design” entered my life silently while I was fully immersed in technology.

“Every living creature designs to some extent,” I thought. And maybe that’s how I decided to try interior design myself. It’s kind of funny to think about it now.

With a background in fine art and graphic design, I didn’t doubt much that it was my thing.

Design is something very human. Maybe it is the most human thing we do.

At first, I designed interiors only for friends. Then I joined a freelance platform and started working with clients from all over the world. One project became another, and soon I realized — interior design had become much more than a simple passion. It’s my second full-time job.

For years, I kept the two worlds carefully separated. During the day, I was designing chips. After 6 PM, I was designing homes. And strangely, switching between them never felt as dramatic as it probably sounds.

Different scale. Different tools. A different kind of headache. Yet my brain approached the problem almost the same way.

That was probably my biggest realization: I hadn’t suddenly become a completely different person or started a completely unrelated career.

I had always been a designer.

Engineering taught me to think about structure, constraints, precision, and how hundreds of small decisions eventually create one functioning system. Interior design let me apply that same thinking to something much more human — spaces people actually live in, walk through, touch, and experience every day.

Eventually, the “side” work became too serious to call it “side” anymore.

When I finally felt confident enough to give it its own name and identity, I decided to make the transition properly.

And in 2020, possibly one of the least sensible years in recent history to start something new, Designature Studio was born.

But that’s a story for the next time.

Don’t let anyone else decide how you’re wired. Code, design, build, start the company in the worst possible year. Do it like a girl. It turns out that means doing it well.

My Non-Linear Path to Design: From Semiconductors to Interiors was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Spawning another AI agent can feel like an instant, almost free hire. The call is small. Another worker joins. Work begins in parallel.

That makes it very easy to confuse more active workers with more net progress.

I ran into a version of this with my own automated trends research. The workflow could gather headlines and candidate stories from several sources, but collection was only half the job. The material still had to become one useful daily digest. On some runs, plenty of research came in and the finished digest never appeared.

Adding another source collector was easy. Getting the existing work across the finish line was the harder part.

Once several agents are already working in parallel, I care more about what another worker would add, versus how many the system can run. What would it contribute that the existing workers could not already deliver with less effort?

So I treat another worker as a marginal investment:

The branch has to contribute something distinct, and that benefit has to be worth the extra context handoff, duplicated work, shared-state contention, verification, and reduction it creates.

This rule does not tell us how many agents every workflow should use. The stopping point moves with the task, the architecture, the tooling, and the cost of delay.

Which is less tidy than “three agents is optimal”, but gives me something concrete to assess before adding another.

“More capacity” is too vague to justify widening fan-out.

A new branch can absolutely be worth adding. It might carry a specialist capability the existing workers do not have. It might search a separate source space while the critical path continues. It might run an intentionally independent review where disagreement is itself valuable. It might explore a genuinely different approach in parallel because waiting for serial attempts would cost too much time.

Those are concrete contributions.

Using my trends workflow as an example, a new collector might have been worth adding if it reached a genuinely different source or uncovered something insightful that the existing research missed. Another collector gathering similar headlines would have been a different proposition: more material arriving at a synthesis step that was already struggling to finish.

But before I add another worker, I want to be able to finish this sentence:

This branch exists because it can produce this result that no current branch already owns.

If I cannot explain what the new branch would add, I have little reason to expect it to improve the result. I only know that I have unused capacity.

Unused capacity is not the same thing as unfinished work.

The worker itself is only one part of the cost.

Before it can do anything useful, someone has to decide what context it needs. After it returns, someone has to decide whether the result is trustworthy and how it rejoins the main line of work.

That is why I would separate coordination cost into several parts instead of putting everything under “overhead.”

What has to be copied, summarized, or rediscovered so the branch can work safely? A worker that can act from a compact brief is cheap to isolate. A worker that needs most of the parent’s state, exceptions, assumptions, and unresolved questions is already consuming attention before execution begins.

How likely is the branch to inspect the same files, search the same sources, or repeat checks another worker already owns? Deliberate independent verification can be useful. Accidental overlap is just paying twice for the same coverage.

Does the branch depend on shared state another worker is also changing? If two branches can race on assumptions, files, locks, decisions, or intermediate outputs, the system acquires a larger coordination surface along with the extra execution capacity.

What evidence is required before the result can affect the main task? Every new branch creates another output that has to be accepted, rejected, or qualified. On high-cost or weakly observable work, that review burden can dominate the apparent speedup.

How does the result come back? Several good branches do not automatically become one coherent next action. If each additional worker increases the synthesis and reconciliation burden, some of the fan-out gain is simply being deferred until the end.

A worker may finish its own task quickly, yet leave the parent with so much checking and reconciliation work that the workflow saves little time overall.

The trends runs made that cost visible. One run staged 255 candidate items and produced no final digest (sure, I could raise the tool call limits, but it’d stop being sensible at some point). Another staged 64 from eight sources, then stopped before completing synthesis. The research material existed, but the useful output did not.

The failures had several contributing factors, yet the practical problem was clear:

The system still had to filter, compare, deduplicate, and turn everything into something usable.

More collection would not have done that work for it.

The research supports this distinction, within the conditions tested.

A September 2026 paper, Rethinking Multi-Agent Collaboration: When More Is Less, models long-horizon work as a dependency graph. In its tested setup, collaboration is more useful when the task contains relatively independent regions that can be separated without carrying the full history of the task into every branch.

Tightly coupled sequential work creates the opposite pressure. If later steps depend heavily on earlier ones, decomposition adds coordination overhead and can damage the dependency chain the system needs to preserve. The paper also reports that simply increasing the agent pool or recursion depth did not consistently improve outcomes in its experiments.

Those experiments do not establish the best agent count for every workflow. Before widening fan-out, I would check:

Is there another unit of work here that is actually worth isolating?

A broader study, Towards a Science of Scaling Agent Systems, reaches a compatible conclusion across different benchmarks, model families, and architectures. Its reported results make task structure, coordination efficiency, redundancy, topology, and overhead part of the answer. Parallelizable work can benefit; sequential or tool-heavy work can lose enough to coordination overhead that more agents become counterproductive in the tested conditions.

I would not turn those benchmark results into a fixed production rule. They show how much the outcome depends on the structure of the task and how the work is divided.

Wider fan-out has more to offer when another piece of work can proceed mostly independently. When a new branch needs the same extensive context and keeps working on shared state, briefing and coordination become more demanding.

The current Hermes delegation documentation shows the trade-off cleanly.

A delegated subagent starts with a fresh conversation rather than inheriting the parent’s full conversation history. The parent has to pass the goal, constraints, files, findings, or other context the child needs. The child later returns a final summary rather than its whole working context.

Isolation protects the parent context and keeps the child focused.

If the child can solve a narrow problem from a compact packet, great. If the parent has to summarize much of its working context before delegation is safe, the branch is no longer as cheap as the spawn call made it look.

And if the returned summary is not enough to accept the result, the parent may still have to reopen sources, repeat checks, or reconstruct reasoning on the way back in.

This is a Hermes-specific implementation example, not a universal rule about every agent framework. But the operating question is portable:

What does isolation save, and what does it force you to reconstruct?

A fixed topology can become surprisingly easy to defend simply because it already exists.

If a workflow has four workers, the fifth can start to feel like the natural next step. If the runtime supports ten, using three can feel like leaving performance on the table.

I do not think capability should decide the count.

With my trends workflow, I considered splitting the sources into more parallel jobs. But that risked duplicate entries, weaker cross-source comparison, and more outputs to reconcile. I chose to separate collection from synthesis, with a clear handoff between the two. That gave the downstream work its own room to finish rather than multiplying competing digests.

The stronger stopping rule is empirical and local. Add the branch, then look at what actually changed:

• Did wall-clock time fall?
• Did coverage increase?
• Did the new branch find material the existing branches missed?
• How much duplicated work appeared?
• Did shared-state conflicts increase?
• Did verification effort rise?
• How much extra synthesis was required before the result became usable?

Those observations do not need to become one universal score. They only need to make the next scaling decision falsifiable.

If a fourth research branch repeatedly finds nothing new and adds review work, that is evidence to stop at three for that class of task in that setup. If the fourth branch repeatedly finds distinct evidence while staying cheap to brief and verify, that is evidence to keep it.

The number is local. The method is reusable.

That matters because a multi-agent system should be able to shrink as easily as it expands.

Otherwise fan-out stops being a response to task structure and turns into architecture for architecture’s sake.

Make the next worker justify itself with seven questions:

1. Unique contribution — What result or coverage will this worker add that is not already owned?
2. Separability — Can it progress with bounded dependencies, or will it keep waiting on and reconciling with other branches?
3. Context cost — What must the parent reconstruct for it to operate correctly?
4. State cost — What shared resources or assumptions can conflict while it runs?
5. Acceptance cost — What evidence is required before its output can affect the main task?
6. Reduction cost — What synthesis or reconciliation work appears when it returns?
7. Observed gain — What concrete result would show that the branch was worth adding?

None of these questions decides the answer alone. Their job is to prevent “we can add another agent” from silently becoming “we should.”

More workers can still be the right answer. Some tasks contain abundant independent work. Some genuinely benefit from independent review. Some are constrained enough by time that wider parallelism is worth paying for even when it is less token-efficient.

Before adding another worker, be clear about what it will contribute and how you will judge the result. Apply the same test across workflows; let the agent count follow the evidence.

From Dream Atlas: The Next Agent Had to Earn Its Coordination Cost — the original log behind this article.

I’m continuing to write about AI workflows, product work, and what I’m learning as I build, test, and tinker. If that sounds useful, follow me here on Medium. And if this piece earned a clap, I’d appreciate it ✨

Is One More AI Agent Worth the Extra Work? was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There are things you think as a Project Manager & then there are things you actually say. These are not always the same thing. In fact, sometimes there is an entire internal monologue between the two.

“Can we please read the document before asking me what’s in the document?”

What I say: “Absolutely, happy to walk you through it.”
What I’m thinking: It’s three pages. I sent it three days ago. Just read it.

“Is anyone actually going to make this decision?”

What I say: “Can we confirm who will be the final decision-maker?”
Because apparently, if nobody owns the decision, it can live forever.

“That wasn’t a requirement when we agreed the scope.”

What I say: “Let me check the original requirements & understand what’s changed.”
What I’m thinking: Ah. A plot twist.

“Why did nobody tell me this three weeks ago?!”

What I say: “Thanks for flagging this. Let’s understand the impact on the current plan.”

Because “why are you telling me now?” isn’t particularly helpful. Even when it is extremely satisfying.

“NO! You cannot have all three.”

What I say: “Given the timeline, we may need to prioritise between scope, quality & resources.”
The project manager’s version of: Pick a struggle.

“That’s not a blocker. That’s an inconvenience.”

What I say: “Let’s see if there’s a workaround while we look into it.”

Because not every problem deserves a red flag. Some problems deserve a conversation. Some deserve an email. And some deserve approximately seven minutes of your attention before you move on. Knowing which is which is a skill.

“Please stop adding things to the project.”

What I say: “We can certainly consider that for a future phase.”
Because “future phase” is sometimes where perfectly good ideas go to wait quietly until everyone has forgotten about them.

“I need you to actually do the thing you said you’d do.”

What I say: “Just following up on the action from our last meeting…”

Again.
And again.
And again.

At some point, project management becomes an endurance sport.

“You don’t need another meeting. You need to make a decision.”

What I say: “Would it help if we summarised the available options and make a recommendation?”
Because meetings don’t solve indecision. Decisions do.

“I knew this was going to happen. I just knew it!”

What I say: “Let’s look at what we could have identified earlier and what we can do differently next time.”

This is probably one of the hardest lessons in project management.
Sometimes you are right.
Sometimes you even documented that you were right.
And when the thing you warned everyone about eventually happens…Nobody needs your victory lap. They need a solution.

“That’s not how any of this works.”

What I say: “Let me explain the dependency there.”
Same message. Different career outcome.

“ASAP is not a date!”
What I say: “Would it be possible to have this ready by…?”
Because apparently we have collectively decided that ASAP is an internationally recognised unit of time. It isn’t.

“Let’s take that offline.”

What I say: Exactly that.
What I mean: There are several things I want to say right now that would not improve this meeting & I will not say in front of the whole team.

And then there are the things you eventually learn not to say at all. Not because you don’t have the right to say them. But because you’ve learnt that being the smartest person in the room isn’t the same as being the most useful person in the room.

Your job as a project manager isn’t to be the smartest person in the room. You just need to be the most resourceful.

You can prove someone wrong, or you can move the project forward.
You can remind everyone that you warned them or you can help fix the problem.
You can point out who dropped the ball or you can figure out how to stop it happening again.

That’s one of the less glamorous parts of project management.

You learn to separate what needs to be said from what merely needs to be felt — and honestly, that’s not just a PM skill. That’s leadership. That’s a people skill.

Because sometimes the most valuable thing you bring into a difficult meeting isn’t the answer.

It’s the ability to think: “Oh, for God’s sake.” Take a breath. And then say: “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do now...”

Things I Wouldn’t Say as a Project Manager was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

For many years I enjoyed reading Luisa D'Amato's public whipping particularly of our public Board, the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB). Today's Opinion piece by Luisa titled "Waterloo Region's school board races are... wild" hammers the Catholic Board as well so kudos to Luisa for being fair. Personally I believe that over the decades the Catholic Board generally has demonstrated more honesty, sincerity and Christian behaviour than the WRDSB by far.

 Over the decades far too many stupid and perverse wanna be politicians have used the public school board as nothing more than a stepping stone into "higher" politics. We need look no further than our very own, thank God she's gone, ,mayor Sandy Shantz. Not only was she elected trustee but she extremely shortly became the Board Chair (Board as in Board of Trustees). She did nothing remarkable other than do as she was told and not make waves. At the time and despite Luisa D'Amato's fine reporting the Trustees still had some public presence and respect making the jump to municipal politics easy. It was also helpful for Sandy that Elmira was a hockey town hence her support for two ice surfaces versus Pat Mclean's support for but one got Sandy into a councillor's chair. Then after a four year hiatus for personal reasons she had a slam dunk for the Mayor's position as then mayor Todd Cowan self-destructed due to a combination of arrogance and dishonesty.   

Perhaps after the public exposure of the school board as nothing more than proxy political left versus right ideological spats mostly irrelevant to children and public education; their usefulness as political springboards to higher office will be reduced. Of course the problem is that the local powers behind picking candidates whether for Trustee positions or Councillor positions never rests. They are always looking ahead for candidates who want to advance and are willing to go along to get along. When three quarters of the candidates running are in it for the wrong motives then democracy has already been defeated before the first vote is cast.  

Before we begin, let me ask you a question: Do you shop online?

If your answer is yes, how long does it take you to decide what to buy and, more importantly, who to buy from?

For me, the answer is embarrassingly long.

Not because I enjoy browsing endlessly, but because I am constantly trying to avoid being scammed or becoming the latest victim of the dreaded “what I ordered vs. what I got” experience. Between comparing vendors, reading reviews, checking social media pages, and looking for signs of legitimacy, shopping online often feels like a research project.

At some point, I began asking myself:

What if there was a platform where verified fashion vendors could showcase their products, allowing shoppers to browse with greater confidence and spend less time worrying about trust?

That question became the foundation of Topsy, a cloud-native fashion marketplace designed to connect shoppers with verified vendors.

Before writing a single line of code, I wanted to verify that I wasn’t the only person facing this problem. So, I conducted a small survey involving 18 women who regularly shop online. The results confirmed what I suspected: concerns about trust, scams, and product quality were common experiences among online shoppers. Their responses can be viewed here.

Over 57% had been scammed or nearly scammed while shopping through informal channels like Instagram, WhatsApp, and TikTok. Many spent between 30 minutes and over an hour searching for a single item across multiple platforms. And nearly every respondent said the same thing: they would use a trusted, dedicated marketplace if one existed.

The top features they wanted were not complicated. They wanted verified seller badges. They wanted buyer reviews. They wanted secure payment. They wanted to know that the person selling to them had been checked.

Trust was not a nice-to-have. It was the entire barrier.

As an Economics graduate, I immediately saw both a business opportunity and an analytics opportunity. Understanding customer behavior, purchasing patterns, vendor performance, and trust factors could help create a better shopping experience while generating valuable insights for marketplace operators.

At the same time, I had recently completed my AWS Cloud Practitioner certification and wanted an opportunity to apply my cloud knowledge in a practical setting. Rather than building another tutorial project, I decided to solve a real problem.

The result was Topsy.

What Topsy Is
Topsy is a serverless fashion marketplace built entirely on AWS. It allows buyers to browse verified fashion products across four categories (In-Office, Out-of-Office, Casual, and Spicy), select sizes and colors, add items to cart, and pay via Ghana’s mobile money ecosystem or card through Paystack. Sellers can list and manage their products. An admin analytics dashboard tracks marketplace performance, customer behavior, sales trends, and seller activity.

The marketplace currently features 15 products across the four categories, listed by three verified Ghanaian sellers: Abena Collections, Style by Ama, and Akosua Couture.

In this article, I’ll walk through the problem, the research, the architecture, and how I transformed a personal frustration into a cloud-native solution.

Every component of Topsy runs on AWS, provisioned across four CloudFormation stacks.

topsy-storage creates two S3 buckets (product images and frontend files) and eight DynamoDB tables covering products, orders, users, cart, reviews, inventory, payments, and market research data.

topsy-auth provisions AWS Cognito for user authentication, handling sign-up, email verification, login, and password reset. It supports two roles — buyers and sellers — routing each to the correct experience after login.

topsy-cdn puts CloudFront in front of the S3 frontend bucket, serving the site over HTTPS with an Origin Access Control (OAC) policy so the S3 bucket is never publicly exposed.

topsy-api provisions an API Gateway with ten REST endpoints and seven Lambda functions in Node.js 24.x — covering product browsing, cart management, seller product management, and order retrieval. Lambda runs code only when called, so there are no idle servers to pay for.

The deployment pipeline was set up separately from the CloudFormation stacks using AWS CodePipeline and CodeBuild. Every push to GitHub triggers an automatic build, S3 sync, and CloudFront cache invalidation. Push code, it goes live, no manual steps.

The buyer-facing side of Topsy is built in React and served via CloudFront. It includes a login page, a product browsing page with category and item type filters, individual product pages, and a cart with a full payment flow.

The payment flow was designed specifically for Ghana’s ecosystem. Paystack is integrated as the payment gateway, supporting MTN Momo, Telecel Cash, AirtelTigo, and card payments. This reflects one of the strongest findings from the survey, that buyers want payment to feel safe and familiar, not foreign.

Since Topsy is a new platform with no real transaction history yet, I simulated a dataset to power the analytics dashboard. Crucially, this dataset was not random — it was designed to correlate directly with the findings from my 18-person survey.

Budget tiers in the simulation match survey responses: 50% of simulated users have budgets under 50 GHC, 28% between 50 and 150 GHC, and the remainder above that. Payment method distribution reflects Ghana’s mobile money reality, with MTN Momo accounting for 48% of transactions. Peak shopping hours, lunchtime and evenings, are weighted to reflect when Ghanaian women said they browse most. The casual and in-office categories are weighted as the most popular, consistent with what respondents said they shop for.

The result is a dataset that tells a believable, research-grounded story about what a Ghanaian fashion marketplace might look like in its early months.

Overview tab — The headline numbers from the demo dataset: GHC 39,973 in total revenue across 383 orders, a 76% delivery rate, a 4% cancellation rate, and an average order value of GHC 108. Six business insight cards summarize the key findings in plain language — for example, that casual wear generated 52% of all orders between January and July, and that 80% of transactions were completed via mobile money.

Sales tab — A monthly revenue trend line shows performance from January to July. A category breakdown confirms casual wear and in-office styles as the top performers. A payment methods chart shows the dominance of mobile money. The top products chart shows that the Basic Crop Top at GHC 45 was the highest-ordered product — consistent with the survey finding that the majority of respondents have budgets under 50 GHC.

Behaviour tab — This is where the market research and the data connect most directly. A conversion funnel shows the journey from store visit to completed order. A retention curve tracks how customers return over time. Peak hour and day-of-week charts confirm the lunch and evening shopping patterns from the simulation. And two charts drawn directly from survey data show the most-requested platform features and the biggest pain points respondents faced — with vendor trust concerns topping both lists.

Seller's tab — Performance data for each of the three verified sellers, showing order counts, revenue, and average order value.

The analytics dashboard demonstrates something that goes beyond the cloud infrastructure. It shows how primary research data can be used to shape a product and inform a simulated dataset, which then powers a live analytics layer. This is the loop that data analysts work in — define the question, collect data, model it, visualise it, draw conclusions.

The survey said trust is the barrier. The product addresses trust with verified seller badges and integrated reviews. The demo dataset reflects the budget and behaviour patterns from the survey. And the dashboard lets you see it all in one place.

No project like this goes smoothly from start to finish. A few things that caught me out and are worth documenting:

API Gateway path conflicts. You cannot have two sibling variable path parts at the same level in API Gateway. Having /cart/{userId} and /cart/{cartItemId} as siblings causes a deployment error. The fix was to nest them: /cart/{userId} for fetching a cart, and /cart/{userId}/{cartItemId} for updating or deleting specific items.

Lambda handler naming. On Linux build servers, filenames are case-sensitive. If the Lambda function code file is named getProducts.js but the CloudFormation handler property says GetProducts.handler, it fails. Matching exactly matters.

CORS configuration. Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) errors occur when a frontend on one domain tries to call an API on another. The fix requires two things: enabling CORS in API Gateway and making sure every Lambda function returns the correct Access-Control-Allow-Origin header in its response, including error responses, and including the OPTIONS preflight request handler.

CloudFront caching. After each deployment, CloudFront can serve stale cached content until an invalidation request clears it. This invalidation is now automated in the CI/CD pipeline, but it took a few debugging sessions to understand why changes weren’t showing up after deploying.

IAM permissions. Every time a new AWS service interaction was introduced; CodePipeline writing to S3, Lambda reading DynamoDB, CodeBuild invalidating CloudFront, a new IAM permission had to be explicitly granted. AWS’s least-privilege model means nothing is permitted by default, which is the right security posture but requires careful attention.

Topsy is a working foundation. There are several clear directions from here:

Expand the survey. The current dataset is drawn from 18 women. I am extending the same survey to male respondents to understand whether the trust and scam problems are specific to women’s fashion shopping or reflect a broader Ghana e-commerce pattern. The findings will inform whether Topsy should expand to menswear or remain focused.

Seller-side analytics. The seller inventory page currently uses placeholder data. Connecting it to the real API will allow sellers to see their own performance data. Orders, revenue, and stock levels, directly from the dashboard.

Bigger data infrastructure. The current analytics pipeline uses DynamoDB as the data store and a Lambda export function to write CSV files to S3. The natural next step is to replace this with AWS Glue for ETL processing, Amazon Redshift as a data warehouse, and Amazon Athena for SQL queries, the standard big data stack on AWS.

Topsy started as a personal frustration. It became a research project. Then a product. Then a cloud architecture. Then an analytics story.

The AWS Cloud Practitioner exam teaches you what the services are. Building Topsy taught me how they connect, why the configuration details matter, and what breaks when you get them wrong.

I Got Tired of Being Almost Scammed Online. So, I Built a Marketplace was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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Gareth and I joined a long line this morning, Saturday October 10, to vote in the advanced poll for the 2026 municipal election. We voted for Mayor, 2 Regional Councillors, 1 ward councillor and 3 public school trustees.

What are the municipal issues in this election? In the line up to vote, we talked about skunks, coyotes and walking our dogs. Missing cats came up (see coyotes). People also want to be able to have fires in their backyards as is allowed in Kitchener. Should people be allowed to park on the street all night? My husband always hated when people parked in front of our house. I have no idea why. Higher taxes are always an issue. Finding that balance between taxation and services is always a chore.

Housing is always an issue, whether the cost of buying or renting to the lack of accessible housing for the poor. More public washrooms and parks. I would like to tell you which candidate talked about public washrooms, but I am trying to be neutral here. Read your literature or websites like I did! And don’t forget that Regional government and City have different responsibilities. Municipal Government Overview | Waterloo Region Votes

A big one is the question: Should the city raise taxes and shovel all the sidewalks for residences and businesses. Personally, I have advocated and had success with making sure the walk throughs are shovelled and sewer drains cleared. Regional roads like Northfield with houses backing onto it and paths should be cleared. My road being a secondary road can take awhile to be plowed after a storm so I am more concerned with that.

I was told earlier in the year that there were not enough people signing up to run. At the poll, I found that there were plenty of choices, so people must have signed up at the last minute.

This year, along with a ward polling station on election day, October 26, there are also supervote locations. You can go anywhere across the city and vote. You are no longer restricted to a certain polling station. The supervote locations are as follows:

The locations are open from 10 am to 8 pm on voting day.

There are also advanced polls :

• Oct. 16, 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. – Albert McCormick Community Centre
• Oct. 17, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. – Waterloo Memorial Recreation Complex
• Oct. 18, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. – RIM Park

Supervoting locations

You must be a Canadian citizen and 18 or over to vote, live in Waterloo, or own or rent property in Waterloo, or are the spouse of someone who owns or rents property in Waterloo. You cannot be prohibited from voting.

You can not vote for the following reasons:

You are serving a sentence in a correctional institution

a corporation ( strangely, corporations are considered people)

voting on behalf of someone else, unless you are an authorized voting proxy under the Municipal Elections Act.

University and college students can vote in their school area and/or at home.

You will get a voter’s registration card in the mail. If you forget your card, like we did, you simply show identification.

Bring one piece of identification that shows your name and current Waterloo address.

If your ID does not show your current address, you can complete a declaration form at your voting location.

Accepted identification includes:

• Ontario driver’s licence
• Ontario photo card
• utility bill
• bank statement
• government-issued document with your name and address

You can get more information at Vote in the municipal election | City of Waterloo

Candidates have left literature for you to look at, have a read and vote for the person you think is the best!

Maybe a better question is "Do we want to emulate our southern brothers various wars...?" My hope is that Canadians are a little too smart for that. However how about a war on contaminated drinking water? Really why not? In one sense speaking highly optimistically maybe we already have started. Is it conceivable that all the bad old days of mass industrial dumping on their own property has ended? Are the Varnicolor Chemical, Uniroyal Chemical, Breslube, Northstar Aerospace, Canadian General Tower, Ciba-Geigy, IMICO, Sunar, Canbar, Borg, Nutrite, Kaufman, Budd, tanneries, textile mills, steel producers all in the rearview mirror? That is the first step. The Ontario MECP needs to be replaced with honest, dedicated and intelligent people both on the ground doing inspections as well as at the top. Real, unscheduled industrial inspections with full cooperation legally mandated must begin if it hasn't already.

The most egregious, blatant and toxic sites must be contained and if possible remediated. This can not be done by proven client driven, friendly to industry consulting companies paid for by the owners of contaminated sites whether active or abandoned. These sites can not wait a day longer. Municipalities can no longer be allowed to let these sites sit until a developer comes along who does a cost benefit analysis and determines that a superficial, quick "cleanup" can still allow him to make millions of dollars profit by redeveloping the property.

End of the pipe solutions are not wrong or nefarious. Yes water treatment is necessary whether to remove bacteria and viruses or gasoline components from service stations and trichloroethylene (TCE) from local Waterloo Region manufacturers. They however must not replace front of the pipe solutions. Source removal methods have improved and whether paid for up front by the guilty polluters or by governments with serious financial collection efforts afterwards, long term cleanups must be a significant part of the process.

Ministry of Labour inspectors are about as credible as MOE/MECP inspectors particularly in non-union companies. There are safety committees mandated by law for both union and non-union shops however there are very few non-union shops so stupid as to put on a former employees Record of Employment that they were fired for skin colour, religion, political attitude, gender, safety concerns or ENVIRONMENTAL concerns. I believe that all industrial employers including non-union must be mandated to have a real, functioning, informed Environmental Committee and that they must not be handpicked company loyalists on the committee. This too would require an overhaul of Ministry of Labour staff who have been conditioned to be non confrontational and oblivious to obvious problems. To those who believe that employers have an unconditional right to do what they want on their own property let me say the obvious. Do they have a right to release toxins to the air to be inhaled by their meighbours? Do they have a right to dump solvents on their property that end up in aquifers below them that supply drinking water to the community? Obviously no such rights exist other than when already existing laws are ignored and not enforced.

This is just the start for a war on contaminated water. Otherwise we will continue down the current path whereby our authorities continually, falsely assure us that our water is safe when in fact it is deteriorating year after year as long ago contamination continues to dissolve and spread while we pump more and more for our expanding populations.    

♦

Stepping inside Aiāna restaurant, a short walk south from Parliament Hill, your attention is drawn to curved banquettes that sit centrally beneath striking light fixtures. Adjacent is a large glass enclosure of wine bottles on one wall and windows onto busy O’Connor Street on the other. Bookending the dining room, an inviting bar near the entrance and chef and co-owner Raghav Chaudhary’s open kitchen, toward the back. are focal points.

Recipient of a 2026 VineRoutes “Vine Award” for Best in Distinction, Aiāna’s design and décor motifs serve to highlight the plates that are presented to diners at their tables, according to Chaudhary.

“We wanted to open up the space here with simplicity and elegance. Guests are immersed in and fully exposed to the food, the service, the experience,” he says … For the rest of the story on how Aiāna draws on Canadian ingredients, global influences and the voices of his team are all part of defining the restaurant’s identity, visit Vine Routes.

Check out my latest post Aiāna Ottawa is a Vine Routes award winner from AndrewCoppolino.com.

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Yesterday's K-W Record had an article by Bill Jackson titled "Development backlog cleared in Waterloo Region". I would describe it as a puffpiece designed to get the Record back in Waterloo Region's good graces after all the Record articles this past winter and spring truthfully describing and criticizing the Region's water management. Unsurprisingly the tail of the dog, Joseph Puopolo of Urban Initiatives is praising the reopening of business as usual for builders and developers in Waterloo Region. It is normal in this Region, just like in this Township (Woolwich), for the biggest beneficiaries of government expenditures to run the show. In fact here in Woolwich Township we even have the guiltiest parties (Uniroyal/Lanxess and the MECP) running large remediation efforts of which their incompetence and negligence has been the major cause.

Now regarding builders and developers it would be a major stretch to blame them for the state of our water systems. Yes they have always demanded more and better but mostly under the guise of reducing the housing crunch via higher numbers of new homes being built. The fact that the bulk of those new homes are grossly overpriced enriching everybody along the line including those buyers who are themselves making profits by flipping those homes and artificially increasing the demand. The general public are getting frozen out of home ownership. 

It has been mostly our soulless, degenerate industrialists and manufacturers who have profited here in the last one hundred years by cheerfully dumping their toxic wastes wherever they bloody wanted to primarily at little to zero cost to themselves. They have externalized those environmental costs onto the general public, the old, the young and those in vulnerable health. They have also externalized the health costs onto wildlife and the overall environment, Government oversight by the M.O.E. or MECP has been a joke at best and that's been intentional. Governments and political parties like financial support especially around election times and it's their biggest beneficiaries who give the most. I describe them as semi legal bribes. 

This spring and summer I have written here about all the industrially contaminated wells and wellfields throughout Waterloo Region. Most of these firms have walked without ever paying their fair share. Probably they figured their government "bribes" were less expensive than proper disposal costs. 

Now for my "mean and cruel" water solution. Put the new arrivals from now on in designated second class water areas. Tell them ahead of time that if they want to live here that's how it's going to be. Older residents get the best, most expensively treated water and new ones get the less treated, more contaminated water. That way we should have lots of room for growth while slowly developing an obvious group of second class citizens who might just spark the overdue political revolution needed in this Region and country.  

When Bibi shows up for her weekly shift as a volunteer at House of Friendship’s Neighbourhood Food Program, she has one goal – to make it easier for the people who come every week, looking for help to feed their families.

“When the participants come to you, they look so down,” said Bibi. “I like to cheer them up, by asking them questions: ‘How are you today? What would you like?’

♦

“I try to put some joy into their life, to make them feel like they aren’t alone.”

When Bibi first started volunteering just over two years ago, she was surprised by how busy the program was.

“I didn’t realize how many people need help. They show up early, waiting to receive their food. That was a whole new experience for me.”

Every week at Chandler Mowat Community Centre, one of the centres where Bibi volunteers, 220 households come every week to pick up food for their families. And this is mirrored at five other community centres in Kitchener and Waterloo where House of Friendship also runs community programs. With one in nine households in Waterloo Region needing food support, keeping up with the ongoing demand is a challenge.

But when Bibi volunteers, she also works hard to build a connection with the people who come for help, no matter how busy they are.

When one woman shared that her husband was struggling with his mental health, Bibi was able to let her know about free counselling services available through House of Friendship.

“House of Friendship has all these services, I didn’t even know about until I volunteered,” said Bibi. “I was glad to tell her about the services we offer.”

A few weeks later, the woman came back to Bibi, thrilled with the results.

“She gave me a big hug and told me with the service he had, he’s doing much better. I was so happy I could help.”

Bibi said that she looks forward to volunteering every week, glad to have a meaningful way to make use of her free time in retirement.

“I’ve learned that everybody has a story to tell,” Bibi said. “Sometimes all it takes is someone willing to listen. A simple conversation can help people feel seen, heard, and cared for. If you can offer a little kindness and encouragement, it reminds them that they don’t have to face life’s challenges alone.”

To learn more about volunteering at House of Friendship, visit www.houseoffriendship.org/volunteer.

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AI adoption is creating work nobody sees, measures, or values.

A recent briefing from All Tech is Human, in collaboration with the Notre Dame-IBM Tech Ethics Lab, found that people are spending substantial time checking AI outputs for accuracy, hallucinations, compliance, and tone.

There’s also less visible AI office housework: training coworkers, managing anxiety about AI, encouraging AI adoption, and translating generic AI strategies into workable day-to-day practices.

And here’s something that caught my attention: participants reported that women are disproportionately asked to lead these cultural initiatives.

The briefing describes this work as being characterized as women’s work and devalued compared with more technical AI work.

Sound familiar?

We’ve long known that women often end up doing the office housework that keeps organizations running, but rarely gets recognized in performance reviews, promotions, or pay.

So, look around your organization and ask: Who is doing the AI housework? Who gets credit for it?

Then make the work visible. Recognize and reward it. And build it into someone’s role.

To further disrupt office housework, check out my five ideas for disrupting office housework.

Share this action on Instagram or LinkedIn.

Sponsor 5 Ally Actions and put your brand or business in front of 40,000 caring individuals in business, healthcare, education, and non-profits.

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Have you ever received a calendar invite titled “Quick chat” and immediately wondered, “Uh-oh. What did I do?”

HR director Justin Jackson shared a great example in a viral LinkedIn post.

On a Friday, he sent an employee an invitation for Monday at 9 a.m. titled “Quick chat.”

She spent the weekend updating her LinkedIn profile because she assumed she’d be fired.

The actual reason for the meeting? He was letting her know that a schedule change she’d requested had been approved.

“She laughed, exhaled, and asked me to never do that to her again.”

Jackson said that was the last vague invite he ever sent. Now, every invite states what it is about. For example,

• Schedule request, good news.
• Benefits form, nothing’s wrong.

And when he needs to have a difficult conversation, he sends the invitation and has the meeting the same day.

I keep spotting social media posts that use emojis as bullet points. Index fingers pointing to the right 👉, light bulbs 💡, and so on.

But if you use a screen reader, those symbols can get in the way.

As disability advocate Holly Tuke has explained,

“[Emojis as bullet points] are a nightmare for screen reader users. Not only is hearing the description of each emoji being read out before every sentence annoying, it’s also quite distracting.”

I’ll admit it: I used to do this myself. At the end of my newsletters, I share a list of actions (follow me on social media, form a Better Allies book club, etc.). I used to introduce each action with a colorful emoji. Today, that list uses simple bullets instead.

If you’re tempted to use emojis as bullets, consider switching to plain bullet points, or just a dash if your app doesn’t support formatting.

It’s a small change, but one that will make your content more accessible and inclusive.

“It’s okay to take small risks because there are people out there who take big risks. What we all do matters.” Timothy Snyder

Now, I get that not everyone works in a place free of consequences for making mistakes. (More on this below in #5.) Not everyone has the privilege to speak up without fearing they’ll lose their job. Not everyone feels they know enough to be effective allies.

But, here’s the thing. When we stand by when witnessing non-inclusive behaviors, we send the message that we’re okay with it. When we don’t take action, we are complicit.

As allies, we don’t have to do it all or take the big risks. But, I urge you to do something to advocate, amplify, and support your colleagues from underrepresented, underestimated groups. Even if it’s a less risky action.

Here are some ideas:

• Amplify voices in meetings.
• Acknowledge people’s ideas.
• Stop interruptions.
• Endorse coworkers.
• Sing someone’s praises.
• Share unwritten rules.

After reading about festivals of failure in my September 11 2026 newsletter, Joe Imholte reached out to say that while he loves the concept, he has a concern.

Specifically, when a coworker makes an equity-related mistake, some folks can’t seem to let the person move past that mistake. Even when that person truly learned from it, authentically apologized, and did everything you’d hope a person would do after making such a mistake.

Imholte wrote,

“We have become a culture that is terrible at forgiving, if we ever were good at it.”

He pointed to an article by Arianna Huffington and this powerful quote:

“Forgiveness doesn’t suspend judgment, it doesn’t mean not holding people accountable or ignoring injustices or forgetting the past. It simply allows the offender the possibility of atonement and progress.”

Imhote encourages us to realize that we all play a role in creating a culture where people can feel safe talking about mistakes, owning them, and doing better. He wrote,

“Part of that role is truly forgiving someone, and seeing who they are now, today, not the person they were when they made the mistake.”

I heartily agree.

If you’ve taken a step towards being a better ally, please reply to this email and tell me about it. And mention if I can quote you by name or credit you anonymously in an upcoming newsletter.

That’s all for this week. I’m glad you’re on this journey with me,

Karen Catlin (she/her), Author of the Better Allies® book series

100% written by me. I use AI for researching a personal archive of my books and past newsletters, and for light editing.

Copyright © 2026 Karen Catlin. All rights reserved.

Together, we can make a difference with the Better Allies® approach.

• Say thanks to Karen and buy her a coffee ☕ (Need a receipt for educational reimbursement? Reply to this email, and we’ll take care of it.)
• Sponsor an edition of this newsletter
• Follow @BetterAllies on Instagram, Medium, or YouTube. Or follow Karen Catlin on LinkedIn
• Read the Better Allies books
• Tell someone about these resources

Value AI Office Housework, and Other Actions for Allies was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

♦

The moment our Uber pulled up in front, it was clear that Montreal’s Mon Lapin in Petite Italie (Piccola Italia, if you prefer) was buzzing, evident from the lively patio activity on a warm September evening. Inside was the same energy and character, all carried off with a certain sprezzatura, I would say.

Mon Lapin might be referred to as a neighbourhood wine bar — and it absolutely has some interesting wines — but it’s more. The dining room, elegant and yet casual with suffused lighting, art work on the walls and an open kitchen with bar seating, was full: from tables of six or seven millennials (including an infant) to assorted two-tops of a wide age-range (one youthful pair, sadly, rarely looked up from their phones the entire night). Beside us were members of a small tech company from Toronto visiting Montreal for a conference; they spent much of the evening on their phones engaged in some sort of global multiplayer game, though they did have have some awareness of the quality of Mon Lapin. On the other side of us, a retired and well-heeled couple from Colorado who were passing through from Canada’s east coast: they told me that they absolutely loved their evening. I was happy to hear that.

A “Michelin-Recommended” restaurant, Mon Lapin, open since 2018, holds that distinction by virtue of high-quality ingredients and proper cookery, according to the inspectors who work for Mr. Bibendum. Their judgment when it comes to such a recommendation is, given the category, a kitchen that serves a “good meal” and food that is “above average” but not quite at the Michelin star level.

I beg to differ: I will say that, with the exception of a slightly underwhelming tuna crudo and Concord grape dish, the food on this night was star-worthy. (Having been to a starred restaurant in downtown Toronto, I can say — with certainty — Mon Lapin was superior.)

That level of execution is the work of co-chefs Jessica Noël and Marc-Olivier Frappier, and team, along with the alumni history the restaurant shares with the inimitable Joe Beef. Importantly, Mon Lapin also ranks No. 2 on Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants.

The menu is one for not merely grazing and sharing but demands thoughtful and reflective savouring: a number of courses are what make the experience special. The simplicity of the marinated leeks, the lovely halibut, for example. A beef dish.

While the kitchen continuously changes these dishes, as a restaurant of this quality should, there is at least one consistent star of the menu that from all reports is something of a permanent fixture. And deservedly so: imagine the “Mr. Crunchy” sandwich called croque Monsieur but with a bivalve mollusk at its heart and you have Mon Lapin’s croque-pétoncle.

It’s inventive and delicious and seems unlikely — and at the same time it exudes a comfort-food grilled-sammie homey-ness, but elevated. A sort of compressed “cutlet” of minced and succulent scallop is nestled between gorgeous pain de mie slices grilled with beurre noisette, the morsel captures just about perfectly the blending of scallop flavour and soft and creamy texture against gentle crispiness.

While we finished the evening with a highlight of a small tasting of amaro and after-dinner sips, somehow, it was the little paper wrappers enveloping the perfectly tidy rectangular scallop sandwiches so casually, yet artfully, that made the most impact. They revealed the sprezzatura character that helps make Mon Lapin, as their cool t-shirt proclaims, “absolutely beautiful.”

Banner image/Dominique Lafond

Check out my latest post Mon Lapin for delicious croque-pétoncle from AndrewCoppolino.com.

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Bioremediation. Enhanced Bioremediation. Bioremediation with Amendments. Enhanced Bioremediation with Amendments.  Super Duper Technically Advanced Bioremediation Endorsed by Ramin Ansari, Dr. David Ash , Steve Quigley, Allan Deal, Lou Almeida plus one hundred totally groundwater ignorant Lanxess employees. There I singlehandedly have cleaned the Elmira Aquifers by the power of words. No more need to spend time, money and human effort.

Cullen Flanders of Onterris  would have us believe that chlorobenzene can be removed from groundwater via Bioremediation. Hmm. So does the U.S. EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) . How strange a million years ago (it seems that long) there were discussions about using a company by the name of Grace Dearborn to spread contaminated soils on the east side surface of Uniroyal Chemical to bacterially break down the contaminants. My understanding is that this would be referred to as ex-situ Bioremediation or out of the ground Bioremediation. Cullen Flanders is suggesting in-situ Bioremediation or if you will ...in place or on site Bioremediation. UPAC was told that the ex-situ Bioremediation was unacceptable for three reasons. One it would likely stink to high heaven and two it would take far too long to break down the very difficult chlorinated solvents that were highly resistant to bacteria. Thirdly and this also speaks to timing is the fact that bacteria at the surface won't be active during cold winter months (say five months per year). 

Perhaps Cullen Flanders has a wonderful product that operates on a similar principle to skyhooks. The issue is that Bioremediation works for dissolved chlorobenzene and not NDMA or likely another hundred different contaminants beneath both the Lanxess site and other parts of Elmira. Anyone ever heard of Bioremediation working on DDT, dioxins or PCBs?  Me neither which is why those compounds and many others are referred to as POPs or PERSISTENT Organic Pollutants. Secondly if chlorobenzene can be degraded by bacteria both in shallow aerobic soils and in deeper anaerobic soils then why after literally decades in our aquifers and soils is it still there? That's because as the dissolved chlorobenzene degrades in the aquifers it is replaced by slowly dissolving chlorobenzene both on and off site by either free phase or residual DNAPL both of which have been proven to be on the Lanxess site as well as off their site underneath Elmira.

That is the nature of DNAPLS which was totally ignored by all parties including APTE in January 1994 when Rich Clausi, myself and Esther Thur (one of the three APTE founders) resigned and walked out of APTE. At the time I thought APTE leadership were merely in error when in fact it was much worse. Now decades later Woolwich Township's naive and deferential TRAC committee are holding their breaths, crossing their fingers and wishing on a star that Cullen Flanders and Onterris will be the magic cleanup bullet. If this plan was introduced by a company not being paid by Lanxess or supervised by GHD and the Ontario Ministry of Environment (MECP), it might have a smidgen of credibility. Otherwise anything introduced and endorsed by those three dishonest, manipulative and corrupt (mostly MECP) groups isn't worth squat. They and their predecessors have utterly failed and utterly lied to us the public for the last thirty-seven years. How stupid do we have to be to keep believing their shi* ?    

For buyers searching for a luxury home in Kitchener that offers exceptional space, privacy and a backyard designed for everyday enjoyment, 50 Roehampton Court is a rare opportunity.

Tucked away on a quiet court in the sought-after Idlewood neighbourhood, this impressive executive home sits on an oversized pie-shaped lot backing onto a mature treed greenbelt. With more than 5,200 square feet of finished living space, four bedrooms, five bathrooms, a private main-floor office and a resort-style backyard with a heated saltwater pool and hot tub, the property delivers a combination that is increasingly difficult to find in Kitchener.

One of the standout features of 50 Roehampton Court is its setting.

Located on a quiet court in Idlewood, the home benefits from an oversized lot surrounded by mature trees and backing directly onto a greenbelt. The result is a level of privacy that feels removed from the city while remaining close to everyday amenities.

Idlewood is an established Kitchener neighbourhood known for its mature streets, access to parks and trails, proximity to Chicopee and convenient connections throughout the city. From 50 Roehampton Court, residents are minutes from schools, shopping, recreation and major commuter routes.

For buyers who value both privacy and accessibility, the location offers the best of both.

Inside, the scale of the home becomes immediately apparent.

The main level combines formal entertaining spaces with comfortable everyday living. Separate living and dining rooms provide room for hosting, while the spacious kitchen serves as the centre of the home.

Designed with extensive cabinetry, stone countertops, premium appliances and a large centre island, the kitchen offers generous space for cooking, gathering and entertaining. A bright breakfast area provides direct access to the deck, creating an easy connection between the indoor living areas and the backyard.

The adjoining great room overlooks the property and features a gas fireplace and custom built-ins, creating a warm, inviting space for everyday living.

A powder room and laundry and mudroom with direct garage access complete the main level.

A dedicated main-floor office adds another level of functionality.

Positioned away from the primary living spaces, the room provides a comfortable setting for working from home while maintaining privacy from the rest of the household.

For buyers requiring additional bedroom space, the office also offers the potential to function as a fifth bedroom.

Upstairs, four spacious bedrooms are complemented by three full bathrooms.

The primary suite feels more like a private retreat than a traditional bedroom. Vaulted ceilings create an immediate sense of volume, while a separate lounge offers space for reading, relaxing or creating a private sitting area.

A second laundry area adds everyday convenience, and an upper-level balcony provides another quiet place to enjoy the surrounding setting.

An oversized walk-in closet provides extensive storage, while the spa-inspired five-piece ensuite features heated flooring, a tiled glass shower and a freestanding soaker tub.

The upper level continues to prioritize comfort and privacy. A second bedroom includes its own five-piece ensuite with heated flooring, while two additional bedrooms share a four-piece bathroom.

The finished lower level dramatically expands the home’s living and entertaining space.

An expansive recreation room with a gas fireplace provides room for multiple seating areas, while a dedicated games area is currently configured for indoor hockey.

A full bar creates a natural gathering place for entertaining, complemented by a four-piece bathroom and direct walk-up access to the backyard.

With the amount of finished space available, the lower level can easily accommodate movie nights, games, fitness equipment, entertaining or extended family living.

The home is equipped with a Control4 smart-home system, integrating technology throughout key areas of the property.

Lighting, climate, entertainment and built-in audio can be managed through the system, providing a streamlined approach to controlling the home’s everyday functions.

For a property of this scale, the added convenience of integrated smart-home technology makes the living experience even more seamless.

The backyard is one of the property’s most impressive features.

Mature trees surround the outdoor living spaces, creating exceptional privacy around the heated saltwater pool and hot tub.

Expansive deck and patio areas offer multiple spaces for dining, lounging and entertaining, while a gazebo provides a covered outdoor retreat. Landscaped grounds complete the setting, creating a backyard that feels more like a private resort than a typical residential property.

Whole-property irrigation simplifies landscape maintenance, while automated pool systems make managing the outdoor amenities easier throughout the season.

Backing directly onto the treed greenbelt further enhances the sense of privacy and creates a peaceful backdrop rarely found within the city.

The home’s scale and presentation continue at the front of the property.

An interlocking stone driveway leads to the double garage, while mature landscaping complements the home’s executive exterior.

Inside and out, the property has been designed to accommodate both large-scale entertaining and comfortable everyday living.

Located in east Kitchener, Idlewood offers convenient access to some of the area’s best outdoor recreation and everyday amenities.

Residents are close to Chicopee, neighbourhood parks and trails, schools, shopping and major transportation routes. Highway access makes commuting throughout Waterloo Region and beyond straightforward, while Downtown Kitchener and other major employment and entertainment areas remain within easy reach.

For buyers searching for a home in Kitchener that provides more land, privacy and living space without sacrificing convenience, Idlewood continues to be an attractive option.

Homes offering this combination of 5,200+ square feet of finished living space, a private greenbelt lot, saltwater pool, extensive entertaining areas and a quiet court location are rarely available in Kitchener.

50 Roehampton Court offers the space of a substantial executive residence with the privacy and outdoor lifestyle buyers often have to leave the city to find.

If you have been searching for a luxury home for sale in Kitchener, this is one to see in person.

Interested in 50 Roehampton Court? Contact The Deutschmann Team to learn more about the property or arrange a private showing.

The post A Rare Idlewood Home With a Private Resort-Style Backyard appeared first on Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate Agent - The Deutschmann Team.

Position Title: Board of Directors Location: Remote across Canada Type: Unpaid volunteer position

Application deadline: October 21, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. ET

Start date: February 2027

Girl Guides of Canada (GGC) is seeking three volunteers to serve on the Board of Directors as Directors-at-Large. We are looking for individuals with expertise in the following areas:

• Youth perspective (age 18-30), particularly with lived experience in the Guiding program.
•  Leadership experience: extensive experience in a leadership role, in either employment, volunteer or extra-curricular capacity.
• Human resources experience: expertise in an oversight or advisory capacity in human resources-related role, including responsibilities related to strategy, policies, compensation and benefits, organizational culture, succession planning and performance evaluation of a CEO.
• Preferred experience in a membership association: professional experience as a staff member, volunteer or Board Director responsible for governance in a membership organization.

Experience with the Guiding program is an asset.

Girl Guides of Canada (GGC) is a leading positive youth development organization, helping girls and youth ages 5–17 build confidence, resilience and the skills they need to thrive. In a safe, inclusive space, girls in Guiding form lasting friendships, explore new interests and develop critical leadership and future-ready skills. Through innovative, girl-driven experiences ranging from outdoor adventures to community engagement, girls and youth gain the confidence, support and connections they need to make a meaningful impact in their community and beyond.Mission: To be a catalyst for girls empowering girls.

As the governing body of GGC, the Board of Directors is committed to the Mission and Vision of GGC and acts in the best interests of the organization. The Board consists of between ten and fourteen members. These Board members functions as a group, but each Director has specific, individual responsibilities. Every Board member is expected to act honestly and in good faith in exercising their powers and discharging their duties with a view to the best interests of GGC.

Board members are expected to understand and maintain confidentiality and avoid any potential conflicts of interest.

• Oversight of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
• Strategic planning
• Financial oversight
• Governance
• Monitoring organizational performance
• Risk management
• Board and Director development and evaluation
• People and Culture
• Crisis management.
• Fund development
• External relationships

Board Directors are voting members at the Annual General Meeting.

Members of the Board are volunteers and, as such, serve without compensation. Expenses incurred in conducting regular Board business will be reimbursed.

GGC is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion. We value a recruitment and selection process that is inclusive and barrier-free and, as such, encourage applications from individuals who are racialized, Indigenous, people from the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, people with disabilities and other equity-deserving groups. GGC welcomes women – cisgender and transgender – as well as non-binary people who are comfortable in spaces that focus on and are driven by the experience of girls and youth to apply to our Board.

The Board meets four to five times a year. A maximum of two of these meetings are held in person while the other meetings are conducted virtually. A regular schedule of meetings will be set at least six months in advance, with meeting agenda and other meeting material sent at least one week in advance.

All Board Directors are also expected to sit on a Board Committee and engage in Committee work and meetings.

GGC’s Board is a working board. This role requires between five to fifteen hours per month or more for larger portfolios.

Board Directors hold their positions for a three-year term, with the possibility of extension. The term begins February 2027 and will finish February 2030.

For more information and to apply, please visit Girl Guides of Canada’s website.

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If you’re looking for work and finding the process difficult, there may be a barrier getting in the way. A barrier to employment is anything that can make it more difficult to prepare for, find or keep a job. And barriers can look different for everyone.

Someone might have limited work experience or be unsure how to create a résumé. Someone else might find interviews challenging, need accommodations because of a disability or have been away from the workforce for a long time. Sometimes the biggest barrier is simply not knowing where to start.♦

Barriers to employment can include:

• Limited work experience
• Difficulty creating a résumé or completing job applications
• Feeling unsure or uncomfortable during interviews
• Not knowing what type of work matches your skills and interests
• A disability or need for workplace accommodations
• Being away from employment for a period of time
• Difficulty understanding workplace expectations
• Needing additional support to learn or succeed in a new role

Having a barrier to employment doesn’t mean you can’t work. It simply means there may be something making your path to employment more challenging, and some additional support could help.

♦KW Career Compass works with adults in Waterloo Region who experience barriers to employment. Employment support isn’t about deciding what job someone should have. It starts with getting to know the person: their strengths, interests, experiences and goals.

Depending on where someone is in their employment journey, support may include:

• Building job-readiness skills
• Preparing a résumé and cover letter
• Practising for interviews
• Exploring employment opportunities
• Connecting with employers
• Preparing to start a new job

Job coaching and on-the-job support may also be available depending on the person’s needs, eligibility and current program capacity.

Sometimes the first step isn’t applying for a job. KW Career Compass offers job-readiness opportunities, including LEG Up! to Work, for adults 18+ who experience barriers to employment. Participants have opportunities to build practical employment skills, including résumé and cover letter development, interview practice, workplace expectations, receiving feedback and understanding their own skills and strengths.

The goal is to help people feel more prepared and confident as they take their next step toward employment.

Removing barriers to employment isn’t only the responsibility of job seekers. KW Career Compass also works with employers to help create employment relationships that work for both the employee and the employer. That can include helping employers connect with candidates, supporting someone’s transition into a new position and helping create a workplace where people have an opportunity to contribute their skills.

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, but creating more inclusive employment opportunities is work that happens throughout the year.

For KW Career Compass, that means helping people identify their strengths, build skills, find opportunities and take meaningful steps toward their employment goals.

Looking for help finding a job in Kitchener-Waterloo?

Learn more about KW Career Compass →

The post What Is a Barrier to Employment? appeared first on KW Habilitation.

I do not believe that 100% of consultants are disreputable, client driven liars. It would seem reasonable however to suspect that consultants working long term for proven, lying polluters may very well be so. I have a ton of respect for many credentialed professionals including Dr. Richard Jackson, Dr. Henry Regier and with much less exposure to him, Dr. Neil Thompson of the University of Waterloo. Included in my high respect list of course is both Dr. Beth Parker and Dr. John Cherry. I am well aware of some of the excellent hydrogeological work they have done in particular regarding DNAPLS.

  AI (Artificial Intelligence) can be a very helpful tool just as an encyclopedia or other published reports and data lists are. AI however does not attend meetings directly nor listen to human voices generally speaking. I do not know whether AI even has access to on-line audio/video recordings of meetings such as those of Woolwich Township's well behaved and always polite TRAC committee. The old joke/saying is that they would not say shi* if their mouth was full of it and while I commend their members for their restraint I also advise that restraint of that magnitude simply breeds arrogance and disrespect when dealing with unethical, dishonest persons and groups.

AI also can be manipulated by those very same unethical and dishonest persons and groups. AI is not the repository of all knowledge. Hence if an unethical person does not like AI's answer to a question they can respond with inaccurate, alleged facts in an attempt to sway AI's answers which is entirely possible. Also AI appears quite capable of accepting blatantly illogical and scientifically inaccurate information and repeating it just because the majority of people accept it. This includes character profiles based upon the inaccurate, published profiles of others. For example if the only published data about a former Prime Minister is positive than AI will give him/her a glowing report. Think of Sir John A. McDonald as a founder of Canada and then as a founder of the brutal, residential school systems. Two different pictures arrive.

I recently schooled AI about their mistaken interpretation of chlorobenzene concentrations off the former Uniroyal Chemical site. Their sources included shabby DNAPL reports done by CRA as well as recent pronouncements by GHD consultants. AI's logic was faulty based upon one sided positions taken by consultants paid for by Lanxess Canada. AI also quoted Dr. Neil Thompson's Conceptual Site Model (CSM) as supporting their interpretation. Now I have a copy of that CSM and my recollection is that it was generally excellent however with a couple of possible errors most likely due to bad information being supplied by Lanxess or GHD. AI's position may have been due to either bad initial information given to Dr. Thompson or it may have simply been GHD misquoting or taking one of Dr. Thompson's statements out of context. In other words AI is just as vulnerable to spreading misinformation as other sources are. Hopefully however AI's mistakes are honest mistakes not malicious, intentional ones.