GRAVELBOURG, Sask. – Gravelbourg’s glory has anchored the south end of
Main Street for decades.
The grand, yellow brick, twin-spired Catholic cathedral is a tourist
draw to this 96-year-old town in southern Saskatchewan.
But facing the cathedral from the other end of Main Street is a newer
face of fame for the town. Businessperson and consultant Monica Coneys
lives in the former railway station and works from an office in a
nearby caboose.
Coneys and her inspired band of entrepreneurs have revitalized the
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francophone town and brought encouragement to the province’s rural
business climate.
Gravelbourg’s appeal had been going stale, said Coneys, and when she
arrived from South Africa seven years ago to join her doctor husband,
she was horrified at her new rural life. She felt limited by the
community’s expectations of her role as the doctor’s wife, and by the
standard restaurant fare of chicken wings and fries with gravy.
But the woman who had run a chain of retail stores in Africa didn’t
stay depressed for long. She put her thoughts into a lively
presentation and started speaking for free at meetings in Legion halls
around the countryside.
Word spread of her audacious presentation in which she makes fun of
Saskatchewan’s propensity to live in the past, shambling along with
dreams of next-year country. Coneys draws some people’s dislike for
proudly proclaiming she has never cooked a turkey for a fowl supper.
Her slogan – paint is good – also stung people who won’t fix up or tear
down an old, unused building because of its history.
But mixed with her mocking is a plan to energize small prairie
communities and drop traditions she feels stifle creativity. Coneys
says rural Saskatchewanians do not have to settle for lower standards.
The myth-challenger, who now charges up to $1,500 per workshop, acts on
her ideals. She began by buying an abandoned house in Lafleche, Sask.,
for $1. Then she talked to people who were interested in starting a
business but who had no confidence or opportunity.
“I can appreciate talent,” said Coneys. “I’m not helping everybody out.
I’m just gathering people around me with different skill sets.”
Using her own money, she put them in the little house with free rent
and utilities. They had to make their own wages by making and selling
crafts, food and services such as dry cleaning. The venture paid off
and by 1995 there were 15 operations of varying size in and around
Marmalade Cottage. Coneys got out and left them to succeed or fail on
their own while she went on to other plans.
She continued speaking around the province to get the money to start
similar systems she calls hives. Two years ago in Gravelbourg, she
bought the theatre that had been closed. She recruited another group of
people willing to make a go of the business. A good cleaning and
refurbishing of the seats and the theatre is now showing movies three
nights a week, offering seating for 200 for public meetings, hosting
concerts and a music rave for area youth.
Space at the front of the theatre is occupied by a cafe that displays
pottery and paintings by local artists and, upstairs, a beauty spa is
opening this month.
The theatre also sports an exterior of bright yellow paint with
decorative wrought iron.
Not all of Coneys’ businesspeople succeed. She said sometimes they do
not work as hard or as smart as necessary to make a living wage.
Coneys said she has learned not to push people into doing something
they are reluctant to do.
Now she talks with prospective entrepreneurs and selects and encourages
those of a similar mentality and energy.
Coneys calls her system ubunto, an African word meaning working with
everyone. She is worried that people will think her efforts are a
one-woman show. It isn’t, she said, because she can’t be hand-holding
people’s businesses. She doesn’t push suggestions, preferring them to
bubble out of the individual’s passion. But she does set standards,
insisting the businesses are clean, bright and stylish and offer
quality.
“The guy who runs the theatre is 17. He’s in school, in cadets and has
signing authority over my cheques.”
Delores Boutin, who moved to Gravelbourg last summer from a French area
of New Brunswick, is another recruit to Coneys’ system. She runs Fleur
de Lys café, making light gourmet meals from scratch with an inventive
presentation featuring fruit, greens and fancy breads.
It is not for everyone, particularly a group of three that leaves this
day when they find chicken soup with egg white, Greek salad and crab
sandwiches too unfamiliar for lunch.
“When she can succeed, I’ll boot her out and she can set up her own
restaurant in town,” said Coneys. “I’m not anti-competition.”
For a woman who says she is “bad on details,” Coneys has a lot of balls
in the air.
There is La Petit Marche, a small shop across from the theatre packed
with consignment crafts, other items, a wine making shop and soon, a
bookstore. She is working with a woman in Moose Jaw to develop a bus
tour package that will draw visitors from the spa to Gravelbourg to see
the cathedral, stroll the streets, buy at the shops and eat in the
cafes.
Coneys is working on plans to bring in a drama or dance troupe to
entertain the tourists and fill the theatre stage. One of her young
entrepreneurs has a business called Parties Taylor Made that does event
planning.
Coneys has bought and is renovating
another house to become her new office because the caboose is destined
to become an ice cream parlour this summer. She hopes to entice a woman
to do aboriginal crafts in her new building. If that is successful she
wants to work with more aboriginals, because she said they are the
province’s future.
To those who think she is lending a helping hand, Coneys bluntly said
she is in it to make money. She also encourages competition, which some
in Saskatchewan, used to loyalty to one business, may find strange. She
explained her “benevolent capitalism” by using the analogy of owning a
racehorse.
“I own the horse but I don’t chop it into pieces to give everyone a
share. I give someone the job of feeding it, stabling it or being the
jockey. Everyone has to make sure that racehorse is healthy.”
Others have taken up the cause by developing a European street theme
for the town. Some on the Taste of Europe committee are talking about
an international wine and food event June 21 to be held during
Gravelbourg’s one-year-old summer solstice festival. A member of that
committee, Toos Giesen, runs a motel in town and has two sidelines. One
is selling fine Dutch chocolates, the other is making vests. She also
is on the Santa Claus parade committee that put a new spin on an old
tradition by holding the parade at night. Giesen said “people just need
a bit of motivation” to change their habits.
Another recruit to the new style is Judy Reiman, who two years ago
renovated the exterior of her accountancy office with green paint and
wrought iron so it resembles a French bistro. She jokes about “doing a
Monica” by charging ahead with a project and having faith that the
money to pay for it will come.
A Vancouver man impressed by Coneys’ ideas opened up a homeware design
store called Styles that draws customers from Moose Jaw and Saskatoon.
He is expanding into furniture this summer.
Badlands Recreation Association youth consultant Marjorie Nagel credits
Coneys’ can-do attitude for making things happen. But she also notes
the town bought in and has done things on its own from her initial push.
Town aldermen Raymond Lizée and Danny Lamarre support Coneys.
“She made us open our eyes and see if our town was to survive it needed
a vision. She started the vision. She was one of the first businesses
(to change),” said Lamarre.
Lizée said in recent years the town has added a professional go-cart
race in July, is planting trees for a community forest and moved the
museum to a more prominent spot on the Main Street.
Meanwhile Coneys finds life more satisfying than when she moved here.
She gives credit to her tolerant husband and to her circle of friends.
But another part is due to her personality and consulting business.
“I’ve put 162,000 kilometres in the last three years in my little red
car,” said Coneys. “I’ve spoken in Ottawa, Newfoundland, Edmonton,
Calgary, Winnipeg, Vancouver and Victoria. And they found me in rural
Saskatchewan. This idea you have to live in a big city is wrong.”
