My first major project with the City of Nepean saw me traveling from event to event with a maquette of the proposed new City Hall which was being constructed on Centrepointe Drive. Our message for taxpayers: this is your facility, and we are proud to tell you that it’s already paid for. This was, needless to say, a good news message, and a great introduction to the business of PR.
We also travelled with a slab of Nepean sandstone into which residents were invited to help us carve the city’s official Coat of Arms. My partner and co-facilitator in the exhibit was a man named Robert Brown, a third-generation stone carver whose family had helped build the Rideau Canal. After two years of public events around the region (and with a little final help from Robert), the finished product was installed outside the Council Chambers of the new building.
As I lead my first tour of the new facility when it opened in 1988, that Coat of Arms was there to remind me of the thousands of conversations I’d had with Nepean residents leading up to the unveiling. I recognized many of the faces of the young amateur carvers as they roamed the new library and theatre spaces. And I knew that I’d been part of a great PR project. One which I could come back and visit for many years to come.
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