Human Resources committee  Thank you. The duration is important, but the flexibility is also in the way the hours are structured. With its being eight weeks, the students that we hired needed to have alternative employment. We wanted to stretch that over the course of 11 weeks, but we were unable to do so because it reduced the hours underneath the 30-hour requirement over the course of a week.

Human Resources committee  That's correct. Based on the funding, we try to make our camps and our summer activities flexible. We try to bake in flexibility for our camps so that we can respond appropriately with the type of employment that we are going to be offering or that we receive funding for.

Human Resources committee  Thank you for the question. It's similar to Tracey's response earlier. Finding talent early is critical, because often—especially when they're keen—they try to source those opportunities early. One thing we find, too, is that we're having to think through whether we put an asterisk on our job posting that says, “if the funding is available”.

Human Resources committee  I think Tracey mentioned that as early as April 15 is helpful. The students are already finding opportunities by then, but that's at least a positive direction.

Human Resources committee  We have hired anywhere from—we're small—one to three students while I've been the executive director. All of the funding comes from Canada summer jobs.

Human Resources committee  It's similar, because it's been done before. I think the standardization of it seems to be fairly straightforward. Thank you.

Human Resources committee  Thank you for the question. Yes, I believe that would be beneficial. It would allow for the increase of time over the summer months. It would also help facilitate some of the flexibility. Thank you.

Human Resources committee  I would also support that. Again, we serve our local community and try to do that with excellence. We are finding, similar to Tracey, that the students are from university and college. We have to get them early, and they're often local—so yes.

Human Resources committee  Clarity is always helpful. I think it promotes honesty and integrity in the process.

Human Resources committee  We would have to try to find ways to fund the position. It's critical funding for us. When we look at our budget over the year, in some cases, we would have to go without hiring a student. We would have to try to make it work with the staff we currently have, and that would affect the number of children and young people we could have in our program in the summer, as I mentioned at the beginning with regard to ratios.

Human Resources committee  No, it's okay.

Human Resources committee  Thank you for the invitation to be here today. As you heard, I'm the executive director for Big Brothers Big Sisters. Big Brothers Big Sisters of Peterborough is a well known non-profit in the Peterborough area that empowers young individuals in our community. Our mission is to foster positive mentoring relationships between young people and caring mentors, to enable them to reach their full potential.