Working together in South Dundas
The South Dundas Tourist Pursuit App launch at the Stone Crop Acres Winery and Vineyard on Wed., June 23 featured all of the various members of the collaborating team of people who made the App possible. Left to right are: James Dupuis, MPP Jim McDonell, St. Lawrence College CEO Glenn Vollebregt, South Dundas Mayor Stephen Byvelds, Deputy Mayor Kirsten Gardener and Noreen Hyatt-Gervais. Morin Photo
SOUTH DUNDAS – The South Dundas Tourism Pursuit App reinvents discovering fun places in a novel way to visit while promoting South Dundas tourism at its best.
The tourism application was launched at Stone Crop Acres Winery and Vineyard on Wed., June 23. The winery captured the flavor of the tourism app and celebrated the collaboration between the municipality and St. Lawrence College that made the joint venture a success.
South Dundas Deputy mayor Kirsten Gardner introduced the app at the launch by applauding the work done by Rob Hunter the municipality’s economic development officer. She said, “Who would have thought that a brainstorming session by our tourism committee in September of last year, during a pandemic nonetheless, would have lead to us being here today.”
The app can be downloaded from Google Play or the App Store.
The App features 20 participating South Dundas locations. Each location is represented by a badge. Once you arrive at a particular location on the app you can open the app and use it to scan a sign at that location that will have a QR code. The code allows you to capture that badge. The idea is to collect all of the badges featured on the app.
Some of the badges contain mini-games you can enjoy.
South Dundas Mayor Stephen Byvelds said, “Tourism is extremely important in South Dundas. It is something that we as a council have taken on. It just does not happen. We collaborate with those who in the tourism business who work together. Working together gets people here and how we get people from one event to another or one attraction to another is key.”
He said the tourism app will certainly help. It is unique and good for South Dundas. The tourism committee has worked real hard and is a key developer of this project along with working with St. Lawrence College.
He said, “Education has always been near and dear to my heart and to work with locally located students in a collaboration in this regard is great.”
The app was developed in a collaboration between the municipalities tourism committee led by Norene Hyatt-Gervais the chair of the Tourism Advisory Committee and St. Lawrence College.
She said, “The idea for South Dundas Tourism Pursuit came out of a brainstorming session in 2020 and we felt it was a wonderful opportunity for collaboration with the talented students and teaching professionals of St. Lawrence College.
Rob Hunter took the idea and ran with it, enlisting the help and expertise of other municipal staff along the way.”
The president and CEO of St. Lawrence College, Glenn Vollebregt was also at the App launch.
He said, “This App and how it came to be is an absolutely fantastic demonstration of the power of collaboration and how, as a community college, St. Lawrence works to support industry – in this case, tourism, and also connections – in this case for our students with practical experience during their program, which will in turn result in many new connections for people in the region to all that South Dundas has to offer.”
He introduced James Dupuis who teaches Game Programming at the college who along with a team of college students brought the App to life.
Joseph Morin is the Editor of the Eastern Ontario AgriNews, and the Record. He is, despite years of practice, determined to eventually play the guitar properly. He has served the Eastern Ontario community as a news editor, and journalist for the past 25 years with the Iroquois Chieftain, Kemptville Advance, West Carleton Review, and Ottawa Carleton Review in Manotick. He has never met a book he did not like.
