March 03, 2004

Editorial by Maril Swan, The Tweed News 

This week, Tweed will experience a sort of good news/bad news event.  The Tweed Residents Survey will be going out, enclosed with your tax bill.   The bad news is, of course, your property taxes owing for this year.  The good news is that now is your chance to have your opinions considered and acted upon, when you fill out and return the residents survey.
The Tweed Residents Survey is the next phase by the Chamber of Commerce and Community Futures Development Corporation (CFDC), who are gathering data about the Municipality of Tweed.  This data will help to form the basis of planning for the revitalization of the region.  The first phase was the business survey, which was conducted with 30 area businesses last fall.  The results were reported in The Tweed News and at the meeting held on February 18, at Hungerford Hall.
Your name and address are not required for this survey - only some information about your buying habits, size of your household, your opinions on the current and future developments for Tweed, and so on.
This information is vitally important to help with understanding the needs and wants of the community, so we can plan our next moves.
You get to have your say on such questions as, "What are Tweed's 3 greatest strengths?" and "What 3 things need to be improved in Tweed?".  In addition, you are asked to rate the existing services and facilities, according to the present and ten years in the future.  If you have more to say on any subject, you can continue on a separate piece of paper and attach it to your survey.
The completed surveys can be dropped off in a sealed envelope at the Tweed Municipal Office c/o CFDC, or mailed to CFDC, P.O. Box 517, Bancroft, ON K0L 1C0, or faxed to 613-332-5628.  The forms should be sent in by March 31, 2004.
The questionnaire is brief, anonymous and vitally important for the community.  A good return on mail-in surveys is about 5 per cent.  Let's get our return as close to 100 percent as possible.
On March 8, at 7:00 p.m., in Hungerford Hall, the Chamber of Commerce and Community Futures is holding a second meeting regarding their plans for marketing this community, and will share some exciting news about upcoming events.