HISTORY OF SCOTIA BUSINESS CENTRE LIMITED
Scotia Business Centre originated from the efforts of various
Lunenburg County groups and individuals to identify and target
the needs of single parents. In June 1977, developmental funds
were obtained from LEAP (Local Employment Assistance Program)
to establish Scotia Business Centre to provide telephone answering
along with office support, office overload, photocopying, bookkeeping
services and wake-up calls.
The business officially opened on January 3, 1978, with its objective
to employ and train single parents and strive to become a viable
operation. In June of 1979, Scotia Business Centre became incorporated
and over the following years, under the direction of its volunteer
Board of Directors and a series of office managers, has grown
into a creditable business operation.
Scotia Business Centre has been operating without LEAP assistance
since 1984 and is one of the few LEAP projects to survive its
subsidized stage and become a viable business.
The business community has come to rely on us and we have expanded
our services to include voice paging, alarm and fire phone monitoring,
police dispatching, facsimile mailing, word processing, and legal
discovery service, as well as the original telephone answering/secretarial
services. We now boast a regular clientele of approximately 200
customers.
During the first years of operation, staff had been limited to
single parents, many of whom had little previous training and
limited job experience. Training was provided by Scotia Business
Centre.
As Scotia Business Centre grew, both in number of clients and
number of services provided, qualified staff became a prerequisite
to both obtain and retain credibility among the businesses it
serves. Thus, hiring practices had to change and qualified personnel
were hired outside the target group, if there were no single parents
readily available.
In September of 1985, the Board of Directors decided to sell
Scotia Business Centre Limited. Although the building and equipment
formed some tempting assets, the business itself had only recently
become a profit-making operation and no buyers could be found.
In late 1985, Nancy Cassidy - who had been managing the business
for two years - and her husband, Doug, took an option on the business
and operated it as a team for 6 months. Several significant changes
were made during the option period with regard to staffing, pricing
and increasing efficiency (mostly by decreasing expenses, wasted
energies and wasted resources). In mid-July, 1986, Nancy Cassidy
bought Scotia Business Centre.
In October 1995, the building and business was sold to Yvonne
Townsend who had started with the company October 2, 1984; becoming
assistant manager in 1990. The mission and philosophy of the business;
to provide effective communication services at a reasonable cost
and that the office must be a pleasant and interesting place to
work, stayed the same. Yvonne focused on updating aged equipment,
and tried to slowly adjust staff and herself to her new role of “owner” as
opposed to “co-worker”. The business once again became
incorporated (Scotia Business Centre Limited) in July 1998.
Emergency Services:
- Bridgewater Police Dispatch (fixed-schedule and on-call
1980 - 2005)
- Fire Dispatch (36 fire departments)
- Private and Public Security Alarm Monitoring
- Elevator Phone Monitoring
- Utilities Systems Monitoring
- Fan-out Telephone Notification (for community emergencies)
- Ambulance Dispatch (6 month period in 1998)
General Business Services:
- Alphanumeric Paging
- Private Radio Dispatch
- Telephone Answering (approx. 80 business clients)
- Public Faxing, Photocopying
- Word-processing
- Court Reporting
- Temporary Personnel and Employee Placement
- Bookkeeping
Personnel:
- Employs 6 full-time and one part-time staff on site, as
well as temporary personnel off site. All staff have taken
post-secondary training, primarily in the secretarial field.
- One staff member is a volunteer fire-fighter.
- One staff member successfully completed the Fire Communications
Course through the Association of Public-Safety Communications
Officials (APCO Institute). (2002)
- 2 staff on duty Monday-Saturday 9am-7pm; Sun 10am-4pm.
- One staff on duty remaining times; one person on-call at
all times.
Building:
- Company-owned, 2 storey, 26' x 40' building in downtown
Bridgewater.
- Commercial space on street level, SBC on top floor.
- Full unfinished basement.
- Gas generator for backup power during power outages.
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