By IAN ROSS
Deep in the heart of northwestern Ontario's forestry country, the Dryden Regional Training and Cultural Centre is a little known gem of high quality meeting space.
The modern $7 million high-tech building in Dryden's downtown serves in multiple duties as an adult learning centre, conference venue and music hall.
For the community of 8,200, it's become a popular gathering place for concerts, educational workshops, anniversaries, cocktail parties and business meetings.
John Carlucci, the centre's events and facility coordinator, even booked his own July wedding reception there.
"It's a real inviting facility with art work throughout the place and stained glass."
The 34,000-square foot venue, characterized by its distinctive sloping glass atrium roof, framed in wood, serves as the main lobby and reception area.
Further inside, there's a technologically-equipped 500-seat multi-purpose auditorium.
Carlucci says the building's greatest asset is flexibility. The auditorium's tiered seating is partially retractable.
Depending on the event set-up, the rear 300-some seats can be removed to create an open room for a dance floor, banquets, or break-out space.
Now in its third year of operation, the idea for the training and convention centre began in the late 1990s.
A funding partnership was created between the City of Dryden, Keewatin-Patricia District School Board, Confederation College, the Dryden Entertainment Series, Confederation College and Keewaytnook Centre of Excellence, a water plant operator training program for municipal and First Nation communities.
Some of the partners are tenants. The building features offices with fully-wired computer labs, classrooms, and a workshop with welding and hoisting capabilities for adult education, independent learning and youth-at-risk programs.
Carlucci, who oversees an event staff of 15 casual workers, offers a full range of catered food and beverage service in their licenced atrium and auditorium.
He says having a state-of-the-art meeting facility makes a huge difference in attracting and hosting a handful of repeat conferences from the Ministry of Natural Resources as well as the local health and school board.
Because of Dryden's geography, Carlucci realizes he's not going to attract big corporate conferences.
"We are a regional facility, says Carlucci. "But we attract concerts, and diverse group of events.
"We've hosted wedding shows, drug summits and the hospital brings in speakers for evening lectures."
But they're always on the look-out for bigger opportunities. "The (main) room is so diversified that we've brought in speakers that would never have come to Dryden," says Carlucci.
"I'd love to attract larger conferences, say between 150 to 200 people. It's wide open for anything. We're really a hall that can accommodate a meeting."
The centre is managed by Crescive Corporation, a philanthropic organization created by the Keewatin-Patricia board with the aim of growing community assets and having a place for adult education.
But in late July, the Keewatin-Patricia school board announced it would dissolve Crescive at year's end because of changes in provincial funding.
Carlucci anticipates some operational and training changes, but the centre isn't closing. It's business as usual for conferences, meetings and training.
This September, the centre is slated to host Dryden's two-day conference on innovation and entrepreneurship with speakers coming from across Canada.
The Sept. 27-28 Fueling Innovation: Re-igniting Entrepreneurship 2007 conference will include lectures on intellectual property, industrial design, manufacturing, processing, distribution, exporting and niche marketing. The event will involve discussions mainly on value-added opportunities.
www.thecentreonline.ca
