A4

Stumble Upon

del.icio.us

Digg

Facebook

Print

Email

Speak Up

(Editor's Note: Featured this week is Bathurst native Cynthia Richard, project coordinator for the Chaleur Greening Initiative. A certified professional bookkeeper, she is also the owner of CLBR Bookkeeping & Office Services in Bathurst.)

Enlarge Photo

James Mallory/Northern Light Photo

Cynthia Richard of the Chaleur Greening Initiative says reading is one of her favourite hobbies.

Q: Country or rock and roll?

Rock and roll, everything from classical to anything but country. I love the Guess Who, because I like some old memories of young times around here. Natalie Merchant, I find I listen to her because she's soothing. Anything off the wall, anything at all. I do have a strange mix.

Q: Favourite food?

Seafood. Lobster, scallops, salmon, anything fish and as simple as possible, not to mask it with anything. Who knew, because years ago, my father would come home with lobster and we'd pray for Kraft Dinner.

Q: What is your pet peeve?

Rude people, especially when you're trying to be as polite as possible and they just don't get the message. I think it's unfortunate because a lot of times you don't remember the times that people are polite to you. Some people just don't realize the impact they have.

Q: Favourite hobbies?

I love traveling. With my own business, I don't have a lot of time for hobbies because I'm still building my business but I do a lot of volunteer work. I like getting involved in the community...(such as) Movies Under the Stars at the (Heritage) Museum, I'm on Ducks Unlimited, I just recently joined the Multicultural Society, I'm in the Community Band.

Q: Favourite movie?

The Sound of Music. Since I've been home, for nine years, I have my nieces over and we have craft night before Christmas and we watch The Sound of Music.

Q: Favourite holiday?

Christmas because of family but also Thanksgiving. We spend every Thanksgiving at my brother's camp at Indian Falls. Pretty well everybody comes home for it, all the nieces and nephews, and it's a nice, quiet day.

Q: Favourite way to spend vacation?

At the beach, at the cottage or in a very nice foreign destination. I love travel all over the world. In 2002, I went to Greece and I visited four islands and it was amazing. I was travelling alone and that trip was fun because I did some research and used the Internet for the first time.

Q: Who do you admire?

I have one person who has been my mentor professionally for 30 some years so I owe a lot of my business sense to him, but my mom (Barbara) was a very smart, independent woman. She taught us a lot about life and the proper way of handling things and she comes up in my conversations a lot.

Q: Best advice you've ever received?

You should learn something new every day and don't sweat the small stuff. My mom said don't sweat the small stuff and my mentor said you should learn something new every day.

Q: Best thing about living in the Chaleur region?

It is so beautiful. I joke that everybody should leave Bathurst for at least six months so they can home and appreciate it. We don't know what we have until we leave it. It's a friendly area and we're sometimes too far but always close enough to get away so I think we have the best of both worlds.