Irvine businesswoman gets surprise honour for entrepreneurial efforts

By Mo Cranker on July 3, 2018.

mcranker@medicinehatnews.com @MHNmocranker

A local entrepreneur was honoured this year as one of the nominees for this year’s Alberta Women Entrepreneurs’ Awards.

Pauline Robinson runs two businesses in Irvine, and says there was a lot to feel when she found out she was going to be honoured at the annual ceremony.

“The notice came as an email, so at first I thought it was spam,” she said. “Once we figured out it was real, it was a really good feeling, but it was sort of disbelief — I didn’t know how to react.

“This is something you get nominated for, and I had no idea that someone put my name out there, so there was a bit of shock.”

Robinson runs the Nature’s Arbre cafe in Irvine, and runs the show at the hamlet’s ATB branch. She says she is just doing what she loves.

“This is what I do and I don’t see it as me doing anything special for the community,” she said. “Being nominated for something like this is great and being recognized is great, but that doesn’t change anything for me.”

The 42 nominees recognized travelled to Edmonton a few months ago, and four winners were selected out of the group. Though Robinson did not bring home one of the awards, she says the experience was invaluable.

“It was a good experience to be around all those women and to get some networking done,” she said. “You get to see and hear how these women build and run their businesses.

“It’s also important to recognize women in business — I think that’s a very important part of this.”

Robinson says the experience was very humbling for her.

“I believe in Irvine and I believe in this community,” she said. “People do not give it the due that it’s worth and I would go the extra mile to make sure Irvine gets recognized.”

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