Have you been outside today? It feels like spring - this end to the warmest winter we've ever had. Daffodils are coming up and the cherry blossoms are appearing on some of the early trees just in time for the world to arrive for the Winter Olympics. I was Skyping with colleagues from Australia who were asking me where the snow was. There is snow at Whistler and some up on Cypress where they have been trucking it in from Manning Park, but otherwise it's calm and a little damp and very warm out there.
Caitlin and I went out for a walk this afternoon down to Miller's Landing beach where we were greeted with an intense rainbow slashed across the flank of Black Mountain. A neighbour passing by had the same thought we did: the International Olympic Committee put it up!
Perhaps, eh? Six billion dollars can buy a lot of cool stuff.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
MARSEC1! MARSEC1!
Back home after 26 days on the road in an amazing trip that took me to Hawaii for two weeks with the family and then on to South Africa and New York City for work. Retunred on Friday to see all of the Olympic preparations underway in Vancouver. The airport was becoming zoo-like, with the usual exits blocked off and taxis and things diverted to other places. Olympic lanes are in place downtown in Vancouver and the cabbies are unhappy because they aren't allowed to use them or pull into them to drop off or pick up passengers. To do so risks a $120 ticket. Seems harsh.
On arriving in Horseshoe Bay on Friday evening I was greeted to more security shenanigans. There is a sign at the ticket booth reporting that the current security level is MARSEC1. When I asked a security guard what that meant he told me that it stood for "Marine Security Level 1" which, he said, we are always at. I rolled my eyes. Is this really necessary? Why do I now need to be told the name of a made up security level that has apparently remained unchanged since the Second World War ended? This strikes me as strangely alarmist. What is to be gained from this?
There seemed to be some incident unfolding at the ferry terminal as well in which an Islander was detained for complaining about the ticket cut off time and then further detained when he took a picture of the security guard who prevented him from boarding the Cap home. So the theatre escalates. I saw none of this silliness in either South Africa or the United States, bar the usual "security threat level orange" announcements that have been playing in US airports since September 12, 2001. I feel neither safer nor less safe than before. But all of this does feel a hell of a lot more patronizing.
Hopefully after the Games are over we can all go back to being adults again.
On arriving in Horseshoe Bay on Friday evening I was greeted to more security shenanigans. There is a sign at the ticket booth reporting that the current security level is MARSEC1. When I asked a security guard what that meant he told me that it stood for "Marine Security Level 1" which, he said, we are always at. I rolled my eyes. Is this really necessary? Why do I now need to be told the name of a made up security level that has apparently remained unchanged since the Second World War ended? This strikes me as strangely alarmist. What is to be gained from this?
There seemed to be some incident unfolding at the ferry terminal as well in which an Islander was detained for complaining about the ticket cut off time and then further detained when he took a picture of the security guard who prevented him from boarding the Cap home. So the theatre escalates. I saw none of this silliness in either South Africa or the United States, bar the usual "security threat level orange" announcements that have been playing in US airports since September 12, 2001. I feel neither safer nor less safe than before. But all of this does feel a hell of a lot more patronizing.
Hopefully after the Games are over we can all go back to being adults again.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Friday, January 1, 2010
Happy New Year
It's a blustery and stormy New Year's Day here on Bowen Island. Rain is falling and the wind is howling, probably gusting near 70km/h I would guess: a classic southeasterly, known as a Pineapple Express. Air is warm, so today's polar bear swim should easier than usual, or at least as easy as diving into the north Pacific Ocean on New Year's Day can ever be.
Happy New Year to you all, wherever you are.
Happy New Year to you all, wherever you are.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
What do we need to preserve and protect? (and grow more of?)
Preserving and protecting is the mandate of the Island's Trust, and it's something that provides a nice jumping off point for conversations about what "green" means for Bowen.
Appreciative Inquiry is a well honed, and long used methodology for guiding communities and organization through changing times. It works on the principle of "what we give our attention to grows." The idea is that we find a positive topic choice around which we initiate a process of Discovering what is working, Dreaming about what might be possible, Designing strategies to move that direction and Doing it. With our upcoming Open Space on January 2, I'm interested in using Appreciative Inquiry to initiate a community wide conversation on moving forward in a green way.
For me this does not mean starting with a list of things we don't have, but rather looking at what we do have on the island that provides the starting place for being a "green" place. Yes there are many challenges, but the AI approach is an asset based approach to meeting challenges, and so we start with a series of interviews and conversations about what we have and we build in from there. It is much easier for example to change behaviours in a system if you work with what people are already doing rather than introducing radical departures from their current ways of doing things. For example, most people on Bowen currently recycle at BIRD. It is easier to get start community composting at BIRD therefore then it would be elsewhere. If we were to introduce a second place that folks would need to take compost on a weekly basis, that leap might be too much to get started. So it makes sense in the community planning process that some zoning happen around BIRD that would provide for community composting.
I think if we can come to some common understanding about the nature of the green culture already on Bowen - even if some declare it to be nascent - then we have a better chance of bringing many different people and skills into the fold to create pathways forward for many futures. I think we don't need to negotiate values or positions with one another either, but rather co-discover these values. That is a proven way to create ownership over the direction of the future and to amass momentum especially for the tough challenges that lie ahead.
It's not the wish list of things that actually binds us together. Wish lists are negotiable. I'm interested in exploring what we have already that defines us as green, without even thinking about it.
Using a quadrant model, I want to pose four questions, that result in stories:
My goal with the session at the community Open Space is to pilot these questions, practice using them with participants and then have folks spread out into the community to collect some results over the next couple of months. From there we can compile a collection of interesting stories from which we can move to the Dream phase, which is a visioning phase based on what we already have and what we already do, rather then what we don't have and what we think we need.
Here is one of many examples of this work being done, with the Skownan First Nation, who looked at doing a community land use planning process using Aboriginal values. This is very similar in scope to what I am wanting to initiate.
Leave a comment if you are interested in taking a role with this initiative, or show up on January 2 to engage in the pilot.
(And here is a powerpoint deck my friend Peggy Holman and I have used for training people in AI)
Appreciative Inquiry is a well honed, and long used methodology for guiding communities and organization through changing times. It works on the principle of "what we give our attention to grows." The idea is that we find a positive topic choice around which we initiate a process of Discovering what is working, Dreaming about what might be possible, Designing strategies to move that direction and Doing it. With our upcoming Open Space on January 2, I'm interested in using Appreciative Inquiry to initiate a community wide conversation on moving forward in a green way.
For me this does not mean starting with a list of things we don't have, but rather looking at what we do have on the island that provides the starting place for being a "green" place. Yes there are many challenges, but the AI approach is an asset based approach to meeting challenges, and so we start with a series of interviews and conversations about what we have and we build in from there. It is much easier for example to change behaviours in a system if you work with what people are already doing rather than introducing radical departures from their current ways of doing things. For example, most people on Bowen currently recycle at BIRD. It is easier to get start community composting at BIRD therefore then it would be elsewhere. If we were to introduce a second place that folks would need to take compost on a weekly basis, that leap might be too much to get started. So it makes sense in the community planning process that some zoning happen around BIRD that would provide for community composting.
I think if we can come to some common understanding about the nature of the green culture already on Bowen - even if some declare it to be nascent - then we have a better chance of bringing many different people and skills into the fold to create pathways forward for many futures. I think we don't need to negotiate values or positions with one another either, but rather co-discover these values. That is a proven way to create ownership over the direction of the future and to amass momentum especially for the tough challenges that lie ahead.
It's not the wish list of things that actually binds us together. Wish lists are negotiable. I'm interested in exploring what we have already that defines us as green, without even thinking about it.
Using a quadrant model, I want to pose four questions, that result in stories:
- What is important to you about ecology, sustainability or green thinking? Tell a story about how you cultivated that value. Where did it come from?
- Tell me a story of how deeply the culture of ecology and environmental consciousness runs in the community?
- What are some of the things that we do or have as a community that makes us green?
- What are personal actions you undertake that are environmental, sustainable, ecological or green?
My goal with the session at the community Open Space is to pilot these questions, practice using them with participants and then have folks spread out into the community to collect some results over the next couple of months. From there we can compile a collection of interesting stories from which we can move to the Dream phase, which is a visioning phase based on what we already have and what we already do, rather then what we don't have and what we think we need.
Here is one of many examples of this work being done, with the Skownan First Nation, who looked at doing a community land use planning process using Aboriginal values. This is very similar in scope to what I am wanting to initiate.
Leave a comment if you are interested in taking a role with this initiative, or show up on January 2 to engage in the pilot.
(And here is a powerpoint deck my friend Peggy Holman and I have used for training people in AI)
Monday, December 21, 2009
A place in the Islands
Doing some research for our upcoming Open Space on "What Green Means for Bowen Island" and I came across this lovely .pdf of a book produced by the Islands Trust called "A Place in the Islands." Required reading for anyone living in the Salish Sea.
Rains
Other than a snowfall early in the month, December has been relatively dry on Bowen. Until today we had had about 41mm of rain for the whole month. That changed yesterday with a steady 20 hours of rain giving us another 30mm. The rain has stopped how and the wind has swung northwest, bringing clearing skies which should result in some sunny cold weather leading up to Christmas. The creeks are quite swollen, the Lagoon is brown and there is a great deal of detritus in the bay. No sight of salmon today, but everything was murky anyway.
Pine siskins are active at our feeder, coming down from the higher elevations in search of seeds to eat. They have been joined by juncos, nuthatches and steller's jays.
Happy solstice!
Pine siskins are active at our feeder, coming down from the higher elevations in search of seeds to eat. They have been joined by juncos, nuthatches and steller's jays.
Happy solstice!
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