How much prouder of Bowen could I be?

This has just been a fantastic month of community. If you really want to get a sense of how this island celebrates itself, you need to spend the last two weeks of August here. We have been celebrating, visioning, playing and socializing a plenty this month, and as Sally Freeman said "I'm in love with my island again!"

A couple of weeks ago, Bowfeast ran down in the Cove. In front of the library, two dozen stalls were set up featuring food from local farmers, gardeners and kids. We had everything from veggies to preserves, flowers, bees, honey and books. There was live music courtesy of us buskers, a picnic in the orchard and across the road, the weekend market was in full swing. There was a great vibe in the Cove that weekend, and I WISH WISH WISH we could do that every weekend all summer long. A vision of some great possibility there.

Also last weekend, the OCP review (follow the link to fill in the survey) on the island got going with the first public meetings, including a well run visioning session. The process seems to be off to a good start, and so far it's meeting my prime criteria of increasing social capital while designing and plan that works. There is a long road to go, but all is good so far. Our Bowen Island Ourselves site has been made a part of the process, and a community gathering we're sponsoring on September 13 will have some contribution to make to the overall process.

Yesterday we had our traditional end of summer gathering in Crippen Park, Bowfest. IN the last three years, the community has really taken over the festival and it has been outstanding ever since, with renewed life and energy. This year, I think for the first time in years, ALL of the musical talent was Bowen based (including honorary lifetime citizen Corbin Keep!). This included an excellent songwriters contest and a variety of music entertainment on two stages with rock and roll, folk, jazz, jugband, and all kinds of interstitial musical genres besides. The weather was beautiful and dancing in the evening to the Bowen Divas and Tony Dominelli was great fun.

It has been a summer of good stuff happening, and now we begin to wind it down in earnest and start to welcome back the fall, with hope for good rains and salmon.