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By michellekirby, May 24, 2010 6:23 pm

Submitted by Lesley Ewing, Safer Cycling Oak Bay

Earlier this year, the Municipality solicited volunteers to form the Alternative Transportation Sub-Committee of the Community Initiatives Committee. We’re pleased to hear that a selection process was completed in March and the following citizens have been selected to serve on the sub-committee:

Corey Burger
Neil Jackson
Gary Law
Victor Lotto
Steven Toleiki

Councilor John Herbert serves as Chair, and other council members include Hazel Braithwaite, Nils Jenson, and Mayor Chris Causton.

There are no formal terms of reference for the Community Initiatives Committee or the proposed sub-committee. However, the group will be tasked with focusing on alternative transportation priorities and proposed improvements for Oak Bay Village, including issues such as sidewalk widening, parking, potential cycling lanes and beautification, and making recommendations to Oak Bay Municipal Council in this regard.

Sub-committee members Burger, Jackson, Law, Lotto and Toleiki are invited to introduce themselves to the citizens of Oak Bay by contacting the Community Association of Oak Bay by emailing the Oak Bay Connector. We can publish your email here, as a means of sharing your voice with the community.

We look forward to recommendations and a defined implementation schedule that will help keep our community members safe and mobile, as well as generate improvements to link with those made by adjacent municipalities.

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By michellekirby, April 12, 2010 11:29 pm

Jill Croft, founding member of the Community Association of Oak Bay, and the CAOB Administrative Assistant, is now a prize winning letter writer.

Jill submitted a letter to Momentum Magazine about her family’s Progressive Christmas Dinner. She described how her family cycled or walked (or in some cases car-pooled) from house to house for each segment of their Christmas Dinner. For her effort, Jill won a beautiful Brooks bag. Congratulations Jill! That’s some sweet swag to carry your CAOB membership sign-up sheets around town.

You can read her letter here, and gather some inspiration to try it out with your family for your next holiday celebration!

Not only was the story shared through Momentum, a superb North American cycling magazine, it was also front page news on Christmas Day in Oak Bay.

Congratulations Jill, and thanks for the inspiration! There are going to be more cyclists in our community this year, because of your enthusiastic example!

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By michellekirby, January 24, 2010 10:50 am

Imagine Oak Bay High School as a brand new, energy efficient, light filled, earthquake resistant school. Imagine Bowker Creek as a natural, concrete-free stream, winding it’s way along, bordered on one side by allotment gardens tended by high school students and community members, and the other side by a walking and cycling pathway. Imagine this new Oak Bay High as a hub for our community, with pathways that easily lead to the Village, other neighbouring schools, and the beaches, as a destination for recreation, library and child care services.

The new Oak Bay High can be a place where the youth of our community share their energy and ideas with the rest of us. It can be all this, with enough support from the Oak Bay community. It’s been done before in other communities, with great success. Let’s take the ideas, from the examples such as Brittania in Vancouver, and make them work for us.

What does Community School mean exactly? And what would Oak Bay High School look like using the community school model when it’s rebuilt next year? I had the same questions, and decided that if I was going to be apart of planning a community forum on the subject, I ought to see one for myself.

This week, I had the pleasure of visiting James Bay Community School. I met with Principal Janice Matthews and Community Programmer, Darcy Topinka. I walked out of there inspired and motivated to see this kind of thing happen in our new school. Although James Bay Community School is an elementary school, I think we can learn a lot from what they’re doing there.

They have a good portion of the school to use for community programming, like out-of-school care, seniors recreation and leisure activities, senior’s suppers twice a week, hot lunches for children at the school, and so much more! Knowing that Oak Bay Recreation struggles to find space to run their out-of-school care, and is currently using the Lounge for elementary school children, I could immediately see an opportunity. Open up a portion of the new Oak Bay High for young children, and like James Bay, children at Oak Bay Rec could have a well-lit, comfortable space that opens onto a playground, or green space.

The opportunities are endless. All we need is your input, and energy to make it happen. The Community Association of Oak Bay will bring together representatives from Oak Bay High, Oak Bay Recreation, the Bowker Creek Initiative/Friends of Bowker Creek to answer your questions, and learn what you want to see from this project at our community forum. We look forward to seeing you there!

Oak Bay High Community Forum
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
7-9 PM
Oak Bay High School

Montieth Allotment Gardens on Bowker Creek

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By michellekirby, November 9, 2009 8:10 pm

Saturday’s Active Transportation Forum: Walking, Cycling, Transit and Public Spaces was a great success! There were nearly 50 participants, and it was a very engaging, energizing session!

The agenda covered many aspects of active transportation in Oak Bay. We learned about the CRD Pedestrian and Cycling Master Plan, Complete Streets and Other Inspirational Ideas, the Oak Bay Master Cycling Plan, Safer Routes for Willows and Monterey Schools, Imaginative Ideas from Other Cities, Imaginative Ideas for Oak Bay, and the New Oak Bay High School as a Community Space.

The audience came with lots of input and ideas to share. These are some of the creative ideas shared after the morning presentations:

We spent the afternoon hearing about the Oak Bay High School rebuild project, and the opportunities this will bring to improve pedestrian, cycling, and public spaces in and around the school.

Some ideas that came from the New Oak Bay High School group discussion session are:

As you can see, we had some really inspirational discussion that requires some work to get us moving in Oak Bay! Keep watching here to see how you can contribute, or get involved in the Action Plan. If you have ideas to share, please feel free to comment, or start a discussion on our Forum.

We had some good media coverage by the Times Colonist, as you can see here.