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By michellekirby, April 17, 2010 7:18 pm

The Community Association of Oak Bay held it’s Annual General Meeting this afternoon at the Scout Hall. Over coffee generously donated by Black Bear Coffee roasted at Willows Park Grocery, Juice generously donated by Fairways Market and cookies, an enthusiastic crowd of twenty members voted to amend the Constitution and Bylaws, elect new Directors, reviewed the accomplishments of the last year, and discussed what we hope to do next.

We have two new Directors, Corey Burger and Gail Price-Douglas. We are thrilled to have both of these committed, active community members join the Association Executive. President Tom Croft, Treasurer Claire Eraut, and Director Kathleen Matthews were re-elected to their positions. Thanks to each of them for continuing their commitment to the CAOB. All Executive Directors elected at this AGM will stand for a two-year term.

We had a report from Maeve Lydon, Director of Community Vibrancy, on the Green Mapping Project. She hopes our Oak Bay Green Map will be printed by the summer.

Sonja Ruthe, Director of Social Safety reported on her work with Emergency Preparedness Oak Bay, building resiliency and lowering vulnerability of our Seniors, and the successful education work they have done this year.

Michelle Kirby, Director of Special Events gave a quick review of the successful events held this year. She will be focusing on encouraging residents to organize block parties this summer, to get to know their neighbours, and build community street by street.

Fundraising Director, Lynne Milnes has a particularly challenging job in these difficult economic times, but has still found some money for the Green Mapping Project.

We learned some fantastic news from Pam Copley, Acting Mayor of Oak Bay, that we are going to receive some funding assistance! We had submitted a grant application to Oak Bay Council in December. Today we learned that we will be receiving $1,500 as seed money to help us build as an organization. This will allow us to reach continue to reach out to the community, while helping to cover the costs of hall rentals, printing costs, or fees for the registration of the website.

Oak Bay Councillors Nils Jensen and Tara Ney were also in attendance, and shared some good news about increased funding for improved cycling infrastructure, as well as the Oak Bay High School Redevelopment Project/Neighbourhood Learning Centre Proposal.

We had a presentation about our communications strategy for the ongoing community consultation on the redevelopment of Oak Bay High School, and the Neighbourhood Learning Centre process, by CAOB member Margaret Case. She has made this process much more manageable, by breaking down the process into smaller tasks, so no one volunteer feels overwhelmed by the weight of the project.

All in all, a fantastic turnout, and a great afternoon! Thanks to Jill and Tom Croft, and Donna and Claire Eraut, and Kathryn MacLean for all their hard work organizing the Annual General Meeting.

Thanks again to our generous sponsors, Willows Park Grocery, and Fairways Market!

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By michellekirby,

Come on, Come all! It’s the Community Association of Oak Bay’s Annual General Meeting today.
You can join your Community Association for a $10 annual fee. We hope you’ll come join us!

We’ll be electing three new Director’s to our Executive, making some amendments to our constitution regarding membership, and discussing our role in the Oak Bay High School Redevelopment Project.

1-2 PM
Scout Hall (beside Fireman’s Park)

View Larger Map

Everyone welcome! Hope to see you there!

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By michellekirby, March 2, 2010 12:50 am

On Tuesday, February 23rd, just as the Germany-Canada hockey game wrapped up a win for Team Canada, an eager crowd packed every available seat in the Oak Bay High School cafeteria to begin a forum on the new Oak Bay High School project. An impressive line up of panelists took the next two hours to inform, engage, and listen to the community members who attended.

The panelists included: Nils Jensen, Oak Bay Councillor; Michael McEvoy, School District Trustee; Lorna Curtis, Director of Oak Bay Recreation; Dave Thomson, Oak Bay High Principal; Garrett Brisdon Vice-Principal; Jody Watson, CRD; Ian Graeme, Bowker Creek Initiative; Rod Windjack, Project Architect; Jim Soles, School District Building Project Manager; and Sally Murphy, Oak Bay High School Choir Teacher.

We had a special presentation by Architect John Graham, an Oak Bay High School Alumnus. He presented a perspective on the site plan that really opened up our minds to the exciting opportunities in front of us, while making us aware that we could easily miss those opportunities, if but for the lack of funding.

But the beautiful thing is that it appears that this project is in the right place and the right time. A new Ministry of Education initiative called the Neighbourhoods of Learning is underway, and can provide additional funding of up to 15% of the total project cost for community services. In our case, with an estimate of $52 million, we could ask for up to $8 million to build our community performing arts theatre, child care spaces, a teen centre, a community kitchen, community access to the school in the off-hours, and much more!

Here’s the overview of what the Revelstoke community decided on for their new school, and what their process was leading up to those important decisions.

All that’s required for the Neighbourhood Learning Centre model to be applied to the new Oak Bay High School is community participation, input, and desire for these facilities to exist within and alongside our new school building.

So, Oak Bay? Are you in?

The Community Association of Oak Bay hosted the meeting last Tuesday to fulfill our general mandate of Communicate, Collaborate, Connect, and I think we accomplished that, but we’ve still got plenty of work ahead.

We are meeting with Councillors Jensen and Cassidy to figure out how to get started on our Neighbourhood Learning Centre vision, so that it can be submitted with the plans for the new school. We will certainly keep you up to date on any developments on this project here on the caob.ca.

If you would like to participate in the Community’s bid for a Neighbourhood Learning Centre, then please contact us at oakbayconnector@gmail.com or through the comments on this post.

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By michellekirby, February 18, 2010 9:10 pm

The Community Association of Oak Bay invites you to participate in the largest development of public space for 100 years…building the new Oak Bay High School.

Please join us, to learn about the project, and share your thoughts on the development priorities. What you want to see happen not only for the new school, but for the surrounding public spaces? From a performing arts theatre to lit-up turf fields, child care and a new Library branch. There are a lot of exciting ideas on the table, and they won’t happen unless you get involved!

Invite your friends and neighbours in Oak Bay, because this is too important an opportunity for our community to miss!

Creating the Future of Oak Bay Poster

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

7:00 PM

Oak Bay High School Cafeteria

(Central Entrance in the Heritage Building)

We’ve invited a group of well informed people to sit on our panel, to answer your questions and share their insights into the project as it stands right now.

They include:

Nils Jensen, Oak Bay Councillor

Michael McEvoy, School District Trustee

Lorna Curtis, Director of Oak Bay Recreation

Dave Thomson, Oak Bay High Principal and Garrett Brisdon Vice-Principal,

Jody Watson and Ian Graeme, CRD Bowker Creek Initiative Representatives

Rod Windjack, Project Architect

And Jim Soles, School District Building Project Manager

Hosted by the Community Association of Oak Bay

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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.