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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 26, 2010 10:17 pm

Submitted by Margaret Lidkea and Kathleen Mathews, Friends of Uplands Park

A big thank you for all of you that participated in the initial event for the Friends of Uplands Park!

About 200 people attended Sunday’s event and more than 60 people (and families) signed up as “Friends of Uplands Park” to help conserve this endangered cultural Garry Oak Meadow Ecosystem.

We look forward to more events and will contact people in late September. We want to do some “weeding”!

Yours naturally,
Margaret Lidkea and Kathleen Matthews, Friends of Uplands Park

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By michellekirby, April 22, 2010 11:46 am

The Friends of Uplands Park is holding a celebration on Sunday April 25, from 1 to 3 PM at the Cattle Point entrance.

If Uplands Park inspires you, bring your creations…art, poetry, photography, music…and share with your community. Everyone is invited by the newly formed Friends of Uplands Park.

Information tables will be at the grassy entrance to Cattle Point at Beach Drive. Join a nature walk, sing songs, read your poetry, create some art and let us know your personal connection with the park. Join the Friends of Uplands Park and commit to preserving this jewel in our community. Bring your family, a picnic lunch and your sense of joy.

Nature walks with Matt Fairbarns & Margaret Lidkea

Music by Jim Moffat, Ron Carter, Brian Saunders & Sian Elen

This event is supported by Oak Bay Parks Dept, Girl Guides and the Community Association of Oak Bay.

Contacts: Margaret Lidkea 250-595-8084 and Kathleen Matthews 250-598 7995

WALK, BIKE, BUS OR CARPOOL!

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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, April 11, 2010 5:45 pm

Contributed by Jill Croft

The Community Association of Oak Bay, CAOB, celebrated World Health Day in Saanich today with the Shelbourne Corridor Bike Ride.

Sunday, April 11th was perfect for a leisurely cycle from Oak Bay Rec through Uplands and Uvic to Gordon Head Rec. Two dozen bikers were escorted through our municipality by cycling Policeman, Chris Gaudy, giving all riders a sense of safety along the route.

As we rode closer to Gordon Head Rec bikers of all ages joined the throng of hundreds of two wheeled recreational riders assembled in the park. What a colourful sight to see families gathered, chatting and admiring each other’s cycling gear. At 11:15 the more than 300 bikers peddled along Feltham, down Shelbourne Street, crossing McKenzie ending up at Cedar Hill Mall, without having to stop for a red light along the route. What a quiet revolution, cycling, bells ringing and a sense of liberation while traveling one of the most heavily car used routes in Victoria!

This was a significant way to proclaim Victorians love of cycling is here!

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By michellekirby, March 30, 2010 8:07 pm

SUNDAY, APRIL 11TH IS WORLD HEALTH DAY

1000 CITIES, 1000 LIVES
A ONE-DAY WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION EVENT

Bike with the Community Association of Oak Bay and celebrate the Shelbourne Corridor. Bring your family for free fun and exercise.

Meet at Oak Bay Rec Centre (Bee Street Entrance) at 10am and cycle to Gordon Head Rec Centre for a police escorted – slow pace – family bike ride from Gordon Head Rec Centre along the Shelbourne Corridor to Shelbourne and Cedar Hill X Road.

Get an “Undriver License”, take part in the Bike Rodeo and grab a snack at a charity supported BBQ.

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By michellekirby, March 26, 2010 2:57 pm

Submitted by René de Vos, on behalf of Noreen Taylor (depot coordinator) and the Oak Bay Green Committee

Once a month over three years now, community volunteers have been sorting and bagging plastics, Styrofoam and other materials for recycling at the tennis court parking lot at Carnarvon Park.

Why are they spending their Saturday mornings at this?

The overall objective is to divert more material than is currently collected in your blue boxes from the Hartland Landfill to recycling sources. The initiative was begun in October 2006 by the Oak Bay Green Committee in partnership with Pacific Mobile Depots, and sanctioned by the municipality of Oak Bay.

Well over 200 householders bring their recyclable plastic waste to the depot each month. A couple of dozen volunteers sort and bag an average of 135 large (26’ x 48”) bags which are hauled away by PMD.

Householders pay to PMD have this material recycled but the Oak Bay Green Committee receives 20 % of the receipts, and has in turn donated $2,500 to the municipal Tree Donation Program and spent over $1,000 for community environmental education (student bursaries and public seminars).

What’s the future for this project?

Oak Bay Green Committee has always believed that the blue box program should be expanded so that these materials can be collected at the curb. Oak Bay Green Committee has recently written to Council to reiterate this view. The Capital Regional District is now in the process of getting “Requests for Proposals” from its contractors to add polycoated cartons, film (“soft”) plastics and polysterene (Styrofoam) to the program, in anticipation of the end of current contracts in 2012.

This is a drawn out process, but at some point the expanded RFPs will be discussed with municipal councils. Councilor Tara Ney is Oak Bay’s representative on the CRD’s Solid Waste Advisory Committee and as such is a key connector to this issue.

If you support this direction taken by the CRD, and wish Oak Bay Council to endorse this direction when the RFPs are reviewed and decisions are made, let your elected representatives know where you stand.

In the meantime, clean, sort, and bring all those “other” plastics to the recycling depot on the fourth Saturday of the month from 9:00 to 11:30.

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By michellekirby, March 15, 2010 6:25 pm

If Uplands Park inspires you, bring your creations…art, poetry, photography, music…and share with your community. Everyone is invited by the newly formed “Friends of Uplands Park”. Let us know what you can do artistically at this event, by contacting Margaret. (contact information below)

Celebrate Our Garry Oak Meadows in Uplands Park

1 to 3 pm Rain or shine

Information tables will be at the grassy entrance to Cattle Point at Beach Drive. Join a nature walk, sing songs, read your poetry, create some art and let us know your personal connection with the park. Join the Friends of Uplands Park and commit to preserving this jewel in our community. Bring your family, a picnic lunch and your sense of joy.

This event is supported by Oak Bay Parks Dept, Girl Guides and the Community Association of Oak Bay.

Contacts:
Margaret Lidkea mlidkea@shaw.ca 250-595-8084
Kathleen Matthews kathleenmatt@gmail.com 250-598 7995

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By admin, March 14, 2010 8:28 pm

Submitted by Lesley Ewing

Oak Bay Council is urged to consider the health of our community, particularly our children and grandchildren, and proceed immediately to enact a pesticide bylaw as recommended by parks and recreation staff.

2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid) is one of the most common and most toxic herbicides used on US and Canadian lawns and gardens.  2,4-D has a notorious past. It was one of the two chemicals in the defoliant Agent Orange

A 2008 poll conducted for the Canadian Cancer Society, BC and Yukon Division showed that the majority of British Columbians support the restriction of pesticide use.

The Canadian Cancer Agency points out that children are at a greater risk from pesticide exposure than adults because they are closer to the ground and their bodies are still developing.

Among the findings of the Pesticides Literature Review [i] conducted by the Ontario College of Family Physicians:

The following organizations are among the many that support the banning of 2,4-D and reduction of pesticide use:

Canadian Cancer Society
Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation
Canadian Medical Association
Canadian Public Health Association
The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada
The Lung Association of British Columbia
UBC Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics
Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment
Delegates to the 2008 Union of BC Municipalities
Ontario College of Family Physicians
Ontario Public Health Association
The Learning Disabilities Association of British Columbia
International Agency for Research on Cancer
Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario
Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario
Humane Society of Canada
David Suzuki Foundation
School District #61

http://www.ocfp.on.ca/English/OCFP/Communications/Publications/default.asp?s=1#EnvironmentHealth