News & Updates

New Initiatives

• Youth Online is something new for us. We are looking for ideas and input and now are waiting to hear of the success of the proposal.
• Edmonton VolNet - CBR is a partner and is facilitating the Community Building and Evaluation components of the VolNet project. Volnet provides the opportunity to receive a computer at a great price and free Internet access, computer and Internet training, community building opportunities, and workshops. For more information visit the site www.thesupportnetwork.com/volnet/

Our Most Current Newsletter

Anything Goes - Issue 10 - Fall/Winter, 1999/2000

Hello Friends!

Happy Fall Everyone! We hope this newsletter finds everyone in good health and looking forward to the excitement of fall and all that winter brings. Our summer has been productive and exciting, - new opportunities and friendships abound. For details, read on!

Community Building Updates

Youth Online Project - This is an exciting new project funded by Human Resource Development Canada intended to develop an online resource community for youth ages 13 – 24 in the greater Edmonton area. CBR is coordinating the development stage of the project, which will include developing a plan for the content, technology, and implementation of the project. If you have ideas for content, want to let us know what is out there (we want to build on the assets that are already in place), or know someone who would like to be involved, call Graham at our office.

VolNet is rolling along, with about 140 small non-profit organizations signed up. The project provides the opportunity to receive a computer at a great price and free Internet access, computer and Internet training, community building opportunities, and workshops. CBR is facilitating the community building opportunities through monthly gatherings of the organizations and our ‘RAFF it up’ workshops. CBR is also the evaluator for VolNet and will describe the impact of VolNet on the organizations that take part.
Opportunities are still available for organizations to be part of the VolNet project – if you would like more information, call Graham at CBR, or call Garland Coulson, the project coordinator, at (780)482-0198.

Jasper Place Gateway Foundation (JPGF) – This dynamic group in west Edmonton has been active in spearheading positive change in the old Jasper Place. Working with citizens, businesses, and organizations in the area, they have accomplished a lot with a little. They held several successful summer festivals, and more people in the community are getting to know each other. Events include: the DirtBuster Derby along Stony Plain Road in May; Spark in the Park … Festival of Communities in Canora; the Gateway Goldrush Parade and Treasure Hunt along Stony Plain Road in July; Pastels on Pavement Festival on the Grant McEwan Community College Jasper Place Campus parking lot in August; and transporting people to tour Halloween Alley in the Grovenor community. A successful newsletter "Gateway West" is now distributed to all six of the communities in the area. The third edition was just released at the beginning of November.
JPGF is excited about the new opportunities for research in asset based community building being supported by the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR). Susan is the Principal Investigator, with Kim Raine-Travers from the Centre for Health Promotion Studies, University of Alberta as our academic resource. Jocelyn Edey, has been hired to conduct the participatory research. The Heritage Foundation is providing funding over two years to support Asset-based Community Building and to measure the health impact within the Foundation area. We have started with our two-day Community Building - R.A.F.F. It Up Workshops, which the JPGF Board, the Glenwood and Grovenor communities have already completed. The other community workshop dates have been set: Canora and Britannia-Youngstown – Friday, November 19 (4-9 pm) and Saturday November 20 (9 am to 4 pm) Crestwood and West JP/Sherwood – Friday, November 26 (4-9 pm) and Saturday November 27 (9 am to 4 pm). What a great opportunity for these communities.

CIA – The 18 Community Involved Adolescents from Westlawn Junior High have begun another exciting year. Funding from the Muttart Foundation, with the administrative support of the Edmonton Boys and Girls Club, made it possible to hire Marcel Howrish as the community coordinator for the 1999/2000 year. This year’s group has already made a presentation at the Building Communities Conference in Red Deer. They assisted the Glenwood community in "spookily" preparing and "scarily" operating their Haunted House for Halloween this year and are busy planning other ways to share their gifts with the community.

BRIDGES – This HRDC (Human Resource Development Canada) funded project supports young adults in connecting, learning, and finding educational and community-based opportunities in the JPGF community and beyond. The Bridges participants generated a great deal of excitement in the JPGF area through the Spark in the Park … Festival of Communities in July. It was a fantastic day involving music, fun, and paint in St. Anne Park in the Canora community. The community has expressed its appreciation for this opportunity to see the park used in such a positive and fun way. These young people also presented the successes and progress they have had through BRIDGES at the Alberta Community Development Conference in Red Deer, Alberta. The participants are now planning their Christmas bake sale and making a special quilt to be raffled off.

QUACKSS – The Queen Alex Community Knowledge and Skills Sharing group has been meeting for several years for amazing pot luck suppers. In addition to their annual Spring Cleaning and Greening, this year the QUACKSS held a very successful fall Community Garage Sale on October 16th. The group loves to eat and share skills and knowledge, and are looking forward to carolling in the neighbourhood again this year.

Celebrate Parkallen – The Celebrate Parkallen group held another successful Celebration this summer. Food, history, music, dancing, and good neighbourly conversation made this year’s gathering a huge success. The added delight was an evening folk festival and jam session with local professional musicians, with the McDades as the hi-light. Over 1000 people attended the events – congratulations Parkallen! Join us next year for Parkallen’s yearly celebration. Stay tuned!

Lakeland Community Builders – The Redwater RAFF Dream team is getting "revved up" for the fall. An enthusiastic group of 14 got together in mid-October to put some shape to their plans for making the Redwater Community Asset Map a reality.

Fishing Lake has had three successful community gatherings and more to come. The Smokey Lake Community Builders have created a stir through the Smokey Lake Beautification initiative. Watch out, the Lakeland Community Builders are on their way!

Gatherings:

• Chat and Chew - This group continues strong with its lunch time conversations in Edmonton. Come and eat lunch with people who are building community in their neighbourhoods and organizations, and share what you’ve been doing. Call CBR for information on the next lunch time gathering.
• Community Building Gathering V - February 24-26, 2000. The themes for CBGV are Land Use with a neat guy from the US (Karl Kehde) who uses a land use planning process that builds community spirit. We will also talk about creative funding for community building, with folks from business, government and foundations. It will be lots of fun, and, of course, we’ll have great food!

Conferences We Have Attended:

We have become quite busy with conferences, both presenting at them and RAFFing it up!

Community Development Society, July 1999 – Once again the RAFF team "RAFF-ed" the CDS Conference that was held in Spokane, WA. Neil Moore from Parkallen; Kevin Peterman, Eveline Garneau, and Marjorie Cooper from the Jasper Place Gateway Foundation; and Marcel Howrish from the CIA joined Graham and Susan to make up this year’s RAFF team. The RAFF events of the ‘Treasure Hunt’ and ‘Find a Friend’ worked very well and encouraged conference delegates to get to know one another and have fun. CBR’s presentation on the Learning Webs stimulated lots of discussion. Next year the conference is in Saint John, New Brunswick. Anyone interested in going to RAFF it up and visit the Maritimes?

Alberta Community Access - Project – Susan had the opportunity to share the idea of community building as the keynote luncheon speaker for the Alberta Community Access Project conference in September. Connecting people with each other, and using computers to do it seems to be an increasing theme in Community Building… ask the Connect NB Branche’ Community Builders. Using technology as a means to encourage relationships and friendships and as a draw to bring people together is a new approach to Community Building. Some of the Community Access Centres have become "Third Places" in the community (see "Thoughts" for a description of a 3rd place).

Prime Time for Women – At an annual one-day conference for women, Susan, with Johanna’s help, facilitated a bubble-blowing, airplane-flying, balloon- throwing closing session. The 45 minute session provided a great opportunity for the women to have fun meeting each other and finding things they could do together after the conference. It was pandemonium and lots of fun for everyone.

Building Communities – This conference was organized by Alberta Community Development, and was well attended. Graham and Susan coordinated RAFF activities, as well as presented a Community Building session to 40 very enthusiastic people. The Jasper Place Gateway Foundation (JPGF) also presented two sessions at the conference. The highlight of the conference was the "JPGF Stars Game Show," which concluded with a rousing rendition of a JPGF version of ‘YMCA’! JPGF JPGF .....

Association for Community Education BC - Susan had the pleasure of attending and presenting at this conference in Aldergrove, BC. What a wonderful group of people doing amazing things with education and families in BC. Some of these community schools have become the spark for community building in action. One that all of you could see is Douglas Park Community School in Langley; they have created a video that is well worth watching - for more information on the video, e-mail principal Wendy Johnson at wcjohnson@home.com or Anne Morrison, consultant, at annekn@istar.ca.

Community Building Power
This section is new to Anything Goes, and is meant for you and for us to share tips, ideas, and thoughts about community building. Write in and share any thoughts that we could publish in the next issue!

Tips

• atherings To have a meeting evolve to a gathering – RAFF it up! Try having greeters, really good food, and a "meet and greet" exercise that encourages people to take off their work ‘hat’.
• We have started to create a Community Crossword puzzle that each group adds to as we carry it from gathering to gathering… we’ll see if our wonderful Johanna can do it up for the next ‘Anything Goes’.
• For other ideas, there are three pages of "stuff" in your Community Capacity Building and Asset Mapping© – RAFF it up workshop binders in STEP 2 for those of you who have taken a workshop after November 1998. Otherwise, e-mail or call and we can send you those three pages.

Thoughts

• as anyone done a planned community search for "Third Places" in their community and then used these as building blocks for community Building?
• OR have you built/created a ‘Third Place’? Can it be done, can it be intentional?

A third place is not home (1st) or work (2nd) but that other place in the community where people gather and have social time.

RESOURCES

• Check out the LUFNET web site at www.landuse.org. We met Karl, the creator of the Land Use Forum Network, at the Community Development Society Conference in Spokane. He has great ideas and ways to bring land developers and neighbourhood people together to plan land use that builds community spirit.
• Great products from the Syracuse Cultural Workers, especially the ‘How to Build Community’ poster and t-shirt. See their web site to order - www.syrculturalworkers.org

What's New With The CBR Gang?

Since the last newsletter, we’ve had three new additions to the CBR gang.

• On July 6, 1999, Angie gave birth to a baby girl, Sarah Margaret Dedrick. Congratulations to Angie and John on the new member of their family. Angie is busy caring for Sarah and taking care of two-year-old Emilie who has a broken leg. We miss Angie and are looking forward to her return to CBR next summer.
• Jocelyn Edey has been hired as the new researcher for the Jasper Place Gateway Foundation and is a graduate of the Masters in Health Promotion program at the University of Alberta. The JPGF office is very busy so Jocelyn spends most of her time at CBR. Jocelyn packs her camera and notepad wherever she goes.
• Marcel Howrish recently returned to Edmonton after completing his Masters in Environmental Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax. This is his third degree, after his Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and his Bachelor of Social Work. Marcel bikes everywhere – and has taught us a lot about caring for the environment and how to stomach food that is almost but not quite ready for the compost.

Congratulations to Johanna who has become the first Grandmother in CBR, as her daughter Carolyn gave birth to a beautiful baby girl (Abigail Johanna) on October 28th. Johanna and Ed had a relaxing week in Fairmont,BC, at the beginning of October, but things quickly returned to their busy schedule once they were home. We are thinking of relocating Johanna’s hot tub from her acreage to our office, but I think Ed would have something to say about that.

Susan has been very busy with CBR and family travel. She has kept her travel agent very busy figuring out travel schedules for the family’s Thanksgiving trip home to PEI, especially with her son arriving home from China and promptly moving to Waterloo to begin a new job. All this in addition to coordinating the big trip planned to Fiji to ring in the New Year with family and friends! Needless to say - Susan’s travel agent is going nuts!

Graham continues his busy social schedule trying to fit in at least three live concerts or plays a week and trying to avoid photo radar. He is researching and making plans to return to school in the fall of 2000 for graduate studies in urban planning. Graham is the key CBR contact for the VolNet and Youth On-line projects.

Next Issue
We would like to have your ideas for the next issue of "Anything Goes", especially for the new Community Building Power section. Write in with your tips, thoughts, ideas, stories, and feedback and we will share these in the following issue!

Do you still like hearing from us???
We enjoy hearing from all our friends and look forward to learning what you are up to. In turn we like to keep everyone up-to-date with our "happenings", but in these busy time we realize not everyone has the time to read everything that crosses their desks. Therefore, if you feel you do not want to receive our newsletter any longer please e-mail us and we will take you off the list. .....If this is your first visit to our web site or a first view of our newsletter, and you would like to be on our e-mail list, let us know your e-mail address!!

Please feel free to share our newsletter with others. If you would like a "pretty version" (with all the graphics) of this newsletter - we can send one to you - just e-mail us your address.

We do try to keep our Web Site current and to keep up with all the e-mails, though some days it's a challenge. Please keep in contact with us and let us know what neat things your group is doing.

Hope you are having a great fall, and enjoy the feastive season that is fast approaching. Drop us a note if you would like to share anything with us!!

The CBR Gang - Susan, Graham, Johanna, Marcel and Jocelyn