Phoenix Riting! – January 20th, 2022

January 20, 2022

After more than thirty years living on the Coast, I am amazed by how quickly the snow melts. It still seems like magic. One day, we are digging out from under a foot or more of snow, the next day bare green grass is everywhere. By the third day, it’s gone. For a Northern kid like me, it’s a genuine miracle. And now, it’s almost time for nettles, that abundant staple of springtime.

We did have a white Christmas, for those who enjoy such things (I’m not a fan), and now we’re back to the green, so I can ride my trusty e-bike again. I’ve learned, thankfully not the hard way, that e-bikes don’t do well in icy conditions, though I’ll ride in the rain and cold without a qualm. I’ll wait until it warms up a little to do some Denman exploring though–coffee at the Guesthouse sounds good to me.

And there’s so much to do right now! Summits and roundtables and gatherings, my little head is spinning. All from the comfort of my cozy room, obviously, a mixed blessing. Something about a screen full of talking heads feels disconnecting, as though I’m trying to exist here-and-now and somewhere-else simultaneously, and my body doesn’t deal well with that nebulosity. On the other hand, real people are behind those talking heads, and I’m excited about the ideas, connections and possibilities of this event.

By the time this is printed, the Hornby Arts Digital Summit (three full days!) will be over, but as I write this, it hasn’t started yet. This free event is a means of building an arts communication network and support system for Hornby and Denman Islands. There will be presentations from other islands arts council representatives as well as First Nations representatives, and a lot of talking and sharing. I won’t be able to attend everything, but the schedule covers a lot of ground and I look forward to it. I hope to share some impressions next week.

I’ve signed up for a semi-local roundtable cafe next week as well, online also, of course. It does save on travel. I’m signing up for a lot of things right now, which is not my normal practice, but it seems a good way to begin this year. It’s January, and I’m bored and lonely for human contact, feelings that I hope these digital connections and events can mitigate. There’s no real substitute for actual eye contact and face to face presence, but I will take what I can get. Some years I’m happy to dive into my introvert cave, but even introverts have a hard time with extended isolation. How are you doing? Do you find winter difficult too? That’s one of the challenges of living in a small rural community, even when we aren’t locked down and distancing.

Paradoxes are everywhere. On the one hand, so much boredom, isolation and loneliness. On the other hand, many projects, possibilities and potentials are opening up. I sense optimism in the air, that we can create a new normal from the ashes of the old, which let’s face it, wasn’t the best of all normals. Perhaps going forward we will find a way to stay connected through these (shorter than most in Canada, but still way too long) winters. It’s the hardest part about living here, for myself and for a lot of people I’ve talked to. I hope we’re all managing to survive, or better, to thrive in whatever ways we can. I know it’s hard. Let’s come up with ways to make it easier. Don’t forget to breathe.

I want to hear from you! You can email me at phoenixonhornby@gmail.com, or if you see me on the street, at the Co-op, or wherever, I’d love to chat. And thank you to all who have done so already, you help so much.

The Zella Clark Health Centre

January 20, 2022

The Zella Clark Health Centre:

submitted by the Denman Health Centre Society

The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the membership of the Denman Health Centre Society (DHCS) was held on January 10, 2022. At the meeting the following Board of Directors was elected: Keith Clark, Vice Chair, Dr. David Scruton, Secretary, Lyndsey Jennings, Treasurer, John Wigle, Maintenance, Gill Forsyth, Membership, Dr. Lori McFarlane, Director-at-Large and Jennifer Villard, Chair.

The following is the text of the Annual Report from the Chair.

On behalf of the Directors of the Denman Health Centre Society I welcome you to the Annual General Meeting of the Society Membership. As we reflect on 2021, we recognize the unforeseen changes and ‘new normals’ that we as a community, and the world community have had to acknowledge. Covid 19 and the subsequent variances have taken, and continue to take, huge tolls. It has been very difficult for many, but to date, Denman Islanders appear to have adapted well to the challenges and restrictions imposed by the pandemic.

The Zella Clark Health Centre has seen a few changes this year. To briefly recap the events of 2021, the Society leased the clinic facility to Dr. Steve Fox Inc, with the understanding that he would provide primary medical care at the clinic. Dr,Fox would attend on Mondays, Dr. Alsoon Brine on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Dr. Ron Wilson on Thursdays and Fridays. This continued until June 2021 when Dr. Fox , for personal reasons, reneged on his lease and left the country. Fortunately Dr. Wilson and Dr. Brine continued on with the lease and operated the clinic until Dr. Brine retired this past December. We will greatly miss her expert advice and the excellent care that she gave to her Denman patients. Heading into 2022. Dr. Wilson is continuing on at the clinic working Thursdays and Fridays and has secured the help of another physician two times a month for two days a week. In addition, Dr. Wilson has placed our clinic on the list for the Island Health Locum Program for the provision of relief physicians. We are sincerely grateful and appreciative of Dr. Ron’s dedication to the health and well being of the Denman Community. Thank you Ron.

As you are aware, the mandate of the Denman Health Centre Society is to maintain the Zella Clark Health Centre for the provision of health care services for the Island. We, in effect, are the landlords and the doctors and the Hornby Denman Community Health Care Society(HDCHCS) and Island Health are the tenants. Under this umbrella, on a part time basis, the health centre is serviced by physicians, social workers, a physiotherapist, a pharmacist, a nurse and Life Lab technician. Dr. Ron will elaborate on this in his report. In planning for the future, we, as a Society , do assist with finding suitable tenants when requested and along with the doctors we are actively looking for physicians interested in providing primary care on Denman Island. We have placed several ads in National Medical journals and on websites and are following up on leads. We are also very supportive of new initiatives in the community. Lori Nawrot, Executive Director of the HDCHCS has established a steering committee to investigate setting up a Community Health Centre for both islands, This is an exciting new concept in health care delivery with a focus on community input and a professional team based approach. Updates will be circulated as details are known.

I would like to express my gratitude to the very competent and diligent Denman Health Centre Society Board of Directors. They are Keith Clark, Dr.David Scuton, Lyndsey Jennings,,John Wigle , and Gill Forsyth . Their dedication to the Society has been invaluable this past year. Thank you all.

In conclusion, I would like to thank you, the members of the Denman Health Centre Society, for your support of the Zella Clark Health Centre. It has been my honour to serve as Chair of the Society this past year.

Respectfully Submitted,

Jennifer Villard , 2021 Chair DHCS

P.S. A question was asked regarding the distinction between the DHCS and the HDCHCS. This is to clarify the roles of the two separate societies. The Denman Health Centre Society (DHCS) maintains and operates the Zella Clark Health Centre, the hub of health care services on Denman. They are not involved in the delivery of health care but do assist the doctors with long range planning when requested. The Hornby Denman Community Health Care Society (HDCHCS) on the other hand, is involved with the delivery of health care services (non primary care) for both Hornby and Denman. These essential services include Home Care, counselling for children, youth and families, mental health and substance abuse outreach, medical equipment loan program and community education and more. Their website is hornbydenmanhealth.com.

Prayer, “Don’t Look Up,” and the End of the World

January 20, 2022

Prayer, “Don’t Look Up,” and the End of the World

The topic of prayer seems to come up a lot lately. There are obvious reasons: covid, the crazy weather, the larger issue of climate change, the opioid crisis, covid, housing challenges (and assessments!) the dark days of January, covid, climate change, etc.

All of these and more suggest why those belonging to a particular faith tradition or no faith at all or somewhere in between would invoke their God/Higher Power/?.

The recent Netflix offering “Don’t Look Up” is a good example.

This dark satire presents a doomsday scenario where scientists, played by Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo Dicaprio, discover a huge comet on a trajectory that in a matter of months will destroy all life on earth.

The title of the movie refers to a head-in-the-sand response to scientific realities that might just strike a chord with some of us.

Political leaders such as U.S. President Janie Orlean, played by Meryl Streep, and media celebrities initially treat this news with indifference until they figure out ways to spin the story to their own advantage.

Yes, you heard that right: for some, the end of the world really isn’t if you can use it in the short term to boost polls and ratings.

Prayer comes into this as a means to further personal agendas: President Orleans prays from the deck of a U.S. battleship: ”May Jesus Christ bless every single one of you, especially the members of my own party…” President Orlean’s son, Jason, her Chief of Staff, offers a similarly howlingly self-serving but strangely familiar sounding prayer: “There is …material stuff, like watches and cars and clothes and I don’t want to see that go away so I’m going to say a prayer for that stuff.”

As the end draws near the scientists and a few others gather for their own Last Supper. The non-religious Leonardo Dicaprio character wonders if someone should offer a prayer before they eat. Yule, played by Timothee Chalamet, despite his rejection of his evangelical upbringing, volunteers this prayer:

“Dearest Father and Almighty Creator, We ask for your grace tonight, despite our pride; Your forgiveness, despite our doubt. Most of all, Lord, we ask for your love to soothe us through these dark times. May we face whatever is to come in your divine will with courage and open hearts of acceptance. Amen.”

As one commentator observed, this prayer is not “weaponized” as prayers can often be. It is not forced on anyone who hasn’t expressed a desire to receive it. It is not used to manipulate others or push an agenda.

It simply but wonderfully expresses the longing of a humble, open heart for the character and above all, love, that will allow us to face and deal with whatever is to come.

Not a bad place to start as we deal with whatever “comets” are heading our way…

Submitted by Graeme Isbister

Gwynne Dyer: Covid Fatigue

January 20, 2022

12 January 2022

Covid Fatigue

By Gwynne Dyer

Once they called it ‘combat fatigue’, and treated the soldiers who showed the symptoms with a mixture of pity and contempt. Then they renamed it ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ (PTSD) and broadened the definition to cover similar responses to other stressful situations. And now we have Covid fatigue.

We’re coming up on two years since the first round of lockdowns and overflowing hospitals, and heading for yet another peak in the pandemic. At least five million people have died of Covid-19, and more than half a billion have had it. People are worn down, and it’s starting to show.

Tens of millions who were just getting by ‘before covid’ have now fallen into real poverty. A whole generation of young people feels that their lives have been put on hold. Inflation is now taking hold in most countries, which will make matters even worse. Most people have behaved well through a long, hard time, but patience is running out.

The anti-vaxxers are the first to feel the weight of public resentment. Once they were just seen as gullible simpletons taken in by online conspiracy theories. Now, in countries where the great majority of people are vaccinated, they have been promoted to the status of a public health risk.

They were always a reservoir of the virus, but now that most people are vaccinated the harm they do is more visible. In countries like Canada and France, where 80% or more of the population is fully vaccinated, up to 90% of the people filling intensive care beds that could be serving other critically ill people are unvaccinated Covid cases.

That’s why French President Emmanuel Macron, facing an election in April, found it politically advantageous to say: “We have to tell (the unvaccinated)… you will no longer be able to go to a restaurant. You will no longer be able to go for a coffee, you will no longer be able to go to the theatre. You will no longer be able to go to the cinema.”

Macron later told a newspaper: “as for the non-vaccinated, I really want to piss * them off.” So that they would go and get vaccinated, presumably, but he knew he was also catching the popular mood. He later told reporters in Paris: “People can get upset about a way of speaking that seems colloquial, but I fully stand by it. I’m upset about the situation we’re in.”

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took the same line, although in more genteel language. But he didn’t go as far as Quebec, the hardest hit of the Canadian provinces.

Quebec is not doing badly by international standards; the same population as Austria or Switzerland, and about the same number of deaths. But last week it required people to show proof of vaccination at provincial cannabis and alcohol shops – and it has now declared that the unvaccinated will have to pay a monthly ‘contribution’ to the cost of health care.

Even the Pope has chipped in, saying that getting vaccinated is a “moral obligation,” and you don’t have to share his faith to agree with that statement. Vaccines protect not only the people who get the jab, but all those who may come into contact with them. That was always true, but now the patience has run out because people are tired.

The most dangerous consequence of covid fatigue, however, is the magical thinking that it induces even in some health professionals. ‘It’s been so long; surely it will be over soon’ is a wish, not a scientific statement.

Early this week Dr David Nabarro, the World Health Organisation’s special envoy of Covid-19, suggested that most countries have already passed the halfway mark in the pandemic ‘marathon’. “We can see the end in sight, but we’re not there (yet), and there’s going to be some bumps before we get there.”

Nadhim Zahawi, responsible for Britain’s vaccine deployment last year, said “I hope we will be one of the first major economies to demonstrate to the world how you transition from pandemic to epidemic, and then deal with this however long it remains with us, whether that’s five, six, seven, ten years.”

And Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sá nchez said that the European Union should stop detailed tracking of the pandemic and “start evaluating the evolution of this disease with different parameters.” In plain Spanish, that means: treat it like a flu epidemic.

This is wishful thinking and nothing more. There is no reason to believe that the end is in sight, or that the next Covid variant won’t be worse than Omicron, or even that infectious diseases always evolve towards lower lethality. Some do; some don’t.

And it won’t be over until the vaccination rates in Africa and Asia are the same as in Europe, East Asia and the Americas, plus 6-12 months.

The New Normal

January 20, 2022

The New Normal Sally Campbell

As Rivera Sun (Editor of Nonviolence News, a weekly roundup of nonviolent actions for social justice around the globe) says, “In 2022, resistance is the only new normal. Keep it up, everyone. Our world needs you.” I find this particularly relevant these days when our politicians seem unable to hear, let alone respond to the will of the people.

Are we really that selfish and myopic that we can’t agree to waive patents for Covid vaccines to allow the majority of the world’s people access? Are we that war-mongering that we station Canadian troops on Russia’s borders in Latvia & the Ukraine, as part of NATO’s push into territory it promised Gorbachev NATO would not encroach upon when the Cold War ended?

Are we that blind and indifferent to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza that we ignore Canada’s role in funding and arming the Israeli military? (See Just Peace Advocates webinar: “Yes, Canada does arm and fund the Israeli military”, January, 2022.) Are we so sedated and/or comfortable with nuclear weapons in our world that we refuse to join the majority of the world’s nations in signing the Ban Treaty?

January 22 marks the first anniversary of the Ban Treaty, the UN Treaty on the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons. I wrote about this treaty a year ago in The Grape. What with the climate crisis and Covid, it might seem as if this treaty is irrelevant. Alas, with the US ramping up its new cold war against Russia and now China, it becomes more imperative than ever that we adhere to international law and expect other governments do so as well.

What might psychologists say about Canada’s blatant inconsistencies between what we say and what we do? They might raise the idea of the “shadow” – those parts of ourselves we don’t want to recognize or acknowledge, the less likeable parts, the potential for violence we carry within us, most often at an unconscious level. We’re not really aware of these aspects, though they drive much of our behaviour.

Every grouping also has a shadow – families, communities, religions, nations – all have dark sides we’d rather not acknowledge. Let’s look at Canada. When nations criticize other nations for behaviours they themselves engage in, but are blind to, it’s called “shadow projection”. ^[1] We in Canada, for example, like to think of ourselves as a peaceable nation, our global role one of diplomacy, support for “developing nations”, and peacekeeping. “What is a Canadian? An unarmed North American with health care.”^[2] Now this gives us a smile as it captures two highly valued aspects of established public policy. It also gives us a point of contrast with the US, one which invites a little smugness on the part of the tiny mouse living in the shadow of the giant. It has to do with our projection of our shadow onto the US. Perhaps we can focus on what we actually do as Canadians on the global stage rather than blaming the US for the state we’re in.

What we don’t often reckon with is our history of supporting empire and imperialism. As members of NATO, we have engaged in wars in former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, & Libya, to name a few. We now have Canadian Forces in Latvia & Ukraine, right on Russia’s borders. Our military budget is largely driven by our expected “contributions” to NATO. The Canadian government’s decision to purchase 88 fighter jets from the US is connected to NATO and NORAD. How well will fighter jets help anyone address climate crisis?

Canada has less than 45 people involved in the UN Peacekeeping Forces.

Former Ambassador to the UN Stephen Lewis has stated that a number of countries are now taking extreme nationalist positions; he cited the UK, US (under Trump), Brazil, India, Hungary, & the Philippines. Canada, he says, is a “small trading country, who relies on international agreements…Canada is listened to when our voice is authentic and when we stand by what we say”.^[3] PM Justin Trudeau is on record as saying that we’re committed to achieving a world free of nuclear weapons. And yet, not only have we not signed the critically important Ban Treaty, we actively opposed its negotiation, and voted “no” when 130 of the world’s nations voted “yes”.

We say we want our decisions to be rooted in international law^[4], yet we regularly look the other way when our allies breach it. Lewis says we need to maintain and support the International Criminal Court (ICC). We could help strengthen the UN and its global impact, but we have dealt ourselves out of a position of influence at the Security Council. According to Lewis, Canada lost its bid for a revolving seat on the Security Council (always held before when we stood for election) “because of our politics and policies”, such as buying a pipeline whilst giving lip service to the climate crisis (his example). To have a say in our foreign policy, Canadians need to let our leaders know what we want, with voices strong enough to be heard.

The Canadian Foreign Policy Institute (CFPI) is just two years old. Its purpose is to reevaluate Canada’s foreign policy and advocate for a progressive policy reflecting Canada’s role as a middle power, committed to multi-lateralism. World Beyond War Canada has offices in Winnipeg and Montreal. Just Peace Advocates out of Toronto is another emergent group worth exploring. Then there’s Canadians for Justice & Peace in the Middle East. And Progressive International, led by such influencers as Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, Vijay Prashad.

These groups offer realistic ways we can participate.

Stay-at-home periods can drive us crazy. They can also offer space to google groups such as these and to resist the inertia that keeps our world so filled with crushing inequity, suffering and danger. An added benefit is the increased sense of well-being that comes from being connected to our global community and joining the effort to create a better world. Our feisty little communities know about resistance. Why not channel that spirit toward resisting Canada’s mistaken priorities and its militarism? Could this become our new normal?

1 Masters, Dr. Robert A., Bringing Your Shadow Out of The Dark, Sounds True Publishing: Boulder, Co., 2018 @ 216

2 Meme gone viral

3 World Beyond War Webinar May 31, 2020, on Revitalizing the Canadian Peace Movement.

4 https://www.international .gc.ca/world-monde/international relations.

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Self Propaganda

January 20, 2022

Green Wizardries: This Week in the Garden

January 20, 2022

Green Wizardries, This Week in the Garden by Maxine Rogers

I am writing this on 16 January 2022. Spring seems to have struck with a great deal of force. The ice and snow melted away, warm balmy winds caress the islands and I have the first winter aconite blooms in my garden. The blooms are small and not yet open but their brave yellow is out in the world. The winter aconite flower is the very first to bloom here. Mine were given to me by Jimmy Tait of blessed memory.

Jimmy was a veteran of WWII and even after that had an adventurous life. Jimmy was the unofficial Queen of Denman and ruled the island like a benevolent dictator. She gifted flowering plants far and wide and it is a rare garden on Denman that does not owe her a debt of gratitude.

The first spikes of garlic are up in the vegetable garden. The peach tree branches are thronged with swelling buds. With good luck and a following wind, we might be self-sufficient in peaches this year.

We have heaps of carrots, beets, leeks and celeriac still in the garden. This is my first time ever growing celeriac and we harvested our first one and ate it grated with a carrot as a salad with some home-made mayonnaise and dried tomatoes from last summer’s garden.

I want to stop and say a couple of words here about olive oil, for you cannot make a good mayonnaise without good olive oil. There is a lot of adulterated or counterfeit olive oil on the market. We bought a Greek olive oil at a popular store in Courtenay and for a while, I was able to make good mayonnaise from it. Then, suddenly, nothing I could do would turn the oil into mayonnaise. I had never had this trouble before.

I decide to check my oil and poured some of it into a small bowl and put it in the fridge for 24 hours. It was still liquid after all that time in the fridge. A real olive oil would have become thick like yogourt and a little opaque.

We called the store in question and were told to bring all the oil back and they would refund our money no problem. We took several cans of the oil back to them and they eagerly returned our money even though we did not have a receipt. They knew damned well it was counterfeit olive oil and just wanted us to go away.

They still carry the same brand of Greek fake-olive oil. The problem with this is if the oil is counterfeit, how do we know it is wholesome at all? So I would advise all my readers to get up now and put some of their olive oil in the fridge and check it again tomorrow.

Why would the Greeks choose to tarnish their good name by selling bad oil? I had this explained by a friend who had visited Greece and spoken to the farmers there. Greek farmers are not allowed by the EU to sell or even press their own olives but have to buy in sub-standard (rancid) olives from abroad and or cut the resulting oil with vegetables oils. The EU gives all the olive oil quotas to Spain and Italy because they are more important members of the EU.

I have had successes in last year’s garden but it is even more important to talk about the failures. I did not think we were going to get such an Arctic winter here and I left many Brussel’s sprouts plants standing in the garden. We had always been able to do that when we had a garden in Victoria. We used to have only four or five plants but they were all so tall and mighty that we left them in the field and harvested them all winter long. Turns out, you can’t do that here.

When the ice and snow melted, we went out into the garden and found the Brussels’s sprouts were much rotted. I was so disappointed as we love fresh Brussel’s sprouts. I have pulled most of the plants up and am feeding them to the hens who are not so fussy and feeding the best remaining sprouts to the rabbits who are.

This year, I hope to grow many more Brussel’s sprouts but this time, I will harvest them at the peak of readiness and blanch and freeze them. We did that with our huge cauliflower harvest last year and still have many bags of cauliflower to use in salads, soups and other recipes. Blanched cauliflower makes a wonderful salad with a lemon juice, olive oil, salt and chopped garlic dressing. Green beans likewise.

I know that if everyone is really well prepared for an extreme winter that we will have a mild one. I think this is a little, simple, natural magic that we would be well advised to pursue as a community.

When I was out in the garden, I noticed a huge host of those small, grey slugs fornicating in the heavy mulch. I also found a too high number of cutworms. I think we had all better start slug hunting early and often this year.

We have a single, ancient Muscovey duck who is too old to lay eggs anymore. She has been a good duck and given us many, many eggs and reared dozens of ducklings for us so we keep her as a pet. We caught her and clipped the flight feathers on one of her wings so she cannot fly away.

I carried her into the garden and orchard complex so she can hunt slugs and cut worms to her heart’s content. We catch her in the evening and put her back in the secure hen house so she can sleep safe from mink attack. I maintain that having a couple of hens or ducks in the garden is the most efficient way to deal with slugs and she turns those slugs into high-quality manure to fertilize the garden.

Just one more thing, my husband said to explain that we do have thin cables strung across the gardens to dissuade the eagles from hunting our garden poultry.

Thoughts about the 2022/23 budget

January 20, 2022

Thoughts about the 2022/23 budget

The cost of the Islands’ Trust is too high, its programs expanding out of control, its connections to the communities it’s supposed to serve increasingly hostile.

Some thoughts about the budget could be scaled back:

Three-year moratorium on new hires.

Three-year moratorium on sponsorship applications other than Indigenous cultural ones.

Two-year moratorium on hiring of co-op students.

New projects for RPC/LTCs should be achievable in one fiscal year or deferred or dropped acknowledging that a new LTC/TC may have different priorities.

Planned work should be reduced to account for a ‘shortened’ year due to elections taking place in November 2022

Development application fees should cover a much larger share of the actual processing costs.

Development applications formerly processed through the Capital and Nanaimo Regional Districts (and maybe other RD’s) shouldn’t require pre-approval from the Islands’ Trust.

Cost-saving recommendations from the governance review should be implemented.

LTC projects should prioritize using staff, not consultants.

The Climate Indicators Project should be dropped as potential results re. global environmental impacts from one-half of one percent of BC’s population couldn’t justify the cost. The IT should publicly acknowledge its limitations in addressing this global problem.

The Freshwater Sustainability Strategy should be scaled back to the scope of the freshwater policy of the most progressive of our 7 Regional Districts, rather than the IT positioning itself to be “the most progressive regional government in British Canada (typo?) and indeed the country.” (Econics Consulting, 2021).

Limit of $5,000 to be awarded to community environmental initiatives authorized by Bill 26. These to be decided by community referendum. If community groups need additional funding, they should seek it through environmental organizations grants.

No more than one Planner and one Regional Planning Manager and a recorded should ever be allowed to attend a regular LTC meeting, in-person or electronically.

Numbers of Planners on staff should parallel numbers of Planners on staff in other jurisdictions of similar population.

Numbers of staff attending committee meetings should be limited.

More trustees are needed to promote democracy. Islands with over 1000 residents should have three elected trustees, and islands with over 4000 residents should have five. There would then be no need to have Executive Committee members serve as ties-breakers on at least 6 of the islands, and so EC members shouldn’t attend those meetings. The elected LTC Chair could report to the EC.

Elected trustees should serve as communication specialists, and the full-time Communication Specialist position should be dropped. At least three LTC meeting in each year should be replaced by a “Trust café” session, on a weekend or evening. These should serve coffee and cookies (or whatever), play music, other friendly things, and the trustees should explain in plain language what’s happening in the IT, including controversial issues and costs of programs. Trustees should include explanation of the governance structure of the IT, its jurisdiction, and what projects/problems are ongoing on other islands and how their LTC’s are coping with them.

Mapping initiatives should reflect need, not technological capability. If maps duplicate those made by other jurisdictions, the IT shouldn’t make them. If they haven’t been used for meaningful on-the-ground work in a year, they shouldn’t be updated until a need arises.

No public money should be spent on advocacy letter-writing to higher jurisdictions.

No staff time should be spent on paperwork exercises re. affordable housing that don’t directly generate new affordable housing.

The words “unique amenities” should be dropped from all IT language, too be replaced by “environmental, social, and economic amenities.”

Sincerely,

Margie Gang

Islands Trust (IT) Budget and timing of Public Feedback survey

January 20, 2022

Author: Mairead Boland, Saturna Island

Date: January 19^th 2022

Subject: Islands Trust (IT) Budget and timing of Public Feedback survey.

In November 2021 I became aware of the poor timing of the Islands Trust public feedback survey on the budget. The survey is launched in late January, takes place over 10 days, survey results are provided to the Financial Planning Committee (FPC) in mid February and the budget is adopted by Trust Council approximately 10 working days later.

How can this survey have any impact on the adopted budget I asked myself?

After my delegation in Dec 2021 to the Trust Council, when my request that IT use last year’s results was disregarded, I decided to conduct a Citizen Survey based on the central question asked in each of the IT past surveys.

In January 2022, I launched the Citizen Survey with the question which is central to each of the previous IT surveys (2019, 2020, 2021).

“What Budget Principle do you support?”

The results were provided to the Islands Trust FPC for the January 19^th meeting.

As of today, 524 people responded from across the islands, of whom 316 commented.

42% of islanders want the budget, expenditures, taxes, to be reduced through the reduction of services and programs.

90% want no increase – this is the sum of those who want a reduction and those who want the budget to remain the same.

9% voted for increased expenditure and activities.

The trends though the IT surveys (2019, 2020, 2021) and now this survey, are significant – none more so than this; 38% wanted an increase in 2019, by Jan 2021 it was 20%, and now in Jan 2022 it is 9%

In summary, the survey is conducted too late in the budget planning cycle to be effective, the survey key questions are poorly worded and little effort is spent analysing the results.

In my opinion the public feedback survey results are not being used to develop or adjust the budget.

At the FPC meeting (Jan 19^th) it was agreed in principle to conduct the survey earlier. There was an extensive discussion on the facts and figures to be represented in the survey. There is tension between providing a lot of information and a belief that people will be impatient with an extensive survey – especially if they are using a small mobile device.

I personally believe that the Islands Trust could create an ad-hoc community working group to collaborate on budget creation – those people could become ambassadors to explain the budget to others. This would be true community engagement and consultation.

To Take the SURVEY:

https://forms.gle/XKCPGpAr9aNHkX458

To View the RESULTS (Live)

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1K4188gcjXtRIGyRvibihGGYQ5rABWiNjpW7T5UR2PAA/viewanalytics

To take part in the survey scan this QR code or email info4allourvoices@gmail.com for a link

An Unpainted Portrait, Who Me?

January 20, 2022

Who, me?

As we stood panting gently in the growing heat of the morning, we were informed of a new and exciting feature of the annual parade display. For this marvelous spectacle, only twenty-four of us would be chosen. With a little more organization based upon height, we had four teams of young men standing together and looking a little bewildered. Bottomley then cheerfully introduced each team to one of the coloured logs. Each was approximately sixteen feet long (I would be more precise, but I never seem to have a tape measure with me at such times) and painted in chequered patterns; one blue and white, one red and white, one yellow and one green. I presumed it was so that a) we didn’t lose them, or b) we didn’t accidentally wander off and use another team’s pole by mistake.

We carried the poles on shoulders – hence the height requirement – onto the very front of the parade square, at which point the remainder of our intake, until then kicking their exquisitely white heels and becoming increasingly bored, began to watch with interest – and with good reason. We lined up and then, after some instruction and very nervously, we began to throw and catch these two hundred and-something pound lumps of splintery wood. Straight up and down, over our heads – throwing it up on one side and spinning underneath it to catch it on the other side. We even dallied with testicular splinters and slid the bloody thing between our legs (yes really). Hopefully, you get the idea, because re-living this once is enough for me. It wasn’t the first time that I’d cursed evolution for giving me external gonads, and neither would it be the last.

It was all a bit dangerous and very silly but since Mr Bottomley was behind it, we complied without a word of complaint. The theory, as I understood it, was that we were providing a very important person (Sir Lionel) with a dazzling display of disciplined teamwork, something that was sure to amaze and delight both the great man and the attendant audience. They, incidentally, would be there in order to support their relative graduate and not watch a gang of badly dressed idiots fooling around with large painted logs. Instead of creating a marvellous spectacle, it felt like a rather pathetic and half-hearted exercise that belonged to the same era as our PT kit. On the plus side, I suppose I learned that multi-inch splinters can be every bit as painful as they look.

Once we’d finished throwing, juggling and shuffling our logs, we were lined up for a little competition: a thrilling race. This silliest of all silly ideas involved us shuffling the poles between our legs, over our heads and doing some other just-as-daft throwing stuff with them, before raising each pole vertically and having the most monkey-like member of each team shinny up to the very top of it, there to claim a glorious victory. Dennis, a remarkably hairy and wiry guy from my own class was, fittingly, chosen to be our team’s ‘monkey’. He had been a merchant seaman and was no doubt well practised at making his way up masts and yardarms etc. It didn’t really matter – just so long as it wasn’t me trying it. It was all very 1930s, very silly, and worst of all, it meant that when the exercise finished, I ended up looking directly up the voluminous shorts of one of the hairiest men I’d ever met. It wasn’t what I’d envisaged doing with this part of my life.

In deference to the well-established fact that modern politicians are quite happy to send people off to war/into harm’s way, yet detest the icky sight of blood, we were ordered not to injure ourselves lest we disturb Sir Lionel’s carefully established and in-no-way-cognac-infused equilibrium. Therefore, we had to be good at this…thing, whatever it was supposed to be. In other words, repetitive practice loomed large in our futures. Great, just great. Subsequent rehearsals for this display of dubious wisdom were inevitably fraught with injury; ranging from pretty darned impressive (six inches long) splinters to significant bruises, minor crush injuries abrasions, strains and sprains. I was fortunate to avoid any significant injury because my head usually got in the way first.

To me, this kind of upper-class ‘let’s entertain the great unwashed masses to prevent a revolution’ dickery was an anachronism. I very much doubted that any audience – apart, of course, from the Home Secretary, who would be privy to the arcane reasoning for such things – would be anything other than a little puzzled as to why trainee policemen were throwing telegraph poles around and shuffling them between their legs. I mean – have you ever seen your local constables demonstrate this skill? No, you haven’t, and for very good reason; that would be because only a very few were so carefully and specifically selected and trained to do so! It was probably comforting for the onlookers to consider that, should a power/telephone pole emergency break out in the high street, the brave expertise of the pole-shuffling squad was close at hand. Perhaps.

For the next month, we practised several times each week. Thankfully the summer weather that year was spectacular, and the sun always seemed to be shining as we went through the increasingly dull routine. The format was that we would troop onto the empty parade square in a single file with me at the back. Everyone would jog in step – harder than it sounds when we were all strung out in a very long line – to their allotted position. I was the last to come to a stop on that (freshly re-painted) dot directly in front of where Sir Lionel Nutbar would ultimately be seated in all his glorious, toffee-nosed political boredom.

After a short introduction speech which was comically ad-libbed by Mr Bottomley on each occasion, we were started with a single whistle peep, upon which we jumped from attention to a ‘stand-at-ease’ position. From that point, with the music blaring scratchily from a huge forty-year-old speaker cone – it looked suspiciously like the foghorn from an old battleship – on top of the adjacent building, it was all up to me to take everyone through the routine on tempo. They moved when I moved. I was counting to a rhythm, but it looked like I was making them all move; if only I had been, I could have had some fun, albeit at the expense of a career. If I screwed up, however, I would be taking everyone else – including Bottomley – with me. Memories of my marching ‘expertise’ occasionally reared their ugly heads and for a split second all control of my limbs would leave me but, fortunately, the routine was easy to remember and easy to perform. It almost became fun. As my confidence grew and my trepidation about being the focus for so many pairs of eyes receded, the universe rubbed its hands with glee and hatched its evil plan for me.