Between The Bridges – May 25

Saturday Afternoon Music in Leg-In-Boot Square returns for its fifth season!  Once again, music will fill the plaza from 2-4 pm on Saturdays from June 15th until the fall (end of September or mid-October, depending on the weather).

Come and enjoy Shawn Bullshields (June 15), the Brock House Big Band (June 29), The 2Jayz (July 6), Irish Day (July 13) as well as Josh Minsky, our very own Jon Dron and many more on following Saturdays.  Afternoon Tea and the Art and Craft Fair will also return.
 
Do you have a favourite event you would like to see? Let us know!

Summer is coming and we are looking for people who want to join in the fun and help with the various tasks it takes to make “The Square” the place to be!  We need people of all types to make it work and we’re hoping you will be one of them.  

Whether you have five minutes or five hours, have a musical talent to share or want to help out behind the scenes, like to garden, or love to host and meet new people – if you are interested in getting involved in any way,  c’mon down.  We’ve got a job for you!

The Plaza is stewarded 100% by volunteers through a partnership between the Convivial Café, the False Creek South Neighbourhood Association, and the City of Vancouver.

Find out what’s happening at www.leginboot.ca or contact *email is hidden, JavaScript is required* – or drop in to Convivial Café.

And we still have six blue umbrellas! Much appreciation for the unknown volunteer who lowered them during the crazy wind last Tuesday when the rest of us were already curled up for the night. Thank you!

Susan Dehnel is Chair of the FCSNA’s Community Engagement Committee

Join RePlan’s staff, Robyn and Sarah, for a workshop and learning series about planning topics and False Creek South.

Resident Protection and Retention Plan
Thursday, June 6 - 7:00 pm

Our first session is about the Provisional Resident Protection and Retention Plan (RPRP) approved in principle by City Council in 2018. This document outlines the ways in which current residents of False Creek South will be supported in cases of future redevelopment or lease end. 

What does the RPRP say and what has changed for False Creek South residents since its approval six years ago? Join RePlan staff for an overview and discussion about its importance to our community.

This meeting will be hybrid. To attend, please RSVP using the links below:

Community Land Trust 101
Thursday, June 20 - 7:00 pm

What are community land trusts (CLTs), and what is their potential in False Creek South? Our second FCS 101 workshop will discuss the community land trust model, its success in providing affordable housing, and how a Trust could help shape the future of False Creek South.

Don’t forget those spot prawns

Reminder: The annual Spot Prawn Festival is Sunday, May 26, 11 am - 3:30 pm at Fisherman’s Wharf, west of the Granville Island vehicle entrance.

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The Kids Fest is back!

From May 27 through June 2, the Vancouver International Children’s Festival - the longest professional performing arts festival for kids and the first in North America and Europe – returns to Granville Island for its 47th year. A single evening performance on the 27th will be followed by all-day events for the following days, some into the evening. More info here: https://www.childrensfestival.ca/

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Nathan’s Book Club next week

The Creekview Co-op meeting room at 1481 Lamey’s Mill Road is the site of the second session of Nathan’s Book Club on Saturday, June 1, from 2 to 4 pm.  Creekview is just east of the Anderson Street vehicle entrance to Granville Island. The book is Samuel Stein’s Capital City. To borrow a physical or e-book contact  Sarah Brown (*email is hidden, JavaScript is required*" target="_blank" style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;">*email is hidden, JavaScript is required*)  

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Farmers’ Market Coming Soon

June 6 from 3 to 7 pm is the opening date for this year’s False Creek Farmer’s Market on the Creek’s south side, near Science World. Open every Thursday until October 3, this market is easily reachable via ferry from Granville Island, Stamps Landing or Spyglass – and, of course, by bike or plain old-fashioned walking along the new and improved seawall.

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New RePlan Workshop Series Begins

June 6, 7 pm is the date and time for the first in a new in-person and online series of RePlan workshops on planning, land use, and governance issues affecting False Creek South. For details see RePlan Update in this issue.

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Block Party on Granville Island

There’s more than one way to build community, and the non-profit society Public Disco is putting one on display on Saturday, June 8 from 2 pm to 10 pm.  

The Granville Island Block Party, located just north of the Granville Island Brewery, will be open to all ages – a licensed event featuring DJs, food trucks, dance, a kids’ area and lots and lots of music. To learn about Public Disco and its mission of “bringing people together to connect through music in public space”, go to https://www.publicdisco.ca/our-mission.

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Music in the Square

Starting June 15 Leg-In-Boot Square will once again reverberate with the sound of music. See SATURDAY MUSIC IN THE SQUARE elsewhere in this issue.

Snack sales, Purdy’s Easter sales, and pizza lunches are happening at False Creek Elementary to help get our grade 6/7s to Camp Summit in June.  A tradition for years at FCE, the kids really look forward to this when entering their intermediate grades.

Our students will stay over two nights in bunk cabins and enjoy campfires, swimming, archery, rope climbing, field games and sports, rock wall climbing, and more. 

Camp Summit, located in the upper Squamish Valley, describes itself as “a private, non-denominational co-ed overnight facility and outdoors education centre” with a mission to “encourage personal growth through cooperation, teamwork and positive leadership”

We all have layers to our identity that impact how we move through the world. Our social positioning, beliefs, and experiences colour what we see… just as they influence what falls out of our view. Co-op representatives who participated in the Co-op Collaboratory Project (“Co-Lab” for short), identified a shared interest and desire to learn more about meaningful inclusion in False Creek South; according to 2016 Census data, 51.6% of Vancouver residents were members of a visible minority group, whereas this number was only 17.1% in False Creek South.

To that end, Adeline Huynh of The Commons Consulting facilitated a two-part winter workshop series that Co-Lab offered to members from all of the False Creek South housing co-ops.  (For more on Adeline’s important work, go to https://www.thecommonsconsulting.com)

The first workshop, Leading From The Intersections, challenged participants to engage more deeply with the themes of identity, power, and privilege by asking:

• How can the layers of our own identity help us to be more inclusive?
• How can we build community inclusivity at the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, age, and (dis)ability?
• What are the patterns and impacts of stereotypes, biases, and assumptions? What strategies can bring them into view to mitigate?

The second workshop, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Learning Lab for Leaders gave participants a chance to bring prior learnings to bear on current practices and tangible examples from our respective co-ops, with strategies and support for how to become champions of equity in our communities. Participants were introduced to theories of organizational change and, using EDI tools to map out where opportunities for change exist in our communities, began creating an inclusion action plan.

Both responsibilities and privileges come with being a housing co-op member, perhaps especially given Vancouver’s current unprecedented housing crisis. As a grateful housing co-op member, I’m proud that co-ops continue to offer a viable non-market alternative to the soaring financialization of housing that is all around us. However, there is work to be done to ensure that co-ops are more representative of the city as a whole. Together we can look forward to building strong co-op communities in ways that will prioritize a diverse, flourishing, and just future for False Creek South and beyond. 

If you’re interested in learning more about continuing this work in our community, please reach out to Sarah *email is hidden, JavaScript is required* or Robyn *email is hidden, JavaScript is required*.

At our first appointment, the young doctor who’d inherited the practice of my just-retired family physician, asked, “And what is troubling you today?”

The question of a novice. He had not yet learned that he should have asked, “How can I help you?” That translates into “Tell me a specific thing I can deal with”. But the open-ended “What’s troubling you?” is an invitation, an overture: Let the organ recital begin!

Like others of my ilk, I could have begun that concerto at the top of my head and ended at the tip of my toes and, were that doctor a captive audience, kept him in listening mode for about three days.

Doctors, of course, are entitled to end the performance and usher you out the door. Others, however, are not. And because False Creek South has a somewhat higher percentage of older people than the City as a whole (it’s true that once here, most residents stay), your younger neighbours may be subject to an organ recital by just stepping out their door. 

But here’s the thing:  Nobody south of retirement age wants to listen. It’s not that they don’t care about you. It’s just that they really and truly don’t care about the meds you take or did or would never take or the details of this procedure versus all the other ones that you’ve committed to memory or what’s enlarged or shrunk or falling apart or fell already and on and on and on because to them it’s all excruciatingly, mind-numbingly, soul-shatteringly boring. 

I often think back to an uncle by marriage, notorious for his predictable answer to the question, “How’s your health, Herman?” Unfailingly, Uncle Herman would stare at his shoes, shrug, and say, “Meh”.

It’s not that he had nothing to say, but living with a condition like “Meh” was bad enough; why inflict it on others? As a result, his young relatives at large family gatherings gravitated to him precisely because of what he didn’t talk about. They never had to stifle yawns or surreptitiously back away or hide behind a post. Uncle Herman became a refuge, the most sought-after person in the room.

So if you ever notice that the young person before you has acquired a glazed or, worse,  kill-me-now look in their eyes, remember the exemplary Uncle Herman whose one-word report proved that organ recitals can end before they start.

Between The Bridges welcomes readers’ contributions of story ideas, events of interest, original photographs, and completed articles relevant to the False Creek South Neighbourhood Association’s goal to “promote an economically, social and culturally diverse neighbourhood with a friendly, positive and vibrant sense of community”. Signed articles reflect the views of their authors. For details go to: