VillageToolbox Blog

Exciting news! We have finaly heard back from the city about our neighbourhood plans to put a permanent BBQ into the park.  This is exciting for me, because after a year of pushing and emailing, and jumping through hoops, I was beginning to believe that it was never going to happen.

So, now we have permission from the city to begin fabrication. That means no going back – they can’t change their minds once we’ve spent money of building it. It also means that the onus is now on us, the community, to move the project forward. After so long, this is an interesting turn of events. Also it means (hopefully) that I get to do some cool welding now.

We need to make a number of decisions now.  What material do we use (what can we afford). How do we design it? How do we anchor it? How do we make sure the neighbourhood teenagers don’t break it n the first 2 weeks.  So much to do!

Me, Juliet and 2 pounds of fresh local cherries spent the afternoon at the wading pool. Sadly, the cherries did not make it home.

The last week has been a whirlwind of activity in Sunny Acres. Last Saturday was the annual park party. We probably had a couple of hundred people there, lots of food, lots of really good music (all from the neighbourhood) and lots of games for the kids.  We raised almost $400 for the BBQ installation. We also had someone approach us who works at a local company who thinks he can convince his company to provide all the materials, and possibly weld it for us!

Wednesday night, we had a BBQ planning meeting to come up with designs for the barbeque, and I think we’ve now got a pretty good idea what we are looking for.

Then, Friday night, we had Alma and Jessica come from GIRC to get the neighbourhood started on a drought resistant garden project that is looking like it’s gonna be pretty cool. Followed by a movie night.  We showed a series on animated shorts, then Tin Tin.

This Saturday is the annual park party is coming up this Saturday, and we have something to celebrate.  We have received a list of conditions from the city that we need to comply with to get our community barbeque, and every last one is totally do-able.  We’re puling together a working group now to design the bbq, and source materials.  I’m hoping we’ll have it installed within a couple of months.

Apparently you can fight city hall (or at least work with them nicely).

To me, the following story points to a possible reason why good communities don’t just develop on their own.  The folks of sunny acres had a bunch of ideas for ways to improve the community. We prioritized our wants, spoke to the folks in park planning, and decided on a way to go about getting what we wanted.  One of our first priorities was a park bbq.

Now, I’m not sure if you’ve seen these simple metal bbqs that show up in parks and campsites and such.  Basically they are a simple metal box, with a grill, welded to a post, stuck in concrete. BYOBriquettes kinda thing.

Anyway, we want a big one in the park.  The idea is that it serves as a sort of catalyst for spontaneous zero-planning community events. Friday nights would be ‘eat your dinner at the park’ night. Whoever shows up, comes to the party. Anyway, we think it’s a great idea.  It’s got lots of community support, so here we go to the city.  Our first and best contact has been one of our city councillors, who is standing behind the idea, and being very supportive.  She put us in touch with the community planning officer at the city.  I was very impressed after our first meeting.  She was enthusiastic, motivated, and passionate about finding ways for the city to help communities excel.  She got me excited about the possibilities. Two days after our second meeting, she was fired.  It seemed the city saw no value in what she was doing.

We pushed harder, getting a meeting with a junior planner in the parks department.  He seemed generally enthusiastic about the idea, and promised to send it up the pipe. We got as far as the head of the parks department, who said, in effect, he can’t be bothered. And the whole thing collapsed like a house of cards.

What’s crazy about this is not that the city doesn’t want to do it.  We’re not asking for anything more than just permission. The community is happy to do all the work. But it seems that city employees just aren’t that interested.

So on we fight. June, our councillor, is still poking at various options, and we are trying others, but I fully expect it to come to the point of me standing in front of city council, asking them just exactly what is wrong with a city where communities are actively discouraged from bettering themselves.

Our local citizen’s group, Guelp Civic League, is putting on a conference in a few weeks. Communities In Action is of interest to me from two points of view. One, I might be able to convince another strong community to get involved with the early stages of VillageToolbox, and two, it is probably a good place to push forward in my bbq fight with city hall. More on that soon.