Endings and Beginnings

This weekend was Labour Day weekend, marking the last long weekend of the summer, always a sweet and sad occasion. Camps and cottages get closed for the winter, the countryside is busy with the traditional fall fairs, and ice cream places see their last line ups of sun-burned customers before the cool weather moves in.

It was a pretty busy weekend for us, too, with a number of EcoB&B guests staying with us (always delightful company), the cutting and splitting firewood for the winter (and stacking it in our brand new wood shed), and a few house tours.

One house tour stood out from the others: about 20 students from Confederation College's Architectural Technology Program with their program coordinator Butch Petrone as part of their Orientation Week.

It was great to have architecture students visit with the specific purpose to learn and experience more about unconventional methods of building and designing. After all, these are the folks who will be part of the new wave of environmentally more sustainable ways of building, and we were pleasantly surprised to notice their keen interest and smart questions.

It was an encouraging experience for us, seeing the enthusiasm the next generation of designers and builders has for new ideas; it's all about being open-minded and interested in new concepts, avoiding the traps of conventionality.

A warm thank-you to Butch Petrone for getting his students to tour this unconventional place, and for introducing them to environmentally saner building methods. We're looking forward to continue this relationship!

Sister Cities

Friday was a busy day for us - and for the Duluth/Thunder Bay Sister Cities delegation. It was Thunder Bay's turn to receive the Duluth Sister City folks who were touring a slew of "green" intitiatives in and around town for their very full 3-day stay.

We were pleasantly surprised and honoured to receive a phone call from Sarah Kerton, Thunder Bay's Community Environmental Action Plan Coordinator, to be included in this tour. Sarah was in charge of the program and responsible for making it all happen - not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination.

The delegation's stop at the Eco Centre was scheduled at the end of a busy day that included visiting the harbour front development, Eco-Superior, the Water Filtration Plant - and the frozen solid Kakabeka Falls en route to the Eco Centre, of course.

We weren't sure what to expect, but what ever it was we expected, it wasn't this cheerful, almost giddy bunch of wonderful, warm and interested people. It was a treat to show them around, answer their many questions and see their enthusiasm grow by the minute.

Of course it helped there was some excellent food to be enjoyed (thanks to Jacomyn's excellent French carrot soup and some superb catering by the Metropolitan Moose). And the fact that they had brought their own wine & beer didn't hurt, either.
 
So here's to cross-border collaborations and inspirations, may we learn from each other on many more enjoyable visits!

Want More?

Well, the first trial series of Confederation College's Green Adult Education classes is behind us, and with a total of approx. 65 students attending we're very happy to report it was a success. Two of the 4 classes sold out, even.
We're also very happy to see the student evaluations ranging from positive to absolutely delighted with many asking for more; could we be on to something here?

"Please Sir, may I have some more?" (from the movie "Oliver Twist")

It looks like we'll be back for the spring session, and if that's even remotely successful as this winter series we may well become the "green fixture" on the Adult Education program.

This winter the classes were limited to "Living Off The Grid" and "Introduction To Solar Power". Our question to you: are there any other green topics you'd like to see us cover? Wind power? Energy Conservation? The Meaning Of Life? Other ideas, suggestions? Let us know, drop us an email, post a reply!

Looking forward to hearing (reading) from you - mabe see you this coming spring!

A Techno-Sceptic Converted (somewhat...)

I'm a techno-sceptic. It's not that I'm afraid of technology (in fact I often have to suppress these urges to buy the next must-have hi-tech toy), I just don't believe that technology is the silver bullet that'll deliver us from the environmental mess we've gotten ourselves into. Worse, I suspect it's partly thanks to technology we're finding ourselves in this current pickle, with not many graceful exits remaining. Even silver bullets kill...

Having said that, I was pleasantly suprised when I stepped into the room I was scheduled to teach our first "Living Off The Grid" evening class at Confederation College. Turns out we had a student (Tom) from Sioux Lookout, a town at about 375km away from the college. A long drive for a 3-hour class...

Buttons, screens, microphones, computers, keyboards - even students!

The solution: the only distance Tom had to travel was to Confederation College's local campus, find the room that was set up for videoconferencing and position himself in front of the screen & camera. He could see & hear us perfectly, we could perfectly see & hear him. And because his image was projected on a big screen it almost felt like he was physically present in the room with the 14 other students.

I like to use a lot of visuals for my classes (hello PowerPoint), and technology helped out again; want Tom to see what the class sees? Just press this button to go from camera (the class) to computer (the visuals), and press again if you want to go back. It worked like a charm and I loved it.

Very cool, very effective and environmentally helpful. Want to experience it for yourself? You still can! There's 3 more classes left (February 6, 17 and 20); just make sure you're somewhere far away from Thunder Bay and sign up. See ya on the big screen!