1090 Meets 5040 2009

Since my last post I have been to a variety of places, all very different from each other.

I started with a morning at the North Shore Credit Union in North Vancouver seeing their new electronic scanning system used as an alternative to managing the paper records. This has improved their efficiency enormously by reducing costs in both storage and staff time in retrieval of the records, and it was interesting to see an alternative method of managing modern records in a large organisation.

I then spent an afternoon at Exploration Place in Prince George, a science museum with an excellent educational focus. It was good to see the different outreach programmes with which they have attempted to attract new users who otherwise might not have come, from new displays, connections with the local First Nations groups and online exhibitions of the photographs.

Also in Prince George I got to spend some time with the archivist at the University of Northern British Columbia, which has a huge remit in terms of collecting area. In addition to being responsible for the archives, the archivist is also responsible for the university library's special collections of rare books, so it was good to be able to see how that is juggled as at St George's we also have collections of rare books to look after. They too have excellent links with the First Nations, so it has been very interesting to see the ways in which they are trying to reach out to the different groups in the community.

Finally, I spent a morning at the Quesnel and District Museum and Archives, a small community archive with a strong photographic collection, all of which have been digitised. It has been very interesting to see that small communities maintain their own archives, rather than sending them to the larger provincial archives as that is not common in the UK.

My vocational visits so far have been a good mixture of repositories, from the very small to the reasonably large, and have included the full spectrum of the record lifecycle. I am hoping to get to go to the provincial archives in Victoria as that would end our exchange with a visit to the very large, so round things off nicely!

Our ‘rest day’ on 10th May concluded with a social dinner at Prince George Golf Club where about 30 of us enjoyed a steak dinner which was very tasty. The next morning we started early with a tour of the local brewery (Pacific Western Brewery). They were not actually brewing that day so we looked around the whole plant and went in to the canning area where we were surprised to see that they were filling cans with fizzy orange. We then went to one of the Pulp Mills in Prince George and noted how the process was quite different from the one at Gibsons in that here they were doing much more to the chips in the early part of the process and there seemed to be more chemicals about.
We lunched at Esther’s Inn with a ‘smorg’ (buffet) which was very pleasant and then we had vocational tours for the afternoon. Ken took Emily and I to meet the John, the local Community Support Officer (there are 17 CSOs in BC) at the Neighbourhood Policing Centre which is mostly staffed by volunteers. From there we visited the RCMP detachment and had a candid chat with a couple of corporals which was enlightening. After this we visited the Correction Centre (Prison) which was built 12 years ago and is a modern prison catering for those serving under 2 years or on remand. We were honoured to be shown round by the Warden (Governor) Joanne Hawkins and her deputy. We had to leave cameras at the entrance (I have noted that we don’t get many photos of vocational visits but that’s the nature of the beast – meetings and offices don’t make good photos – so most of our photos tend to be of the leisure activities) and we were shown everything in the prison. Like at home there is overcrowding and double cell occupancy. Here work parties do external work and, inside, the carpentry shop and the tailors shop were impressively fitted out. There was a sweatlodge for First Nation prisoners and plenty of evidence of work to manage all ethnic groups as well as possible. There is a significant proportion of First Nation people within the prison. We looked round the male side but the prison also houses female prisoners on a separate side. A very interesting tour.
In the evening we spent time with our hosts and I enjoyed a lovely shrimp fettuccini followed by mango cobbler which Betty had cooked for us. Gary and I then watched a film and generally relaxed before a good night’s sleep.
12the May.
We packed our bags and threw them in the 4 x 4s and then had a tour of the University of Northern British Columbia. This is a superb campus, the most modern in Canada, with every facility. The sports hall has inside football pitches and a running track at 2nd floor level going right round it. The lecture theatres are video linked to UBC in Vancouver and the technology is the most modern. Roy, one of the lecturers gave us an inside tour of the laboratories and the greenhouse providing insider information about his work on Elk and the forestry habitats. This was a super tour and a fascinating visit.
We then met the three Prince George Rotary Clubs for a joint lunch meeting and presented to around 150 people. The food was wonderful (do I keep mentioning food?) and I enjoyed crab, scallops and mussels again. Our hosts were typically friendly and generous and we were presented with picture frames as a memento of our visit.
We were to meet our next hosts at Dunkley Sawmill and so we set off South. The mill tour was fascinating watching whole trees go in at one end and wrapped pallets of planks come out at the other. This is a high tec mill with computers controlling every stage. The wood is digitally photographed and the computer works out how to cut each piece to maximise its use working at 105 photos per minute. The mill is running at one third capacity at the moment due to the economic downturn which is hitting BC quite heavily as the primary industry – lumber – is dependent on a good housing market in North America.
After the visit we met Tim Cawdell, our organiser for the northern part of our tour, who transported us to Quesnel, a smaller town centred on pulping and the lumber industry. We were taken to the home of Rebecca and Ted for a barbeque which included bison burgers. Rebecca and Ted have a lovely home overlooking Quesnel from the top of the valley. Ted is well in to vintage trucks and has some fine specimens in his garden. Ted’s workshop was a dream! We met out hosts at the barbeque and I was taken home by Hedy who, with husband Helmut, hail from Germany but have been here for most of their lives and love the area.
13th May
Today I was put to work on behalf of Rotary. It was the major fundraising event for Sunrise 2000, the breakfast club here in Quesnel. The event is the Diamond Calcutta which is a ladies evening (men only act as waiters or ticket sellers) and this was the 9th such event and is the big fundraiser (circa $8000 annually). I spent the morning helping prepare the hall with decorations and then met the team for lunch and heard about the excellent vocational visits they had enjoyed during the morning. Emily and Sally turned up with various souvenirs and were very pleased with their mornings.
After lunch we had an interview with the Quesnel Newspaper which went very well and then we had a short rest before meeting up at 5.30 for the Diamond Calcutta. This was a super evening of raffles, draws and entertainment. The main prize is a diamond ring and I sold 50/50 draw tickets netting over $1200. A great evening and a great night for Rotary, which we all thoroughly enjoyed. I slept well that night.

Below are a couple of entries from local papers in BC:

www.prpeak.com/articles/2009/05/06/community/doc4a0104a950beb886311484.txt

www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/williamslaketribune/community/44769292.html

Fame and fortune await!

Ferries and Sunfish

On day 4 we headed north from Vancouver via ferry to the Sunshine Coast. The 1st ferry journey was spectacular in itself with gorgeous views of the surrounding mountains and up towards whistler and the sea to sky highway.

We took 2 ferries and were met off the first at Gibsons by Wayne and Bob who drove us via a spectacular lunch of mussels, to Half Moon Bay, a pretty little spot where I saw my 1st sunfish.

I know the water looks a bit murky, but I'd never even heard of them so was quite taken aback!

A fabulous Barbeque awaited us in Powell River (including my first taste of BC salmon), courtesy of Vivica, and a warm welcome from Ash and Dilyse, my new hosts.

Ok, I'm conscious I'm playing Catch Up here as I've not been so good at blogging (partly, but not entirely, due to limited PC access) so I thought I'd try and catch up by listing my highlights of the GSE experience so far.

I want to pretext this by saying that pretty much everything we've done so far has been fabulous, and we've been received with such extraordinary warmth and kindness wherever we've visited it is extremely difficult to pick, but here're my best efforts...

Warm welcome to Vancouver - Days 1-3:
Fantastic welcome at the airport, and then kindly delivered by Debbie to my wonderful first host Maggie. Having fed me Quesadilla, Maggie took me on a whirlwind drive by of all the main areas of the city, including a quick stop off to take photos of bald eagles (which I was ridiculously excited about!), into the downtown Financial section, past the Canucks Stadium (essential viewing in BC just now!), the new convention centre with its sails and green roofscape, past Downtown Eastside with its evident homelessness and drugs issues (see my vocational blog), through chinatown and finally to South Street and Main Street area (SoMa?) where we stopped for Sushi. Although sleepy from the plane journey, I had a great time and it was a really good way to orientate myself around with the city.

All in all a fabulous start to what went on to be a wonderful stay in Vancouver - Many thanks to Maggie, Tom and Simon for their welcome and hospitality.

History tour of Gastown - Day 2

The new generation rotary group met up with us on to show us round the markets at Granville Island (definitely somewhere we'd like to visit on our last day for final souvenirs!) and then took us on for a tour of Gastown, which is where Vancouver first began. This really helped to build on the contextual picture gradually building up in my head of Vancouver as a city which is still transforming (as all cities are), and provided some fascinating background around the gentrification of the area that equipped me well for the my vocational visit in to Downtown Eastside the following day (see previous blog). I also witnessed my first street hockey game with an amazing backdrop of the north shore mountains!