1090 Meets 5040 2009

Becky, 5040's web master has sent the following link which shows quite a few pictures from our presentation on 6th May.

http://www.clubrunner.ca/CPrg/Home/homeS.asp?cid=7651

click “more” to see the write up by Keith

P.S.
It's AM on 10th May and I cannot access the site from the above so here's an alternative option to copy and paste:

http://www.clubrunner.ca/CPrg/Home/storyitem.asp?cid=765&iid=98321

I spent Wednesday morning at the City of Richmond Archives and also with the Records Manager for the city. The Archives is very impressive, being involved at the development stages of major international standards and theory, but it was the meeting with the records manager to discuss their electronic document management system that was most useful. Everything that staff now create on the computer, so every word/excel/powerpoint file, is fed into the EDMS to ensure that it is properly managed, stored and disposed of at the end of its life. This type of system is what organisations should be aiming for, so to see it in practice and be able to discuss the process of setting it up was extremely helpful.

Thursday morning was spent at the West Vancouver FireFighters Museum and Archives, a small operation manned by volunteers but which has achieved a lot despite of this, and with the North Vancouver Museum and Archives where I was able to discuss conservation and digitisation of architectural plans and photographs, something which is very relevant to work I am currently doing at St George's.

I am looking forward to seeing what the other visits will offer!

In the morning of Wednesday 6th May the team all had vocational visits arranged for them. Sally found some good contacts in the local hospital, Alison found someone who does a similar role to herself and enjoyed a good two way exchange. Eleanor got more information from the city archives and Emily was given a briefing on Olympic security which she found fascinating.
We did a presentation for the Richmond Clubs at lunchtime on 6th May. A new face appeared and introduced himself as 'Bandit Bob' (other members told us that his name was Black Bobber or something similar). He had an Australian accent and claimed to be the District Governor but we were not taken in by such an obvious imposter. Emily will run a check on him when she next visits the Mounties - we might have a candidate for deportation here!
After exchanging banners with Club Presidents of both Richmond and Richmond Sunrise we were taken by Albert and Wally for a tour of Steveston. This is a lovely fishing 'village' with lots fo oriental influence and looks old worldly and quite artistic. There was clearly a big fishing industry here with cannery plants etc and fishing still takes place from the harbour.
On our way back we stopped off at the Buddist Temple, the biggest in North America, with spectacular Buda figures presented in gold leaf and a strong waft of incence round every corner.

Back to the hotel to say a big than you to Chris for all his hard work in organising the various vocational visits for team members, all of whom had found lots of interest and lots of contacts for future e mail linking. We were then introduced to Sue and Terry who were to transport us to the North Shore of Vancouver where we are based for the next couple of days before we fly north to Prince George on Saturday morning. It was nice to see the city horizon again as we drove through Vancouver with Grouse Mountain in the background shrowded in cloud and looking quite spectacular.
I met my new hosts, Norman and Pamela, and am 'wowed' again by the lovely house; we got to know each other over dinner while it rained outside. Its good to hear the rain coming down whilst we're inside and the forecast is promising for the end of the week. I've been made to feel at home again - it's great meeting all these different people who are all so friendly and welcoming in hosting us in their homes and making things happen for us.

GIBSONS
On Monday we had a leisurely start and packed our bags once again for the move just down the coast to Gibsons. Darcy came over to drive us along with Don and Donna who picked Sally up from the hospital visit she had managed to arrange. We met Wayne and Don in Gibsons and were taken directly to Molly's Reach restaurant for lunch. Molly's Reach was the stage set for 'The Beachcombers' a soap series set in Gibsons which was broadcast around the world in the 80s/90s. Gibsons Harbour was interesting and included the Rotary Pier. Due to team member demand we then had a wander around Carol's shop which is full of local art and various purchases ensued before we were taken to tour the local pulp mill. This was interesting and Don had been the manager there some years ago and so added to the commentary provided by Jim, the senior process engineer and long time Rotarian (Jim has done lots of work developing Rotaract in the area). The mill is enormous and takes in wood chips which it turns in to paper. They supply some of the major newspapers in the USA and are situated under the mountains in some wonderful scenic surroundings. That evening we had a pot luck dinner hosted by Dean Walford at Gibsons. Dean cooked some moose for us to eat which was very tasty and there were various other dishes and quite a few sweets including rhubarb with marengue (this may be the canadian spelling?) and various chocolate goodies. Dean has a superb garden which we had a tour around, lots of shrubs and different plants.
We then went home with our hosts (Chris, Anne, Carol and Manjit) whilst Eleanor stayed at Dean's and after a good night's sleep we met at the ferry at 8am when we said goodbye to Wayne who, as Rotary Assistant Governor for the Sunshine Coast, had overseen our week here and been the most brilliant orgnaniser for the whole week. Wayne can now resume retired life which starts each day with a walk down to the pier, with newspaper and coffee, in order that he can reflect on the problems of those less enlightened people who exercise political influence over the rest of us.
RICHMOND
The ferry was busy with all the commuters going to Vancouver for work (many do this journey daily) and it was good to see the smiling face of Garry waiting in arrivals at Horseshoe Bay. Tom provided the second vehicle and we sped down through Vancouver to the Accent Inn at Richmond. Here we were met by Chris, the manager and Rotarian with Richmond Club who provided us with a room each for the night and the promise of a pancake breakfast (International House of Pancakes appended to the hotel) the next morning. Chris had clearly been busy organising our various vocational visits whilst in Richmond and we had a quick planning meeting to work out who was to do what.
Emily and I went to the Richmond RCMP detatchment where Rennie, the local Superintendent gave us an hour of his time which was very interesting. Richmond is similar in size to Reading so we were able to compare issues. We all then met up at the Richmond Oval, an enormous building which has been developed to house the speed skating for the 2010 Olympics. DGE Gordon Dagliesh joined us for our guided tour.

(Various other photos - see 'Authors - wilkinson - photos)
After lunch we went to Richmond City Hall with our local hosts Wally, Collette and Chris and met Nora, the mayors exec assistant who hails from Coventry. Nora was lovely and had arranged a meeting with the mayor, Malcolm Brody, and presentations from various senior people on the economy, archives and film/business links along with a guided tour of the building. She had gifts for us as we left and we all now proudly own olympic umbrellas and Richmond pens and pins.
To complete a fascinating day we then went to the Rotary Hospice for a tour with Chief Executive, Margaret. This 10 bed hospice was build substantially from money provided by local Rotary clubs and is a superb example of what can be achieved. A lovely place which brought a few lumps to the throat (well, mine anyway).
To cap off the day we were met at 6pm by Brian, President Elect of Richmond Sunrise RC, who took us to his home for dinner. This was lovely and we met Brian's wife, Alison, his mum Lesley (a Pangbourne lady who came to Canada in '68) and his two lovely daughters, Meredith (aged 6) and Macey (3). We had a really lovely evening with them and Meredith and Macey treated us to a display of all their dressing up clothes and even allowed this old grand-dad to read them a story.
We've just had that breakfast and the four team members have all had pancakes with various toppings - they just don't care! They are now doing vocational visits and I'm catching up with e mails and the blog.
Greg