My Olympic dream Dec 12, 2009

A piece of news that I will share with you is that I have been offered a volunteer position with the Vancouver Olympics and Paralympics - still have to go through a couple more steps but it looks like I will be busy for Feb and March. The position is an Assistant on the National Client Services team - partly a meet and greet for visiting delegations - might even have a vehicle to drive people around.

Cheers D

Exploring the new Woodwards site Dec 8, 2009

Yesterday I took a walk down to the long awaited opening of the redevelopment of the Woodwards store site - it is a blend of retail, educational, ngo's as well as market and non-market housing.

The first two retail to open are London Drugs - this is there 78th store in the chain - part of the third largest privately held company in the province and Nester's which is part of the Buy Low chain which is part of the Overwaitea Food group which is part of Jim Pattison Industries which is the largest privately held company in BC.

Nester's is going to use the old Woodwards $1.49 Today theme at times to promote the store and it should worked yesterday - the store was packed and in talking to my cashier they were catch unprepared for the large numbers.

Time will tell if this development will be the saviour of the downtown Eastside and start to bring it back to respectability.

While cool it was a pleasant walk down to the site and I passed a couple of landmarks on the way - including the tower at the Sinclair Building and the revolving tower on top of the old Sears - now SFU downtown campus.

Cheers

Dennis

Y Connections Christmas Party Saturday Dec 5, 2009

I have mentioned in previous posts that even though I am now retired from my job at the YMCA I have kept up my association with it through our community services branch and act as a host for new Canadians as they make the often difficult transition to a new Society etc.

This past Saturday we celebrated a North American Christmas complete with turkey, mash potatoes etc.

There were about 90 of us as we were also treated an Ukrainian folk dance and a little history about the Orthodox Christmas celebrated in parts of the world.

To put on this event required this group of volunteers who cooked, carved and prepared the evening events.

Cheers

Dennis

Santa Shuffle Saturday Dec 5, 2009 - Lumberman's Arch area of Stanley Park.

Each year in about 35 cities throughout North America the Salvation Army holds a fun run called the Santa Shuffle - in Vancouver it is held in the Lumberman's Arch area of Stanley Park - as scenic a sight as you will find anywhere.

The weather is cold as I arrive to help with the set -up and are soon joined by the other bike escort Gerald - we have done a number of these volunteer assignments the past couple of years.

This event has most of the set up done by the Running Room company so all we did was ride the course beforehand to see if there were any problems etc.

There was one area that was in the shade and wet - in fact quite icy so we reported that to the race officials - shortly thereafter a Parks Board worker put down some de-icer and by the time the runnes reached that spot it had started to soften up - they also posted a couple of volunteers there to verbally tell the runners to watch their footing.

It was then on to the finish line - Gerald did one more sweep to see where the last runners/walkers were and to release the volunteers from their checkpoints.

Then availed myself of the hot chocolate and chili and watched the awards ceremony.

In all over 700 participants - an increase over last year and also an increase in the $$$ raised.

After the awards ceremony the volunteers were treated to a chicken and rice lunch courtesy of Nando's.

Then rode with Gerald home and into the warmth of the apartment.

Cheers

Dennis