Village Vancouver March 2015 Newsletter

Welcome to the
Village Vancouver Newsletter
March 2015
WHAT'S NEW?   VOLUNTEERS   TRANSITION NEWS   EVENTS

Spring's here! Just Film Festival, Neighbourhood Small Grants, Gardening and More!

Join us in welcoming Spring with an assortment of great activities, both indoors and out. Thursday, March 19th sees the Canadian Premiere of One River, Many Relations and marks the start of the 14th Annual Just Film Festival. In this issue, you'll also find information about Neighbourhood Small Grants. Offered once a year, these grants are perfect for that little neighbourhood project you've been wanting to do.

At Village, it's full steam ahead with our collaborative permaculture and other gardening projects -- new participants are welcome, and you can find out more below -- while in Transition News, we highlight Transition Mission, an emerging and exciting new Transition Initiative.

As always, there's lots of volunteer opportunities, including room for more volunteers at the Film Festival, and lots of fantastic workshops and other invigorating activities listed in Upcoming Events.

Enjoy!

Your March Newsletter Team,
Bonita Jo Magee, Simone Hoedel, and Ross Moster

 

 

Become a Society Member Today

Join the Village Vancouver Transition Society! The membership fee is based on a sliding scale (suggested dues are $25) and it helps us develop this Village and its community. Your annual membership will make our movement even stronger! It's easy to join here.

 




Village Vancouver partners with CoDev Canada and Amnesty International to bring you the 14th annual Just Film Festival

Just Film Festival feature "Food Stamped"
Get ready to have your horizons broadened. The 2015 Just Film Festival arrives in Vancouver the weekend of March 20-22 with the Opening Gala Canadian premiere of One River, Many Relations screening March 19th at the Rio Theatre.

It's films like this that coordinator Erin Mullan gets excited about, because she can talk to people about the films and their reactions to it.

“The great thing about the Just Film Festival is we can tell stories that aren’t in the mainstream media,” said Mullan. 

Told from a First Nations perspective, One River, Many Relations shares the story of the people of the Peace-Athabasca Delta, who live downstream from the Alberta oil sands, and whose voices have been excluded from the oil sands debate. “Resistencia”, the Friday night opening feature, is a film documenting how the coup in Honduras was resisted by 2000 farming families who occupied prime farming land. 

Village Vancouver is partnering with the Just Film Festival to sponsor the Food and Farming Film Series again. This year, we’ve invited a number of our fellow members in the Vancouver Neighbourhood Food Network to co-host the films:

Just Film Festival poster

  • Growing People (co-hosted by Mount Pleasant Food Network)

  • Food Stamped (co-hosted by Westside Food Collaborative)

  • Open Sesame: The Story of Seeds (co-hosted by Marpole Neighbourhood Food Network)

  • Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story (co-hosted by West End Neighbourhood Food Network)

  • The Man Who Stopped the Desert (co-hosted by Marpole Neighbourhood Network)

Mullan has been coordinating the Just Film Festival and its predecessor, the Vancouver World Community Film Festival, for nine years. For the past two years, its partners have included CoDevelopment Canada, Amnesty International, and Village Vancouver. The Just Film Festival is part of the Travelling World Community Festival, based in the Comox Valley.

“The big strength of the Just Film Festival is people can get together to watch these films, then talk about it, instead of being in isolation.”

The Just Film Festival takes place at Langara College. Themes include: 

For more information about the film schedule, locations, ticket prices or to volunteer, check out Village Vancouver's Events pages or the Just Film Festival website.

 

Neighbourhood Small Grants: Now Through March 31st

Created by the Vancouver Foundation in 1999, the Neighbourhood Small Grants Program supports ideas that connect and engage residents in their community to strengthen their own neighbourhood. 

In the past few years, VVers have applied for and received dozens of grants. Past projects have included neighbourhood block parties, permaculture in pots and planters, emergency preparedness workshops, neighbourhood exchange-a-book boxes, bike tune-up workshops, community gardening, and much more.

Start thinking of projects you might want to organize for your neighbourhood’s grants, up to $500 (with some grants up to $1000). Be creative! Be collaborative!

The grants are easy to write, and the deadline is March 31st. Apply for yours today! And if you're looking for someone in your neighbourhood to collaborate with, let us know and we'll see if we can connect you with another Villager.




 

Volunteer at the Just Film Festival March 21 - 22 !


Permaculture and other Village Gardening Activities

New participants are welcome to join us at one of our three (almost) weekly gardening parties in Kits and Strathcona. No experience necessary - we teach you! For more information, please contact Ross at ross@villagevancouver.ca.







Transition Mission inaugural meeting

Be The Change Action Circle is hosting a meeting March 28th in Mission with the goal of starting a Transition Town Initiative there.

Organizer Gillian Hartz hopes to spur interest in creating a Transition Mission group with a panel discussion that includes Ross Moster from Village Vancouver and Gerry Pinel from Golden Ears Transition Initiative (GETI) in Maple Ridge. Hartz has also invited leaders of other local community activists in the areas of food security, local economy and youth services to participate.

“We think that having this mix of people with Transition experience in other communities and local activists who know Mission and its people well, we can stimulate a lively discussion,” said Hartz.

Hartz feels that Mission, like all communities, is dependent on fossil fuels and we all contribute to climate change with our current lifestyles. A Transition Town Initiative addresses both of these issues while building community.

“Our goal will be to excite people about Transition projects with other incentives – building community, helping neighbours, having fun, etc. and hoping that the result, as a by-product, will be reduced reliance on fossil fuels and a reduced carbon footprint,” said Hartz.

Hartz says that since Mission is a bedroom community, most people have a long commute to work. Although many take the West Coast Express, many others must rely on their cars.

“Because Mission is a small town, there is currently very limited public transit within town and between Mission and nearby communities. And because we are located on the side of a hill, cycling is the domain of only the most fit and enthusiastic. Because of these factors, transportation is the source of a huge portion of our carbon emissions.”

Food security in the form of more local agriculture, and farmer's markets, as well as a focus on growing the local economy, are other issues the group hopes to address.

“The fact that so many people work outside Mission means that they often also shop elsewhere, which is an impediment to a local economy,” said Hartz.

Transition Mission has been a now a “mulling group” since September 30th. The March 28th meeting will be held 2 - 4 pm at the Mission Leisure Centre.



 

Jan. 29 - March 26: VV Winter 2015 Cultivating Food, Cultivating Community Series
Strathcona Community Centre.

Feb. 15 - May 23: Spirit of the Land - Making Peace with the Land - Weekly Community Group Discussion Series
Various locations.

Feb. 26 - March 31: Neighbourhood Small Grants / Greenest City Neighbourhood Small Grants

March 1 - 15: Village is looking for additional Board members

March 1: VV Seed Savers
Kits, near beach.

March 1: Kits Village Collaborative Garden Weekly Work Party
Kits, near beach.

March 1: Kits Village Dinner Group #2 March Gathering
Kits.

March 3 - 31: West End March Food Scrap Drop Spots
Gordon Neighbourhood House and West End Community Centre. Complete dates: March 3, 7,10, 14, 17, 21, 24, 28, 31.

March 3: Main Street Village Vancouver Monthly Potluck and Workshop
Little Mountain Neighbourhood House.

March 5: Balcony, Container and Small Space Gardening
West End Community Centre.

March 7: All About Roses
VanDusen Botanical Garden.

March 7: Photography at Bloedel
VanDusen Botanical Garden, Bloedel Conservatory.

March 7: Kits Village Green Streets Garden Work Party
Kits.

March 8: VV Permaculture Plot Work Party and Potluck
Cottonwood Community Garden.

March 8: Kits Village Collaborative Garden Weekly Work Party
Kits, near beach.

March 8: Kits Village March Potluck and Neighbourhood Small Grants, Community Gardening/Permaculture/Pollinating Opportunities
Kits, near beach.

March 10: Main St. Village Vancouver Monthly Potluck and Workshop
Little Mountain Neighbourhood House.

March 12: Winter Kraut Making
Strathcona Community Centre.

March 13 - Dec. 14: Flexible, low cost, Permaculture Design Certificate
Roberts Creek and Greater Vancouver.

March 14: Introduction to Bird Watching
VanDusen Botanical Garden.

March 15: Kits Village Green Streets garden work party
Kits.

March 15: Deadline for applying for Village Vancouver Board of Directors

March 15: VV Permaculture Plot work party
Cottonwood Community Garden.

March 15: West End Neighbourhood Food Network March Community Potluck
West End Community Centre.

March 15: Kits Village Collaborative Garden Weekly Work Party
Kits, near beach.

March 15: World Storytelling Day and Celtic Fest.
St. Mark's.

March 18: Vancouver Urban Farming CSA Talk Shop
Cedar Cottage Pub.

March 19: Kits Village March Plastic Recycling Depot
Near Kits beach.

March 19: Peas and Greens
West End Community Centre.

March 19 - 22: Just Film Festival. Films include: One River Many Relations; Resistencia; Koch Brothers Exposed; The Voice of the Seeds; Tribal Canoe Journey; Reaching Blue: Finding Hope Beneath the Surface; Growing People; Coastal Tar Sands: Journey to Deleted Islands; Food Stamped; Connected by Coffee; The Revolutionary Optimists; Open Sesame: The Story of Seeds; Above All Else; Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa; Marmato; DamNation; Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story; Huicholes: The Last Peyote Guardians; Uyghurs: Prisoners of the Absurd; The Man Who Stopped the Desert; Abalini; Becoming Bulletproof; A Dangerous Game; Shameless Propaganda; Vessel; Where Should the Birds Fly; Ady Gasy; Alive Inside; Everything Will Be; On the Side of the Road; American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs.
Rio Theatre, Langara College.

March 21: Bee Edible - Gardening for Bees and your Edible Garden
VanDusen Botanical Garden.

March 21 - Aug. 21: Langara College Permaculture Design Certificate Course
Langara College and Vancouver Locations.

March 21: Back Yard Beekeeping
VanDusen Botanical Garden.

March 21: Seedy Saturday: Getting garden-ready
Vancouver Public Library - Kensington branch.

March 22: Cedar Cottage Village meet and greet tea
Cedar Cottage. Rescheduled to early April (Date TBC)

March 24: Deadline for April Newsletter

March 25: The Horticulture of Herbs
VanDusen Botanical Garden.

March 26: Commercial Drive VV Pot Luck and Free Seed Starting Workshop
Rising Star Co-op.

March 26: Your Organic Lawn
VanDusen Botanical Garden.

March 26: Introduction to Organic Food Gardening
Strathcona Community Centre.

March 28: Organic Veggie Growing for Beginners
VanDusen Botanical Garden. 

March 28: VV Permaculture Plot work party and potluck
Cottonwood Community Garden.

March 28: Inaugural Transition meeting - Mission
Mission Leisure Centre.

March 28: Kits Village Drop-in "Spaghetti" Night
Kits.

March 29: Kits Village Green Streets garden work party
Kits.

March 29: Seedbombing Workshop
Newton Community Hall, Surrey.

March 29: Kits Village Collaborative Garden Weekly Work Party
Kits.

March 29: Kits Village Dinner Group #1 March Gathering
Kits.

March 30: VV Transition Society March Board of Directors Meeting
Vancouver.

March 31: Deadline for Neighbourhood Small Grants / Greenest City Neighbourhood Small Grants

April 2: Carrots, Leeks, and Greens
West End Community Centre.

April 4 - 28: West End April Food Scrap Drop Spots
Gordon Neighbourhood House and West End Community Centre.

April 4: VV Seed Savers
Kits, near beach.

April 5: VV Permaculture Plot work party and potluck
Cottonwood Community Garden.

April 5, 1:30-3 p.m.: Kits Village Green Streets garden work party
Kits.

April 5, 3:30-6 p.m.: Kits Village Collaborative Garden Weekly Work Party
Kits, near beach.

April 5: Kits Village Dinner Group #2 April Gathering
Kits.

April 7: Main St. Village Vancouver Monthly Potluck and Bee Pollinator Workshop
Little Mountain Neighbourhood House.

April 11: VV Permacuture Blitz!
Westside (location TBD).

April 12: Kits Village April Potluck
Kits, near beach.

April 15: Growing Veggies in Containers
VanDusen Botanical Garden.

April 16 - 22: Wild About Vancouver Outdoor Education Festival
Vancouver.

April 16: Kits Village April Plastic Recycling Depot
Kits.

April 20: Only Planet Cabaret
Roundhouse Performing Arts Centre.

April 22: Successful Organic Food Production
VanDusen Botanical Garden.

April 23: Painting Flowers with Watercolour
VanDusen Botanical Garden.

April 23: Healthy by Nature
VanDusen Botanical Garden.


Stay Updated on Upcoming Events
The most up-to-date calendar of upcoming events!