On Sunday, June 14, we enjoyed another car-free day on Main Street.  The weather was perfect — not too hot.  This year there was a lot more food available and it extended from 12th Avenue up to King Edward (25th) Avenue.

My favourite table was Drawings by Quinn.  He told me that his dream was to draw for books.  I don’t know why I didn’t take a photo of his great drawing.  I did tell him that I think his dream is going to come true.  Next “Summer Spaces” Sunday, look for Quinn on Main.

The bike valet was a great feature as were the signs created for the event.

I spoke to some of the merchants on Main on Monday, some of whom were not happy with the event last year.  They were suprisingly pleased with the business they had and are looking forward to future car-free days.

I am a huge fan of Volunteer Vancouver .  The BC Aphasia Centre had a tiny little office next door to Volunteer Vancouver when they were in Heritage Hall.  They provided us with a lot of support — I took books out of the library and attended their AGMs and Open Houses.  I found myself in a community where I could learn new ideas and skills and meet new people.

Since they moved downtown, I don’t get to their office as often.  I get their newsletters, have maintained a personal membership, and the organizations I’m affiliated with get a gentle nudge to join and take advantage of the network, the learning and the general excitement that Volunteer Vancouver generates.  The courses they offer and the network of people they can draw in now makes it an incredibly wonderful place for me to visit.  Going downtown for a 7:30 meeting . . . always worth it because I meet the most incredible people.

This morning I went down to “Books for Breakfast” where the discussion was on Peter Block’s newest book, “Community:  the structure of belonging”, facilitated by Brian Fraser of Jazzthink and Kathleen Speakman, the Executive Director of The Centre for Sustainability .  Kathleen is a graduate of the Women’s Campaign School and she told me that the campaign school was the best professional development course she has taken.  I will get her to write it in her own words for our website.  And, coincidentally, Brian spoke to our board of directors this week to talk about leadership using a jazz metaphor.

We had a great discussion this morning — one of the biggest challenges in the work we all do is to create the spaces for conversation.  I’m looking forward to reading the book and increasing my comfort with the process of “co-creating” a future.

In the summer of 2006, I came across a nice Italian man renovating a storefront on Main Street near Heritage Hall.  I dropped in regularly to see the progress and to chat with Mario about the texture of the walls and the floor and his plans for a neighbourhood coffee shop.  Since then, Caffe Rustico has become a favourite place to drop in and be greeted with an effusive “Ciao, bella!” along with friendly service.  There are Italian and Spanish conversation groups that meet there weekly, and several regular customers.  Mario has created a wonderful community space on Main Street.

Working with people who have aphasia and autism — people who live in a world not dominated by language — taught me to pay more attention to things other than words.  One of the hardest things to do is communicate with a person who has a type of aphasia we call “Wernicke’s aphasia” where the words make no sense at all.  When you first encounter a person who has that type of aphasia . . . most people write them off as “crazy”.  Yet, if you learn to ignore the words and pay attention to the behaviour, you will recognize their intelligence.

I attended the breakfast sponsored by the Coast Foundation this morning.  Creating inclusive communities is at the heart of what they do.  It was a lovely presentation and I was pleased to be invited and learn more about their important work.

I had a chance to reconnect with Jose Suganob at the Stroke Recovery Association of BC’s Open House on Friday, October 24. Stroke Recovery has moved into new offices in the same building as the Heart and Stroke Foundation of BC/Yukon.

Jose is a stroke survivor and has aphasia. He is also an award-winning artist — a talent he discovered and nurtured after his stroke. He just sent me an e-mail with some photos he took. I’ll write more about the Open House later.

Jose works in a studio in Burnaby called Artists Helping Artists .

I met Emily at a gathering in the West End in August.  Two days later I found out that she was in the contest for the Greenest Person in the World.  So, I voted for her on-line at 3rdwhale.

The winner will be announced next week at SFU.  Her last remaining competitor is Matthias from Germany who lives in Malaysia.

I subscribe to an e-newsletter from the local resource, No Bully for Me.  Having survived bullying in the workplace, I appreciate the work that Karen and Stephen are doing.

http://www.nobullyforme.ca/

They provided a link to a really great column written in 2000 by George Monbiot.  While it’s advice for people interested in journalism, it applies to work in all professions.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2000/06/09/choose-life/

I had a chance to chat with Mike Levenston from City Farmer on Sunday.  They’ve been active for 30 years!  He maintains a really nice blog at

http://www.cityfarmer.info/

Two months after planting seeds, I now have snow peas and long beans. The replanted rhubarb is thriving.  There is also a surprise pumpkin from the compost.  Maybe we’ll be able to carve our own pumpkins this year for Hallowe’en. At this point I think the experiment has been a success. I’ll make the garden a bit bigger next year.