May 20 Edmonton Headlines
Good Friday to you, Edmonton. Start with the downtown arena? OK!
The downtown arena is going to need money from the provincial and/or federal governments. While the provincial government says they won’t give money to a private business, I wonder if that’s not why the potential deal has the City of Edmonton owning the land and building, so it could be argued it’s a public facility. The ask better come quick, since a couple of potential Conservative premiers are ruling out the money.
The spend-crazy NDP don’t want tax money to go to the Katz Group’s new Oilers home. Because they hate the Oilers? Edmonton? Freedom? What’s with everyone wanting questions answered on this thing? Just get excited already. And, I’m sure school boards considering cutting teachers and staff to balance their budgets would agree, the Alberta government should fund the arena.
Does the arena herald a new era for downtown Edmonton? I would have argued 104 Street, a centralizing MacEwan University campus, LRT connections to the west and southeast, Capital Boulevard, and 109 Street’s makeover were doing that already.
OK, that’s the arena, now let’s see what else is going on. And there really is other stuff going on. (more…)
Weekend Stuff
Weather aside, this looks to be a great weekend in Edmonton. Of course, a big part of that is made up by how much fun you have. So have some fun, would you.
Let’s start with some musical options.
Saturday is Record Store Day! You music lovers can snag some records (actual vinyl records) hear live bands, and more at shops around Edmonton. Let’s see if I can name them all…there’s Listen on 124 Street…Sound Connection, Permanent Records, and Blackbird Myoozik all on Whyte…Freecloud on 101 Street (by 107 Avenue)…and The Gramophone…did I miss any?
Then, on Sunday, it’s the Edmonton Music Collectors Show. So, you’ve got no shortage of vinyl this weekend.
Around bars, clubs, and venues… Tonight: You’ve got Carrie Day at the Fresh Start Cafe…Destroyer at the Starlite Room…The Sorels are releasing an album at The ARTery. The Sorels are good. Whitey Houston, The Vicious Cycles, and The Mitts are at the Pawn Shop…and DUZHEKNEW is at Wunderbar…
Saturday: You’ve got a great local show at Idylwylde Hall with Falklands, Ben Disaster & The Cosmonauts, The Group Sound, and The Dizzies…54-40 is at Festival Place…and Sound Factor is at bohemia, but I mostly included this for the photo…and Classified and Said the Whale will be at the Starlite Room. (Said the Whale was actually here for the Tokyo Police Club the next Monday.)
Sunday: Tommy Hunter’s farewell tour takes him to the Jubilee Auditorium.
Around the theatre scene… The Three Musketeers continues at the Citadel Theatre (MacLab theatre), while Rick: The Rick Hansen Story wraps its run this weekend (also at the Citadel’s Shoctor Theatre). Theatresports runs tonight, and every Friday night, at the Varscona Theatre.
National Volunteer Week ends in a great way here in Edmonton with a volunteer fair at West Edmonton Mall.
Saturday is the last home game of the year for the Edmonton Rush. There’s also double-header action with E-Ville Roller Derby down at the Edmonton Sports Dome.
While Edmonton’s official Earth Day celebrations are cancelled, the Beacon Heights Community League is picking up some of the slack with Living Green 101, a few small changes you can make to your lifestyle to green it up.
You can stick it to Mother Nature by heading over toe 124 Street for the Spring Gallery Walk.
Or hide from the snow and see a movie.
Winter Warm-Up Headlines
Is anybody else’s apartment stifling hot? Did your neighbours also forget to consult any weather reports, or venture outside, to note they didn’t have to crank the heat like it’s in the -20s? This does mean, however, it’s been too hot inside for me to wear pants for two days.
The Alberta Party gets its first sitting MLA today. Former Liberal Dave Taylor is moving from the independent seats to an opposition party.
That means Alberta’s Legislature has a governing party (Conservatives) official opposition (Liberals), members from three other parties (Wildrose, NDP, Alberta Party) and an independent (Raj Sherman). I’d say in the last few years Alberta has gone from the most boring of provincial politics to most interesting (perhaps even most exciting). Five parties!
The federal Conservatives are also celebrating five years at the head of a minority parliament. I think it’s time to seriously consider we are moving away from the majority governments we’ve come to know and love for decades and embrace a more diverse elected government.
That will also have to mean changes to how we choose, fund, and empower politicians. In terms of empowerment I’m especially thinking about funding for research and other items once elected. Right now, the government and “recognized” parties get more money.
Now, in Edmonton… (more…)
Community League Day
As I’ve talked about, Saturday was Community League Day in Edmonton.
91 of the city’s 150+ community leagues held an event on Saturday, in a city-wide party of sorts. There were barbecues, potlucks, sports, games, music, arts, crafts, food, and general neighbourly goodness.
I went to the annual Fall Arts BBQ held by my league, Strathcona Centre. It just so happened our hall tenant, the Edmonton Weavers’ Guild was holding an open house. And our neighbour, King Edward School, was welcoming back 50 years of students.
Needless to say, it was a day for community!
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- The art of the arts BBQ.
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- More of the arts
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- The bbq portion of the arts BBQ.
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- Potluck.
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- That’s determination.
A weekend for community, and arts
Hi Everybody! Here’s some stuff I think you might be interested this weekend.
Community League Day is Saturday, September 18. My community, Strathonca Centre, will be holding its annual arts BBQ. It times out nicely, since our neighbour, King Edward School, will be celebrating 50 years the same afternoon. And the Edmonton Weavers’ Guild, a tenant of our community hall, is hosting an open house.
If you’re not in my neighbourhood, you’re probably in, or close to, one of the 89 other communities throwing a party Saturday. Get out there and find out who your neighbours are, what people are up to, and snag yourself some free food.
Sunday is the Terry Fox Run. It’s the 30th anniversary.
This weekend is also Alberta Arts Days. There are plenty of events happening, at plenty of places.
Alley Kat is launching their fall brew, Pumpkin Pi, with a party tonight.
You could always see a movie.
D.O.A. at New City tonight.
U22 is hosting an evening of young musicians at the Horizon Stage in Spruce Grove. Among the performers is one of our favourite locals, Lyra Brown. U22 is actually quite busy during Alberta Arts Days.
Rae Spoon is playing The ARTery tonight. Tonight is also a fundraising Friday happy hour. Tomorrow at The ARTery it’s the release of the latest issue of Notebook Magazine.
Visualeyez is back. That’s Latitude 53′s performance arts festival. This year’s theme is food.
Jailbait kicks off the Northern Light Theatre’s season. Oh, it’s theatre season.
There’s some roller derby action at Northlands.
How could we go without mentioning Western Canada Fashion Week? We couldn’t.
And…BIEBER!
Sounds like a challenge
We found a perfectly good hacky sack while out cleaning. I'm not good at hacky sacking.
I’ve been mentioning something called the Edmonton Community Challenge, so I figure I should explain that in a little more detail.
How about right now, does that work for you? Good.
The Edmonton Community Challenge is a collaboration of the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues (EFCL) and the city’s Next Gen Committee. The EFCL is the group that looks over all of the city’s 150 community leagues, leading them, guiding them, helping them out. Next Gen is a committee made up of 18-40-year olds, with the aim of attracting and retaining young, creative people in Edmonton.
They’ve teamed up, and secured $15,000 from Boardwalk Rental Communities and Telus, to get the city’s community leagues competing. Also part of the team are The Works Art and Design Festival, Capital City Cleanup, Bikeology Festival, Edmonton Bicycle Commuters, and Youth Emergency Shelter Society
The $15,000 prize, to be awarded July 1, will be for a capital project. Looking at some of the bio information from the leagues you can see where that would go. Some are talking parks, others playgrounds, and some (like my own team from Strathcona Centre) would use the money at their community hall.
There were also prizes handed out at the kick-off breakfast, and somebody is going to win an iPad, also July 1. AN iPAD!
It’s a great idea from the NextGen/EFCL braintrust. They had another good idea last year, teaming up to connect younger people (18-40) with their community league. It was a great mixer and probably helped people even realize we had community leagues. If you don’t know which league is yours, check here.
A morning event is only as good as its pancakes.
The challenge is the best part though. There are plenty of ways to get community leagues to compete for money. You could have them submit applications, write pitches, etc… but this is all about community spirit.
The events include the pancake breakfast (Points just for eating pancakes!), a neighbourhood cleanup, collecting food for the Edmonton Food Bank, collecting recyclable bottles and cans to be turned into cash for the Youth Emergency Shelter Society, tuning up and donating bikes, attending the Bikeology Festival, building a canned good sculpture, and, the best of all, a photo scavenger hunt.
Our teammate, Gord, is high-fiving Councillor Don Iveson because high-fiving every councillor is part of the scavenger hunt.
More than 400 people, from 21 neighbourhoods, will be competing in some or all of those events. We’ll be the ones snapping photos of ourselves outside of libraries and pleading with you to let us take your bike in for a tune-up.
If you want to see what people cleaned up, or what kinds of scavenger hunt items we’re seeking, you can search “yegchallenge” on Flickr.
Already, I’ve been having a great time. I’ve met neighbours, and community-minded people, and I’m experiencing aspects of Edmonton I may not have. I mentioned that I kicked around the Norwood and Sprucewood neighbourhoods, during Heart of the City on the weekend, and it was because of this contest.
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I went back in time to clean up Whyte Avenue. Actually, that's just Eric, our team's leading cleaner.
I also got up early Saturday, which doesn’t always happen. And I helped clean up a couple blocks of Whyte Avenue. I like things tidy but I’m not normally the guy out cleaning up, not even during Capital City Clean Up events.
So I think it means the plan is working.
Also, I’ll take your canned goods, old bikes, and bottles and cans.
June’s first kick at the can
The first June weekend of the year is here and let’s see what’s in store for us.
You could see a movie. There are four new ones in theatre this weekend.
Nextfest has begun. It’s the annual celebration of young, youthful artists in Edmonton. There will be plays, dance, films, visual art, music and lots more. And it’s all from young, and up-and-coming Edmonton artists.
Pay attention, some of these names will be in arts and culture coverage for years to come. Plus, you can check things out right now and be able to say you saw so-and-so’s first show back in 2010.
This weekend also marks the beginning of the month-long Edmonton Community Challenge. 20 21 of Edmonton’s community leagues will be eating pancakes, cleaning neighbourhoods, fixing bikes, collecting food for the Food Bank and recyclables for YESS, and scavenging for photos, all to try and win $15,000 for a capital project in their community. I’ll be reporting more on this, from the front lines, as captain of the Strathcona Centre team.
Dreamspeakers Film Festival is still going on. So is the International Children’s Festival.
Tonight, at the Avenue Theatre, Christian Hansen & The Autistics will impress you with their musical talent. You’ll be there at 8pm.
Is that all I’ve got? Yes.
But that’s not all ShareEdmonton’s got:
The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (ESO) is going to the Oscars this weekend.
It’s Movies on the Square time again! Tonight you can watch Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs on a giant screen in Churchill Square. Tomorrow it’s Alvin and the Chipmunks 2.
If you head to Naked on Jasper, Saturday night, you can support aspiring musicians, including one of our favourites, Lyra Brown. Lyra is also going to be playing Nextfest on Tuesday. See what I said about the best and brightest young stars?
Eddie Vaan Shaw Jr. will be at the Yardbird. (This is one of those newfangled yeglive.ca tie-in events I mentioned last week.)
If you’re in the centre of the city this weekend you might want to check out the Heart of the City festival. It’s two days of music, music and music. All at Giovanni Cabot Park, and all free.
Edmonton Twitter music notables Erica Viegas and Lisa Nicole Grace play Saturday night.
You like to party, don’t you?
Look at all the fun stuff community leagues do! (Image: EFCL)
Since you all like to party this story will be worth your time.
How does one, big city-wide party sound to you?
Yeah, you like that.
Well, the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues (EFCL) also likes it like that, so they’ve declared the third Saturday in September (Sept. 18) “Community League Day.”
(Image: EFCL)
What that means, so it’s not just another day that’s declared something or other, is that community leagues around the city will be throwing parties. Wouldn’t you know it, there’s a community league in your neighbourhood.
So far, 30 leagues have joined the party.
To be clear, the Strathcona Centre annual Arts BBQ will probably be on the Sunday (Sept. 19). We usually hold it on a Sunday. (This is my community league. I recently returned to the board for another two years.)
Some of those other events may also be on the Sunday. And if the other 100+ community leagues all want in, they may also split it between Saturday and Sunday.
But that still means we have great, community events, all weekend, all around Edmonton. See you at one of the parties!
For those of you on Twitter, and engaging in community in other online forums, let me talk to you for just a minute.
Community Leagues are a great way to take all the good connections and ideas from the online world into the real one. They’re also a good way, if you want to be on your league’s board, to help effect change and programming in your neighbourhood.
Lookin’ back/On the track/For a little Green Shack (sorry)
I was returning some books to the Old Strathcona Library recently, when I noticed a whole little party-style setup just South of the building. We’re talking picnic tables, art supplies, a cute little shelf that said “Outdoor Reading Room.”
Because I live in the neighbourhood and had never noticed this before, I wondered what the deal was. Was this for hobos? Was it for school children? Could I fingerpaint something and then read a Babysitter’s Club book? Would I be judged for asking?
I wandered around taking a few pictures, much to the chagrin of passers-by, who all looked at me like I was going to snatch somebody’s baby. What am I, Peter File over here?
