Fringe Video: Theme Park
Going back to my first Fringing, about a decade ago in Winnipeg, I’ve always checked posters for shows which have toured the country and received great reviews in other cities. Among Edmonton’s 180 Fringe plays this summer, you’ll find plenty of great Edmonton talent, but don’t forget to see who’s come to Edmonton from other places. If we’re to be the biggest and best Fringe in North America we should have the best plays from all around.
All of that leads me to our next Fringe video which, of course, is for a play not from Edmonton. (more…)
Park(ed) it
Today is World Car-Free Day.
Now, being in such a car-loving city, I don’t expect you all knew that. Heck, I don’t own a car and didn’t know that (until prompted by e-mails from the City of Edmonton).
The event has begun and runs until 7pm. 151 Street will be shut down to traffic between 100 and 102 Avenues. Take that, rush-hour!
If you head over to the Park(ed) event it’s going to be similar to the one that took place one Saturday this summer. There will be yoga, and dancing, and cycling, and general non-vehicle good times. It really is neat to stand in the middle of a street, that should be open to traffic, and walk around like you own the place.
I’d like to think, even in our car-city, we do better than Toronto today.
Maybe next year it can be a day of free transit in Edmonton?
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Don’t forget about Edmonton election candidate forums. Tonight there are two forums, in the wide-open races.
Ward 11′s forum is at J. Percy Page High School (2707 Millwoods Road) from 7-9pm. This is a ward with no incumbent candidate so it should be a good one. Shane Bergdahl, Kerry Diotte (former Sun columnist), Vishal Luthra, and Chinwe Okelu (who’s run a number of times, coming close last time) are ones to watch. See, it’s going to be a good race.
Ward 3′s forum is at the same time at Londonderry Junior High School (7104 144 Avenue). 3 also doesn’t have an incumbent because Ron Hayter decided to hang it up after 87 years on council (I may be rounding up). Dave Loken and Terry Demers (Hayter’s former assistant) are likely the ones to watch.
With no incumbents these really are forums everyone can be interested in. Don’t forget, you can watch, and even ask questions, online.
That means you can be a part of the process and not even have to wear pants. (If you’re at home! Please be at home when not wearing pants.)
Opinion: Where my parks at?
This deserves a webpage.
While looking up information on Ezio Farone Park I noticed the City of Edmonton only has webpages for its major parks. You know, the Hawrelaks, Gold Bars and Coronations.
The Ezio Farones, the Dr. Wilbert McIntyres and Kildares don’t get a webpage.
I want them to get their own webpage!
OK, there’s a slight twist to them not having a webpage. There are a bunch of different pages you can slog through to find picnic sites, or sports fields, or your neighbourhood’s parks.
I’ll note with my work on the Strathcona Centre Community League, however, that people tend not to know the “official” name of their neighbourhood. The Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues (EFCL) and Next Gen can back me up on that, since it came up at their recent event to get younger people involved in community leagues. (More on community leagues soon enough my pretties.)
To make sure I wasn’t make an outlandish request, I poked around a couple of websites from other Canadian cities.
Certainly I checked on Calgary. They are like us, and only have webpages for their big parks. The community parks, nestled nicely into your neighbourhood, don’t have much more than a name and address mention.
A city of similar size to Edmonton (though not in a similarly sized capital region), Winnipeg, also doesn’t give its medium and small parks a page of their own. Though, they do provide information on the amenities of each park, which I think is a nice touch for anyone looking around at a neighbourhood to live in, or looking for a place to schedule the weekend pick-up football games.
Toronto beats them all. It appears all of their parks have their own webpage (except skateboard parks…) and at least one has its own website. I even did a measurement check on how big an acre was, to make sure these parks weren’t only the ones with giant swaths of land.
So, I’m writing this to the world (it’s the Internet after all) but I’m going to drop a line to the City of Edmonton and ask for a little more detail on our parks on the Internet.
We need to know more about the Garneaus, Montroses and Nellie McClungs. Those are parks we can have a BBQ in or saunter down to when we want a new place to read a book.
Are you with me or am I looking for too much from our city’s website?
Miss You, Edmonton
In Toronto, I’ve got Edmonton on my mind.
And Edmonton’s got little corners of the city staked out.
You know who's from Edmonton? Michael J. Fox is, that's who.
99 Blue Jays Way. 'Nuff said. But note the kid with the hockey stick.
