The First Day of Summer

Happy Summer everyone! It was a great first day of summer, minus the fog earlier in the day. It is warm now. I just got in from walking the dog and then I went for a 5 km bike ride. Wow, I haven't been on a bike for awhile now. It was great exercise, my legs are feeling it.

It has been a busy week. As you know from my last post I found new employment. Now that it has been officially announced I can say that I am the new Coordinator of Vocational Training and Housing for Community Mental Health Services of the Atlantic Health Sciences Corporation. I believe I will really enjoy this opportunity as it has many of the elements I enjoy in a job: helping a marginalized community, advocating for basic needs, working with a team to implement new programs and models, and working in the community. However, as I said before, I will miss my current co-workers and volunteers! Anyhow, I look forward to it and if you have any ideas and/or input I would love to hear it. Meanwhile I have been quite busy training my replacement and finishing up tasks in my current position.

My beautiful sister had her birthday yesterday. I am excited about going up to Fredericton tomorrow night to take her out to supper. This time in June is always filled with celebration for me as my sisters birthday, Fathers Day and my parents Anniversary occur within a 5 day period. I will be heading home this weekend to visit my parents and grandmother in P.E.I. so I am also excited about that. My family has always been very important to me as I believe is true for many people in this part of the country.

The Many Faces of Violence Awareness Project Coffee House was a huge success! I have taken part in many projects over the years but I think this has been one of my favorites to date. It was a powerful event in an intimate setting. We had a slideshow playing in the background with images and statistics around domestic violence while Kim Blue and Linda Boyle entertained with some moving lyrics. We had a new poster unveiled by a local youth artist, who came to the event with her parents and a cake that had the exact same image on it. At least 40 people showed up from around the province. All in all, a moving and very successful closing event for the project.

The weekend was spent doing more gardening and visiting with friends (I went to 2 BBQs this weekend). Some of you must be wondering if I will ever finish gardening...the pond is next.....well my partner and I were chatting the other day and figure that we will finish in a couple of years and by then will be selling the house so will never get to just sit back and enjoy all the beauty, ironic eh?

I began this week with a meeting around needle disposal in the Greater Saint John area. As you may have heard on the news there are needles being found all around the City. This is definitely a safety issue for everyone. However, like littering, it is hard to police in an efficient manner so a group of people got together to start to figure out solutions. It was agreed that there definitely has to be some sort of public education campaign, some sort of public disposal system and some education for those that are leaving their needles on the ground. We decided to meet again in the near future to see what resources each of us could bring to the table. In the meantime, if you find a needle, do not panic or touch the needle but simply call 648-3333 and they will come take care of it.

There many more meetings that I attended this week but I will report more on them at a later date as this post is getting long as it is. Enjoy the rest of the week!