Welcome to the New School Year

Well this time it has been four weeks since I have blogged but I have a lot of excuses which you can read about below. Lets just say it has been extra busy in August and more importantly, during my vacation. However, I have been enjoying most of the projects.

A lot of the time has been spent with several Fusion projects and events. One major event that I have been working on is the Harvesting the Arts Festival featuring ArtConnect which will take place on September 21st-22nd. This will be a great event which will highlight the Arts community in Saint John. A large project that has been taking a lot of time is the Fusion "12 Wonders of Greater Saint John" calendar which will be our first fundraiser. I am hopeful that it will be launched in the next few weeks. A little over a week ago Fusion was also asked to replace a Dragon Boat team in the races in Renforth. That was a lot of fun although with little practise we did not do great! Finally, Fusion has its Annual General Meeting a week ago and we have several new board members and a new employee for the Fall school term. A lot of work, but it is all very positive for Fusion.

Pride Week in Saint John also occurred since my last post. It was an eventful and positive week. There were several events including the flag raising, movie night, boat cruise, parade, auction, etc. I had the opportunity to attend a few of these events. From all accounts, it was a successful week and hopefully some more awareness was raised around issues of sexuality in our society.

A political event that occurred over the past four weeks was the decision by the Council of Saint John to hold a plebiscite on a Ward System of Governance for the City of Saint John. This is a great step forward for the City and hopefully as many of you as possible will get out and vote on the issue. It is important, whether you are for or against wards, to get out and have your voice heard. This is the beauty of democracy and this issue of wards is one that was kept from being a democratic decision for some time now.

I have had some more vacation since my last post. However, during this bout of vacation it seems I worked harder than when I am at work. I made some visits to family and friends in P.E.I. and Fredericton. I did a lot of work in the gardens: weeding, adding new beds, harvesting vegetables (squash, beans, broccoli, lettuce and cucumbers). I also spent some time re-arranging the computer room in the house to get ready for our Fall courses. However, the largest project, which is still ongoing was the construction of a flagstone patio. Next Spring I will also be adding a pond in front of it. I have included a picture so that everyone can see the results thus far. My body is sore, but I am sure I must have lost a few pounds.

As the title of this post suggests, we are now coming into September and the summer is beginning to wind up. For me, this is evident through several events. One is the fact that my tenants started moving in this weekend. We have four for the year and they are all students at the Community College. Another is the fact that my first Master of Public Administration course starts next week. Finally, there is the fact that all the meetings for community boards I sit on are beginning to get underway again. It will be a busy Fall.

An exciting conference that is happening in Saint John this week (at my work) is the Social Enterprise Development Conference. Basically, we are having experts from across Canada coming to Saint John to talk about their successes in having mental health consumers start their own businesses. We are planning on doing the same here in Saint John so it will be a great learning experience.

Finally, and most importantly, on August 29th I became an uncle for the third time. My brother had a healthy baby girl and I cannot wait to get back to P.E.I. to see her.

Take care and have a great week everyone!