FRIDAY APRIL 12, 2013 VOL. 38, NO. 46
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An opportunity to sail
BIYC is trying to gauge interest in a sailing co-op
Last cipher contest
One more batch of free chocolates goes to winner of this week’s challenge
Taxi plus shuttle
Last round of editorial contests results in three national and four North American prizes
EDITOR
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Caring Circle is looking for donations of current health and wellness books
Undercurrent rakes in awards
SUSANNE MARTIN hey believe that Bowen Island needs a service that combines a taxi with a community shuttle. They’ve also found that expanding the operation of a regular taxi service to encompass various other needs only works if the municipality is involved. At the April 8 council meeting, George Zawadzki, Alan Mills and Glenn Cormier represented the Bowen Island Chamber of Commerce Taxi Initiative and laid out what they see as a need as well as an opportunity. “I would ask [council] to put this into process and see if we can come up with a solution that addresses the transportation needs on Bowen Island,” Zawadzki said. He explained that the taxi initiative is consistent with various objectives and policies of Bowen’s Official Community Plan (OCP). He also drew attention to an age-friendly community report from 2009, where transportation was identified as a barrier to participation. “Transportation is important for inclusion and challenges have been identified, especially by Bowen seniors. We need a service that is farreaching,” Zawadzki said, adding that he sees social, economical and environmental benefits from such a service. Cormier said that council does not need to dwell on the need. “We’ve received many letters from the community supporting this,” he said. “What we should be discussing is how to make it happen.” Cormier explained that the taxi initiative approached the municipality after realizing that there are considerable hurdles for running that service by the private sector. “For a private operator, you could have a taxi or a shuttle. There is no option of intermixing the two because the provincial licensing structure does not allow for that. We have to open up the revenue sources from variety of things [to make the business viable]. The only way to do that is define and legislate the service [through the municipality],” he said.
Health resource library
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Amie Thomas holds up bird houses designed and donated by David Youngson. Islanders will have a chance to paint and decorate them as part of the Bowen Island Arts Council’s silver anniversary celebration. Story on page 9. Susanne Martin photo
he most recent round of newspaper awards yielded plenty of accolades for the Bowen Island Undercurrent that took home three national and four North American prizes, often competing with papers of a much larger distribution. The Undercurrent received four prizes in the editorial contest of the Local Media Association (LMA). “The popular contest includes thousands of entries from members across North America. This contest recognizes editorial excellence in six different circulation classes that separates dailies from non-dailies,” states the LMA website. “The annual contest once again elicited fierce competition. The entries were simply phenomenal, and judges certainly had a tough job on their hands.” In the LMA editorial contest, Undercurrent editor Susanne Martin received first place for best editorial writing for classes of non-dailies up to a distribution of 16,000. Judging for this category is “based on relevance and significance of the issues to the readers and their community, with special consideration for knowledge exhibited on the issues, and evidence of impact or effectiveness of the editorials,” according to contest criteria. The Undercurrent was awarded second place for best editorial page and second place for best feature series on recycling, reusing and waste disposal, written by Susanne Martin and Debra Stringfellow, for a non-daily paper of a circulation up to 8,000. For the same class, Martin was awarded an honourable mention for the story Riffing off one another in the best arts and entertainment writing feature category. The Canadian Community Newspaper Association (CCNA) announced the winners of the 2013 editorial contest at the end of March and the Undercurrent received recognition in three categories. continued, PAGE 3
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