FRIDAY MAY 17, 2013 VOL. 38, NO. 51
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A club’s transformation
Rod and Gun Club shifted focus to conservation
Loyal to Liberals
West Vancouver - Sea to Sky riding elects another Liberal MLA
Speed dating
Flirting with the art creates excitement without the need to commit
Community campus Municipal hall component seen as spring board for building community centre SUSANNE MARTIN EDITOR
I
t started with the desire to build a performing arts venue. Then the term changed to community centre and lately, it has evolved again. It is now coined “community campus” and includes a new municipal hall. But even though the name has changed, the concept is the same, the Community Centre Standing Committee assured members of the public at the council meeting on May 7. Paul Hoosen has been part of the community centre initiative from the beginning. He signed up for public comments and said, “The survey identified that the community hall was top priority for many islanders and [building a] municipal hall was seen as less important. I suggest that the site plan should be done immediately.” Hoosen explained that the site plan would clarify the components of the community campus. “Building new municipal offices without a cultural centre is fiction,” he said. “The public supported this council in the last election because we believed that the community centre would move forward.” Hoosen also drew attention to the fact that certain grant money, for instance the Cultural Spaces Canada grant, would only be available to nonprofit groups like the Bowen Island Arts Council, and only if the community campus includes a sizable cultural component. Councillor Darron Jennings presented the report of the Community Centre Standing Committee and said it had looked at the “age-old challenge of how to get something started.” He explained that the site is perfect for the idea of a community campus because it is close to the school and Snug Cove. continued, PAGE 3
There is going to be a different kind of crowd at the hatchery this weekend when volunteers from all across B.C. and the Yukon will come to Bowen Island to take part in the SEP Community Workshop. More on page 7. Debra Stringfellow photo
Sixteen-year-old plays key role in student rescue MARCUS HONDRO CONTRIBUTOR
T
he rescue of a Rockridge Secondary student who fell down a cliff on a class outing near Cypress Falls recently had a local component, and an important one. Islander Birch Nesbitt-Jerman was the first, and for a long while the only one, on the scene to help his stricken schoolmate get through the ordeal. Sixteen-year-old Nesbitt-Jerman was on
an outing with his Grade 10 P.E. class and a Grade 8 class at Cypress Falls on Thursday, May 2. He was walking along a path when a Grade 8 student ran up to him “screaming and yelling” that a classmate had fallen down a cliff. Without hesitation, Nesbitt-Jerman backtracked, saw where the fallen youth was and quickly made his way down the cliff-side. He said he took a safer direction than the one where his schoolmate had fallen. Later, a teacher told him that if any teach-
ers had been there, they would not have allowed him to scale down such a dangerous cliff. But they weren’t on the scene yet and down he went. It was more than a 14 metre-drop and his years on Bowen helped him, he said, as he’s done a lot of climbing on the island. “I like climbing and so I was not worried about my own safety,” Birch told the Undercurrent. continued, PAGE 3
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