Love ’em or hate ’em, adopt them or not, thoughts of new year’s resolutions are on most people’s minds each year when the calendar reaches its final days.

As we know, most well-intended resolutions die a quick death in the first few weeks following January 1. But surely it is still worth taking the time to look ahead at the year to come and ask yourself what you’d like to bring to it, and get from it.

Three years ago at this time, just a few months after we launched LynnValleyLife.com, we encouraged people to become engaged in their neighbourhood with this handy list of One-Mile Resolutions (most of which are still pretty great suggestions, we think!)

Since then, our community has continued to grow – in activities, in new residents, and, some will be quick to note, traffic woes! As we pointed out in this blog post, however, while growth may carry with it some pros and some cons, the health of a community is based largely on the civic engagement of those who live within it.

IMG_2612As a local media website that does its best to connect you with the news of the neighbourhood, we are privileged to witness the hard work that many individuals put in to greatly enhance our community life. (Did you know that Lynn Valley was voted the best North Shore community  in which to live in the North Shore News Readers’ Choice Awards?)

The Christmas Tree Walk in Lynn Valley Village, our Lynn Valley Day festivities, charitable funding of local programs and families through the efforts of the Lynn Valley Lions, the ever-growing Remembrance Day ceremony in Veterans’ Plaza – none of this would be possible without the immense amount of dedication and hands-on work contributed by our neighbours. I’m sure you would like to join with us in thanking them all.

As life gets ever-busier, many organizations throughout the country are finding it more difficult to attract the necessary number of volunteers to keep their operations going. Locally, we’ve witnessed the admirable efforts of a few “movers and shakers,” people who seem to put in far more hours than their share when it comes to making our community days happen and our Christmas trees sparkle.

So this New Year’s Eve, LynnValleyLife encourages you to seriously consider offering your time and talent to one of our local community organizations in the hope that more hands will make for lighter work. Yes, we are all busy already. But maintaining and enhancing our neighbourhood life is a shared responsibility in which we can all play a part, be it large or small.

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There are a number of groups you can join, from school parent councils to Friends of the Library, but to start off we’d point you to the “Big Three” – those whose efforts have truly defined the community we have become. That would be the Lynn Valley Community Association, the Lynn Valley Lions, and the Lynn Valley Legion. Their members often work together on community projects and events, as shown in their recently published re-cap of the year soon past:

Lynn Valley 2014

Again, many thanks to all the volunteers throughout our community who make Lynn Valley what it is. And big kudos to those of you who decide to take up the LynnValleyLife challenge and make 2015 your year for getting involved. With an even stronger community, it will surely be a happy new year ahead!