Notable Neighbours

Come celebrate neighbourly spirit this weekend

It was a pleasure to read your stories of the good folks of Lynn Valley who were nominated for this year’s Good Neighbour Award. You can read some of the top stories in the “Notable Neighbours” category of our Front Porch blog, here – they are happy reading for this time of year!

We are not going to announce the winner of this year’s Good Neighbour, drawn from among these entries. Not yet, anyway – that special presentation will take place down at Lynn Valley Village at about 7 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 22, just before community carolling with Lynn Valley United Church singers kicks in. (There’s super entertainment both Saturday and Sunday – check out the schedule here, but be sure to come down for the grand finale on Sunday night!)

In the meantime, though, we’d like to make brief mention of a few other great neighbourhood contributors, who have been recently recognized in other contexts than our annual Good Neighbour Award.

“Mortgage Dave” and Bob McCormack, just two of Lynn Valley’s very good neighbours.

We’d first like to say a big thank you to Dave Bruynesteyn, who is the hard-working mastermind behind the Christmas in Lynn Valley event, now in its third year. There are innumerable tasks to be done to make a decorated Christmas tree forest come alive in our village square, as well as the light-up and wrap-up events, and Dave is the organizing force behind it all. We know he has help from other fine folks in the Lynn Valley Community Association, but from searching out tree sponsors to carting off the heavy concrete tree stands once Christmas is over, Dave is in the thick of it all. Thanks so much, Dave, for lighting up Lynn Valley!

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We’re also happy to pass on word that longtime community volunteer and Lynn Valley native Bob McCormack was awarded the Jeff Ehlert Award by the North Shore Disability Resource Centre (the award is named for the first executive director of the NSRDC).

Each year the Board requests submission from the members and employees as well as the community. The Board then selects the volunteer who best demonstrates the values of service, support and community. This year the award was presented to Bob, who works tirelessly to support NSDRC’s cause of “working for a community for all.”

Bob’s dedication to the community isn’t news to LynnValleyLife; we featured him in a ‘Notable Neighbour’ profile in our first year – have a look and learn more about this fine fellow!

Bob has volunteered for a huge number of local non-profits, including North Shore Neighbourhood House, North Shore Recreation Commission, North Shore Arts & Cultural Commission, Silver Harbour Senior Centre, Mollie Nye House, the Lynn Valley Seniors Association, and the Lynn Valley Community Association.

Highlights for Bob include being the co-chair of Valleyfest (the district-wide celebrations that took place in LV Village during the 2010 Winter Olympics) and being an Olympic torchbearer  at Lynn Canyon Park.

Congratulations Bob, and many thanks for the immense benefits you have brought to all of us in your community.

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Finally, in response to a community request, we would like to take a moment during our Good Neighbour campaign to honour Mike Cregan, a Lynn Valley Elementary School teacher who passed away suddenly two months into the school year.

“Every time I saw Mike he was always upbeat and friendly, and seemed to have lots of energy for all the kids. He always had something positive to say and was always encouraging them on,” said local resident Bill Newman.

We were so sorry to learn of Mr. Cregan’s death, and know his loss was felt tremendously  at the school.

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We are fortunate to live and to work in a community filled with good neighbours such as these – and many, many more we have yet to hear about! Please come out and share some Christmas spirit with us on Sunday evening in Lynn Valley Village, and help cheer on the Good Neighbour Award recipient for 2013!

 

December 20, 2013 in Blog, Community Events, Current News, Notable Neighbours

2013 Good Neighbour Award nominee: Megan McAloney

Do you know someone in Lynn Valley who would make a good candidate for this year’s Good Neighbour Award? Please send us your story about the person in our community who has made our world a better place, in ways large or small (whether they live next door to you or not!) Over the upcoming season of peace and goodwill, we will share our favourites on the website and draw from amongst them the recipient of the 2013 Good Neighbour Award and prize package. Details are here; deadline for entry is Wednesday, December 18. We look forward to hearing from you!

 

Neighbour is best friend to all – including dog

Megan is a very kind and caring person. Apart from looking after her husband and two daughters, she also cares for her grandparents who live in her basement suite, with a lot of patience and understanding.

She is always one of the first people in the street to welcome new residents. Every summer she organizes a block party for all the neighbours. The last couple of years she has successfully applied for a grant from North Shore Neighbourhood House to host the block party.

We asked Megan once to feed our dog, as we were only getting home late. There was a thunderstorm and Megan was concerned that our dog would be frightened. She took the dog to her house where they cuddled her until the thunderstorm had passed. She left a lovely note to let us know that they loved having our dog over and love caring for her.

Megan always has a friendly greeting for all the neighbours. We are so lucky to have her as our neighbour!

– submitted by Lise Pitt

December 17, 2013 in Blog, Contests, Current News, Notable Neighbours

2013 Good Neighbour Award nominee: Lynn Valley Lions

Do you know someone in Lynn Valley who would make a good candidate for this year’s Good Neighbour Award? Please send us your story about the person in our community who has made our world a better place, in ways large or small (whether they live next door to you or not!) Over the upcoming season of peace and goodwill, we will share our favourites on the website and draw from amongst them the recipient of the 2013 Good Neighbour Award and prize package. Details are here; deadline for entry is Wednesday, December 18. We look forward to hearing from you!

Principal says Lions deserve recognition for support

I would like to nominate the Lynn Valley Lions for their considerable donations of time and support to our school….  they really go the extra mile to support community events and fundraising for our students.

Thank you to each and every Lynn Valley Lion!

– submitted by Deborah Wanner, Lynn Valley Elementary School principal

December 14, 2013 in Blog, Contests, Current News, Notable Neighbours

2013 Good Neighbour Award nominee: LV United Church

Do you know someone in Lynn Valley who would make a good candidate for this year’s Good Neighbour Award? Please send us your story about the person in our community who has made our world a better place, in ways large or small (whether they live next door to you or not!) Over the upcoming season of peace and goodwill, we will share our favourites on the website and draw from amongst them the recipient of the 2013 Good Neighbour Award and prize package. Details are here; deadline for entry is Wednesday, December 18. We look forward to hearing from you!

Church welcomed neighbourhood newcomer

When I was new in the community, Lynn Valley United Church welcomed me with open hearts and friendly smiles.  The church also opened up the choir to the community (which I heartily joined, as Mary the director is fun and I loved the music) as well as a monthly drum circle facilitated by the talented and fearless leader, Lyle Povah (which I also participated in).  It is indeed a musical environment extraordinaire with the likes of soaring singers such as Reverend Blair Odney, and a finger-twinkling accompanist/pianist named Matt who will blow you away!

In fact, there are numerous wondrous activities year-round for neighbourhood folks of all kinds, including (and not limited to):  the fabulous funny and talented Friday Night Live shows (a different version of laughter therapy); the famous, frolicking Fall Fair (truly!); Lynn Valley Days where we were literally “Singing in the Rain!”; the lovely Lynn Valley Festival of Trees – I’m a tree lover and hugger!; and the annual, cozy Christmas neighbourhood party with secular and spiritual music, carols, cookies, and crafts.  A taste of community…there’s something for everyone!

– submitted by Elly Stornebrink

December 12, 2013 in Blog, Contests, Current News, Notable Neighbours

2013 Good Neighbour Award nominee: Gord Trousdell

Do you know someone in Lynn Valley who would make a good candidate for this year’s Good Neighbour Award? Please send us your story about the person in our community who has made our world a better place, in ways large or small (whether they live next door to you or not!) Over the upcoming season of peace and goodwill, we will share our favourites on the website and draw from amongst them the recipient of the 2013 Good Neighbour Award and prize package. Details are here; deadline for entry is Wednesday, December 18. We look forward to hearing from you!

From tapping syrup to shovelling snow, Gord is there to help

I’d like to nominate our neighbour, Gord Trousdell, for the good neighbour award. Besides always being a cheerful encounter with interesting conversation, Gord is always willing to help out.

One of our first experiences of Gord’s kindness was during the snow of 2006 when our car got stuck; hearing the whirling tires Gord came running up the street with shovel in hand reading to dig and push until the car was free. To this day, I imagine him wearing a cape while running to rescue us.

Little did we know that this was one of many times Gord would be there to lend a helping hand. Throughout the years, Gord delivered kettle corn to our children’s birthday party (made by his equally fabulous wife, Lil), helped make our deck, helped shovel snow off our roof, babysit our kids; the list is endless.

Not only is he generous with his time, but he is also generous with his stuff. Gord likes to share. We trade tools, lawn mowers, etc. Gord truly has a community spirit which includes sharing goods within our community so that we may all benefit and have access to things that we may not own.

Gord also has an incredible wealth of knowledge that he is always willing to humbly share. He’s given us guidance on household maintenance, bee keeping, food harvesting…again the list goes on.

To top it off, we really enjoy the Trousdell family; they are lovely and interesting people with which to spend time. Simply walking down our street can be an enjoyable social outing. I truly believe that the Trousdell family help make our street an inviting community in which I have developed many true friendships.

Just yesterday, Gord was over to tap our maple trees with my children so that we can share the syrup. We feel truly blessed to have a neighbour like Gord. He makes our street a better place to live and significantly contributes to the genuine community feel of our street and the sense that Lynn Valley is our home.

December 8, 2013 in Blog, Contests, Current News, Notable Neighbours

2013 Good Neighbour nominee: Kathrin Wallace

Do you know someone in Lynn Valley who would make a good candidate for this year’s Good Neighbour Award? Please send us your story about the person in our community who has made our world a better place, in ways large or small (whether they live next door to you or not!) Over the upcoming season of peace and goodwill, we will share our favourites on the website and draw from amongst them the recipient of the 2013 Good Neighbour Award and prize package. Details are here; deadline for entry is Wednesday, December 18. We look forward to hearing from you!

Longtime neighbour is a friend and inspiration

Kathrin (and her husband, Bruce and her two kids) lived opposite my family in the mid-eighties in a townhouse complex on Cedar Village Crescent. We spent many fun-filled years watching the kids grow up and celebrating events ranging from family birthdays to block parties to Christmas dinners.

Kathrin is a very community-oriented person who as a strata council member implemented positive changes within the townhouse complex. Later, as PAC president at Eastview Elementary School, she was instrumental in bringing about the creation of a forest walk near the school, the installation of new playground equipment, and the building of a walk-way from the adjacent care facility, Cedarview Lodge, to the school. This enabled seniors to easily walk over to the school and participate in such functions as the Remembrance Day ceremony.

About 10 years ago, Kathrin and her family moved to a house on Greylynn Crescent and my family moved to Viewlynn Drive a few years later. We have enjoyed being neighbours and friends for well over 20 years.

We look after each other’s pets when on vacation, have shared a tent trailer and various home and garden implements, exchanged flower and vegetable cuttings and borrowed an egg or a cup of milk when needed. Kathrin and her family always include my family for Christmas dinners, Easter egg hunts or other social functions. As a neighbour and friend Kathrin is an inspiration, always willing to lend a hand or an ear and I feel truly blessed that we are so near.

Thank you for entering Kathrin’s name in the draw for your Good Neighbour Award 2013.

– submitted by Andrea Winterbottom

(Editor’s note: and thank you to Andrea for contributing five complimentary Joyful Chakra Yoga sessions to our Good Neighbour prize pack! If you have a local treat you’d like to contribute, please let us know at [email protected].)

December 6, 2013 in Blog, Contests, Current News, Notable Neighbours

Book explores personal experiences of death

Bury the Dead: Stories of Death and Dying, Resistance and Discipleship has been a labour of love for the Rev. Laurel Dykstra. An experienced writer as well as recently ordained Anglican priest in North Vancouver, Laurel edited this anthology of first-hand  experiences of death, from an American hospice worker’s reflections to the memoir of a family who cared for a mother at home, taking unto themselves those tasks usually delegated to healthcare professionals and undertakers.

The B.C. launch of Bury the Dead will take place Thursday, December 5 at 7 p.m. at the Lynn Valley Library. The launch is the first in the Really Important Events series sponsored by the North Vancouver Anglican-Lutheran region, which will feature presentations and workshops on end-of-life issues.

People are thirsty for these conversations, it seems; a recent ‘Death Cafe’ held in North Vancouver drew an overflow crowd and a waiting list to boot. LynnValleyLife editor Peggy Trendell-Jensen spoke to Laurel about her book, and the need people have to share stories of this kind.

How did you come to edit this book on death? What is its reason for being?

This book began with a phone conversation. I was a mentor in a program for young Christian activists, and one of the young women I was mentoring, Lydia Wylie-Kellerman, was struggling to write about her mother who was diagnosed with brain cancer when Lydia was twelve and died when she was 19.

Meanwhile I was struggling after the deaths of three women I know who had died in the Downtown Eastside. Reflecting later on the conversation, I realized that the two of us were actually connected to a network of individuals and communities on the radical Christian left who had, for many years, in hospice rooms, war zones, and prison cells, been attending to the work of death and dying. I sent out an exploratory e-mail to some other likely suspects, asking, “What if we made a collection of stories about dying and community, would you write something?” The response was immediate; by next morning six people had promised to write, and three had attached sample chapters.

Did your concept of death evolve over the course of editing the book?

In starting the project I imagined that it would be cathartic. I thought I would be able to let go of some of the stories of death, particularly urban poverty-related deaths, that I had been carrying for years. But instead, contributors began sending these amazing stories of their own beloved dead, so instead of putting down my own story I found myself picking up theirs.

My feelings and ideas about death did not change over the course of editing the book, but I found a tremendous hunger for people to hear and tell these stories. Whenever I talk about the project, I am approached by people who want to talk about death. Care for the dying and the dead is outsourced to professionals and removed from our homes and families. Grief is individualized and something you are expected to “move through.” We are not encouraged to ask questions about own connections to, and culpability for, death by poverty, war and even disease.


How did you find your writers?

I began with the circles of activists I know through various peace and justice movements in North America—Occupy, Anti-War, Catholic Worker, Civil Rights – and those connections led to others.

What story or moment(s) in the book do you find especially poignant or thought-provoking?

All of them. Through the somewhat technical work of polishing and editing the book I found that as I worked on it, each contribution was my favourite. And each time I open the book now I think, “Oh, I love this piece.”

That said, there are two things I would highlight:

Several contributors engaged in hospice work talked about what they do as “reverse midwifery” or being “midwives to the dying.”  I find this particularly beautiful and I think it represents language and thinking that will become more and more common.

I am particularly impressed as well by the power of the contributions written by some of the people of colour, and the different ways that they challenge the deathliness of racism.

What are you hoping the book accomplishes?

I think of it as the first in a series of conversations with more and more diverse conversation partners.

What has reaction been from readers to date?

Quite positive—it has been reviewed in Geez magazine and an excerpt has been published in Sojourners. People are hungry for these kinds of stories and a place to tell their own.

How do you hope society changes in its attitudes or actions around death?

I hope that we talk more about it; that we ask who is dying and why, and what we can do about it. And I hope that we take back the care of our loved ones in ways that connect to our cultures and traditions, and in ways that honour the earth.

Would you call this a ‘religious’ book?

The majority of contributors identify as Christian activists, but Jewish, atheist and agnostic friends have read and loved it. The authors talk about God, Jesus, the Bible, Christian social teaching as well as diapers, protest strategies, gun violence and coffin materials. This is not a book that tells you what to believe, but it grapples honestly and painfully with questions of life, death and resurrection –  so in my opinion it is a profoundly religious book.

 

December 2, 2013 in Blog, Current News, Notable Neighbours

2013 Good Neighbour Nominee: Dana Dykema

Do you know someone in Lynn Valley who would make a good candidate for this year’s Good Neighbour Award? Please send us your story about the person in our community who has made our world a better place, in ways large or small (whether they live next door to you or not!) Over the upcoming season of peace and goodwill, we will share our favourites on the website and draw from amongst them the recipient of the 2013 Good Neighbour Award and prize package. Details are here; deadline for entry is Wednesday, December 18. We look forward to hearing from you!

Busy mom makes time to care for others

I would like to nominate Dana Dykema, an Upper Lynn Valley woman, for the Good Neighbour Award. As you probably know, Chelsea Steyns [Creative Director of the North Shore Academy of Dance] passed away earlier this year from cancer, leaving behind a husband and two sets of twins.

There is a Food For the Family calendar online where you can sign up to provide meals to Chelsea’s family. At least once a month since the calendar was published online, Dana has signed up to provide meals for the Croft family. She is a busy mom with four kids under six(!), but she still finds time to be very active in the community, to volunteer her time, and to provide these meals. She’s a wonderful, understated lady who doesn’t go out of her way to be the center of attention – which is why she deserves to win the Good Neighbour Award!

– Submitted by a friend who asked to remain anonymous

November 29, 2013 in Blog, Contests, Current News, Notable Neighbours

Local musician is Nashville-bound

Turns out that Lynn Valley is en route between South Africa and Nashville, Tennessee. 

At least that’s what Amy Dreyer hopes. Amy wears many hats – she’s here from South Africa as an international development student at SFU and also the worship director of Oasis, Hillside Baptist’s youth worship group. But it’s her singer-songwriter persona that she hopes to take to Nashville in January in order to record a five-song album.

The 19-year-old musician is raising funds towards this goal doing at a coffeehouse concert on Saturday, November 30 at 7:30 p.m. at Hillside Church on Lynn Valley Road. This concert will include original songs and covers, and will also feature other musicians from the area. The $10 tickets are available at the door.

Amy’s classical background in violin and her deep-rooted love for African beats gives her music a unique rhythmic base on which the flowing melodic lines fall. Her music is inspired by artists like Ed Sheeran, John Mayer and Brooke Fraser. Learn more about Amy and listen to her songs here, and come out on November 30 for a relaxing evening for a good cause!

 

 

November 23, 2013 in Blog, Community Events, Current News, Notable Neighbours

Nominate Lynn Valley’s Good Neighbour for 2013!

We’ve been looking forward to this all year! It’s finally time to put the call-out for nominations for this year’s Good Neighbour Award.

We loved reading the stories you sent in last year. We heard about animal lovers and faithful housesitters; charity organizers, handyman husbands, and more. The winner, chosen from amongst all these goodhearted folk by random draw, was Rosemary Postlethwaite of Lynn Valley United Church, who was given her Good Neighbour Award at the finale of the Lynn Valley Christmas in LV Village.

So please send us your story about the person in our community who has made our world a better place, in ways large or small. Over the upcoming season of peace and goodwill, we will share our favourites on the website and draw from amongst them the recipient of the 2013 Good Neighbour Award.

This year’s winner will receive a number of local treats, including a gift certificate to the Black Bear Neighbourhood Pub, four tickets to Friday Night Live, a basket of Christmas CDs from Rave-On Studio, yoga passes to Joyful Chakra Yoga, and even a personalized tour of the North Van RCMP station with our favourite press officer, Cpl. Richard De Jong! And the person who nominates the winner will get a handful of Christmas CDs, too!

Please send your story (just a paragraph or two will do, doesn’t have to be fancy) to [email protected] as soon as you can so we can start sharing them. All entries are due by Wednesday, December 18. Please include your name and contact information, as well as that of the person you are nominating. To help us spread the word, please download this poster to stick up at your local school or shop – we’d love to read as many heartwarming stories as possible!

The announcement will be made, and the prize awarded, at this year’s finale of a Lynn Valley Christmas on Sunday, December 22. Our 2012 winner, Rosemary, is shown below with LynnValleyLife sponsor Jim Lanctôt, his daughter Katie, and the Rev. Blair Odney of Lynn Valley United Church. Who will win this year’s award, we wonder…?

photo courtesy Linda Mackie

November 16, 2013 in Blog, Community Events, Contests, Current News, Notable Neighbours