Interested in the local townscape? Polygon Properties will be at District Council on Tuesday, June 16 at 7pm, hoping that their bid to redevelop the site on 27th Street across from Safeway will be supported.
You can learn more about the proposal here. As envisioned in the Official Community Plan for Lynn Valley, the site would include new road connectors and pedestrian pathways to facilitate traffic flow within the evolving town centre.
We bet there are a ton of great Lynn Valley Day photos floating around out there, but here are some from the editor’s iPhone, taken in between shifts running the egg-and-spoon races! Thanks to everyone who pitched in, paraded, participated and celebrated our wonderful community at this fun annual event!
Spring is well upon us, so it’s time to tune into the local experts for some garden tips. Here is some advice on keeping your perennials looking perfect, from Matt and Rob Boyd of Endless Summer landscapers.
Many perennial plants grow in an ever-widening clump. After several seasons of growing, these perennials will begin to die out in the center and look more like a ring than a clump.
Know someone with the gift of music to share? Lynn Valley United Church would like to hear from them!. *The original posting was updated on June 5, 2015*
Music Leadership Opportunity
Minister of Music, Lynn Valley United Church
Lynn Valley United Church (LVUC) is on a holy adventure, taking risks to discover how “church” can support healthy communities, foster close relationships and bring peace to the world, by serving in ways that are new and uncertain. Music is a key component of the way we intend to respond to this call. We have an open invitation to anyone who wants to join us on this adventure as our new Minister of Music. We believe the ideal candidate will bring:
– the capacity to spot leaders in any musical endeavour and nourish their gifts to help the congregation grow musically in all directions;
– the capacity to reflect theologically and to engage pastorally with people of all religious experience or none;
– the capacity for casting a musical vision in partnership with the Ministry Teams of the congregation in response to Spirit’s leading;
– the education and skills that combine musical excellence with a sacred respect for, and demonstrated experience in the process of creating community and nurturing spirituality among volunteer musicians.
Currently the Music Ministry includes;
– leadership of the “Bring Your Own Voice” community choir,
– providing congregational song leadership in the traditional role of “cantor” and the arranging and coordinating of special gifts of music in Sunday worship,
– coordination of the North Shore Drumming Circle
– creating opportunities for the people of LVUC to explore whole new ways to serve the community and develop leadership through the music program.
And Lynn Valley United Church sees music as a key growth area in service to the community.
Reporting to the Minister, this 10 hour/week position (at present) is open to anyone of any tradition who wants to join us in our future. Lynn Valley United Church uses the pay scale posted on the national website of the Royal Canadian College of Organists as the starting place for negotiating remuneration, commensurate with education and experience.
Interested applicants are invited to send their resume by June 15, 2015, to
Shari Gardiner, Chair, Ministry and Personnel Committee
Lynn Valley United Church
c/o 3158 Mountain Highway
North Vancouver, BC
V7K 2H5
[email protected]
From Lynn O’Malley, Voice of the Valley
She may have accomplished many things in her life since, but chief among Jane Jessop’s memories is being crowned May Queen at the 1962 Lynn Valley Day. And it wasn’t just any Lynn Valley Day – they really put on the Ritz as it was the 50th anniversary of the first Lynn Valley Day that took place in 1912 in Lynn Canyon Park.
It wasn’t Jane’s first Lynn Valley Day, though. Then Jane Hambleton, she had been one of the May Queen’s flower girls when she was just in Grade 1. But that was nothing compared to being chosen by popular vote from amongst four or five other Lynn Valley Elementary School girls to be the May Queen in Grade 6.
By contributing writer Len Corben
My mother’s Achilles heel was actually her most valuable asset. At least it was on the afternoon she entered the Lynn Valley Day walking race from 15th Street and Lonsdale Avenue to Lynn Valley Park on June 1, 1957, coming up 58 years ago now.
With this year’s Lynn Valley Day scheduled for Saturday, May 30, this is the perfect opportunity to tell the tale of my mom’s victory using a rather unorthodox finishing kick.
Thanks to our internet-connected world, a little piece of Lynn Valley history recently came to light.
Kim Wertenberger of Wapato, Washington, sent LynnValleyLife a photo of a much-cherished trophy that once belonged to her grandfather, Brian J. Ingoldsby. “I love it dearly and wanted to share it with you,” wrote Kim, who had unsuccessfully tried to make contact with someone in Lynn Valley years ago. This time, her internet search found an appreciative audience in the LVLife editorial office.
The trophy was given to Mr. Ingoldsby for winning the “Mile Flat Race” in 1921, 22, and 23. The race was run at the first-ever Lynn Valley Day in 1912, and again in 1913, but there is a significant gap in the dates while World War One interrupted such idyllic pastimes. (For a first-hand account of another Lynn Valley man’s experience of this period, see Walter Draycott’s online chronicle of The Great War.) It must have been celebratory indeed when Mr. Ingoldsby won the race when it made its reappearance in 1921.
Says Kim: “I was told that [my grandfather] qualified for the Olympics as a runner, but was spiked by another runner’s shoe so couldn’t participate. I’m not sure about the truth in that or even if I am remembering the story correctly…but he won this trophy three years in a row so he must have had some skill!”
When he was growing up in North Van, Neil Chrystal remembers that “Lynn Valley was the tough community where you didn’t want to go.” Now, as the CEO of Polygon Homes, Neil lauds the decades-long transformation that has vaulted the neighbourhood into one of the North Shore’s most popular places in which to live.
Longtime Lynn Valley resident Trish McMordie was well known for her sense of fun, community service, hospitality and love of reading and teaching. So it’s no surprise that all these elements are coming together to create a special event in support of the North Vancouver District Library memorial fund set up in Trish’s name after her passing from a brain tumour in October 2013.
A Whisky Library is a community event (for the over-19s!) taking place in the Lynn Valley Library on Saturday, May 9, from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m.
A distinctly festive air will permeate the gathering, which will see five whiskies each represented by a “whisky advocate” in the style of the CBC Canada Reads contest. Tastings will be offered of the five whiskies, each of which will be individually represented by advocates Grant Lawrence (CBC Radio), Mark Forsythe (former host of CBC’s BC Almanac), Catherine Barr, North Vancouver MP Andrew Saxton and Grandy Chu, and North Vancouver District Mayor Richard Walton.
Celtic ceilidh music provided by the Black Bear Rebels, an auction and refreshments (including a chocolate table!) will ensure that there will be plenty to entertain both whisky aficionados and abstainers alike. The library’s Trish McMordie Memorial Fund has already purchased a sit-and-play snake named “Piper” for the children’s department; funds raised at the Whisky Library will help further Trish’s love of bringing together children and books.
Trish McMordie was an avid member of the JP Fell Pipe Band, along with her husband Allan.
Tickets are $55 for a whisky-tasting ticket (includes five whisky tastings) or $25 for a non-whisky ticket. They can be purchased at any North Van District Library, or online. Trish’s two children, David and Janet, would assure you that there’s no better way to celebrate Mother’s Day 2015 than by buying your mom a ticket and bringing her along to this festive fundraiser.
Lynn Valley is home to nearly a dozen churches and congregations of various types. But in this age that is often described as “spiritual but not religious,” church leaders are increasingly being found outside their buildings, helping people of all backgrounds find the sacred in everyday life.
Lynne McNaughton is the priest at St. Clement’s Anglican Church on Institute Road, and an avid learner and teacher of Celtic spirituality. Lynne, who has a doctorate in spirituality and has led pilgrimages to several ancient Celtic sites in Europe, is looking forward to introducing interested locals to the tradition of Celtic practices that serve to inject an appreciation of nature and holiness into the everyday tasks of living.
Everyone is welcome to participate in the hands-on workshops, which will take place at Mollie Nye House, 840 Lynn Valley Road, over a series of Monday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m. Topics to be explored include:
April 20: Smooring the Fire: Mindfulness in ordinary everyday physical activity
May 11: Illumination: Beauty as spiritual practice
May 25: Celtic Knots as Spiritual Practice: Interweaving life and the sacred
June 8: Holiness of Rocks and Trees, Skies and Seas: Cultivating awe as a spiritual practice (This session will begin with a Celtic dinner at 6 p.m.)
Cost is $10 for each of the first three sessions, $20 for the June dinner session, or $50 for the whole series. Register by calling 604-988-4418 (St Clement’s Church, where messages are checked frequently) or email at [email protected]. Please inquire about babysitting should that be helpful.
LynnValleyLife recently caught up with Lynne to ask her some more questions about the workshops and her thoughts about Celtic spirituality in general. We’ve shared her answers, below:
What is it about Celtic spirituality that intrigues you? What do you think it has to offer people in the church and in the wider community?
Celtic spirituality has intrigued me for decades, as I have led pilgrimages to ancient Celtic sites in several countries. Although I am fifth or more generations Canadian, I have Irish, Welsh and Scottish heritage (as you might guess from my last name!) I see Celtic life as part of my own roots, my aboriginal heritage. My study of Celtic spirituality deepens my understanding of myself, who am I, how do I relate, and what matters in life.
I see Celtic spirituality as embodied, that is, having to do with our physical bodies. Spirit and body are connected, and I think this is something we are reclaiming today; that spirituality is not some separate ethereal thing, but our whole beings.
Celtic spirituality is also very communal. Our hope with this whole series is to have conversation in our neighbourhood that work against the isolation in our society, or a sense that our spiritual lives are only private and solitary.
What parallels might you suggest between the Celtic culture and ours on the Pacific coast?
I think that we are aware, as we live in the immense beauty of nature around us and at this moment are recoiling in horror at an oil spill, that we all need to reclaim a spirituality of deep connection to Earth; Celtic spirituality gives us some roots in that, some ways of tending to that.
One of the sessions will be about beauty and spirituality. Celtic spirituality honours and builds our imaginations.
When I have taught Celtic spirituality in Indigenous communities in Canada, we have talked about how Christianity arrived in Ireland in the fourth century with a much more respectful (less colonial and imperial) stance than it did in our country.
Christianity was strongly influenced by Celtic culture when it blended in to Ireland’s rural life, a life that was far more connected to the earth than early continental and urban Christianity. Earth and everyday life are, after all, infused with the sacred. I am fine if people call me pagan; it simply means “people of the Earth” – and aren’t we all!
What will people learn/experience in the workshops?
These aren’t lectures! I will give an introduction to a spiritual practice, some background and context, but this will be experiential learning. There will be practice, action, and discussion about how we might adapt these insights from the Celts into our real everyday lives. Be prepared to be playful!
Any hints about what a Celtic dinner might entail?
We are creating the closing dinner from foods that were traditional and considered sacred to the Celts. The food will be local, as much as possible – we’re not importing anything. Is that enough of a hint? Think apples, for instance!
Are you planning other community workshops in the future?
Yes, we plan to have offer other themes to engage people in developing a healthy spiritual practice. One example is embodied prayer – I know I pray best when I am moving!