LRRA Proclaims Project to City Council

Well, it was a rough go. I was sick with a baaad flu and seriously considered rescheduling. However, I had been in the cue for months to get the spot in front of Council and figured that I may as well just go ahead and do it. I medicated myself fairly heavily with what amounted to a king's ransom in pharmacutecals, which had kept me up the whole night before. Like I said, it was rough.

The mission was to simply proclaim our intent to develop the site to Mayor, Council & Staff in an official way. It is, after all, City lands, so they are logically included in this project. The Powerpoint was done on the previous week but my speaking parts only got finished a couple of hours before I got in front of the lecturn to speak. I feared it would sound a little sloppy but I think it went OK. It gave a chronological journey through all of the phases of the project to date including the conception, forming the association, all of the clean-ups, the architectual stuff, etc. Pretty much what you can see on the website.

Well golly, it went very well. Every one of the councillors, save one, spoke and threw their support behind the thing. What a relief! I don't do public speaking very often so I'm always unsure of myself. Not nervous, just unsure.

Anyway, they loved the whole thing and now staff is going to study it and try to work it into their larger plans for the city. We'll see how it goes when we actually ask them for money!

I want to take a few lines to thank the City Staff. I deal with many, many people in the run of a day in my real job at Imperial Theatre. No where do I run into more consisitantly helpful, smart, good people than I do at the City of Saint John. They are the often treated with a little harshness, which I think is unjustified. I have nothing but good things to say about these folks. Bravo to them for helping LRRA down this path. They have been fantastic to us.

Hopefully this summer will see lots of movement on this project so keep your eyes on us.

Before I close, here is a nice article that April Robinson wrote in the TJ. Thanks again April!

http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/city/article/985691

Cheers.

CBC Blitz!

The media has really stepped up to the plate on getting the word out about this project. Beyond getting the "story" they've really shown an obvious desire to have folks hear about our proposed park. (They must be those granola types.) CBC Radio and TV have both featured spots for us during the past two days and we couldn't be happier with the results. We've received lots of e-mails and phone-calls from folks who want to help or who just want to wish us well. To us this speaks volumes of how much the walking trail is needed. We are not shouting at walls here, people are listening and agreeing with us. "Just build the darned thing!"

Special mention must be made of Chris Corday, the Journalist who came out to the Rez itself to do a shoot, interview and story. He was the camera guy, the voice-overguy, the producer-guy, and handled it all like a bloody ninja. He danced around puddles and hopped over obstacles with this shoulder-grip camera like Bruce Lee. All the while filming us walking. Hes a heckuva nice fella too. Thanks Chris.

Thanks to CBC for helping make this fly.

TJ Article

August 26th, 2009

Well, I was getting a little nervous that the article wouldn't run. You see, I did the interview on Saturday and was getting antsy when I didn't see it on Monday and then again on Tuesday. Relief came today at both seeing the story and that I didn't look like a total goof in the picture. I usually do.

Certainly the reporter, a very nice April Robinson, nailed it all down very nicely without any embellishments.

Of course, me being in the paper makes it look a bit like I'm the only one working at this, when in actuallity there is so much that happens without me. Our Board is a dedicated group and I want to make mention of them.

Thanks to the Telegraph Journal for getting the word out. You can check out the article here: http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/city/article/771981

August 19, 2009

Hello everyone and Happy Trails.

This will be the location for all things being "rez". Thanks for coming by. Today is the launch of our website and, as a consequence, this blog. I'd like to thank the folks at Pulse Communications; Mark, Luba and Metaxia were patient, helpful and completely aware that I was making all attempts at avoiding them so that I could put this off just one more day. I was secretly hoping they would do all of the work!

My first request for you, the reader, is to actually make your way to the rez and explore it. Its a fantastic spot. Print yourself off a google earth image so you wont get lost! Seriously, its a real spider-web of trails that could keep you there a lot longer than you may be comfortable with. With a quick walk around you will gain such a respect for the place and a deeper understanding of what can be done with the place. When you get there, just envision what it could look like and then you'll be officially bitten by the mysterious "rez bug" that seems to latch onto everyone that goes there. Its infectious.