looking back

An overview of 2008-2009 working group activities at OPIRG McMaster are now available on the opirg web site for your erudition...follow this link for the goods.

17 volunteer working groups and so much positive action!

cyclists: support cycling plan!

CYCLISTS! ACT NOW TO ENSURE HAMILTON’S CYCLING FUTURE!
Contact Your City Councillor

If you cycle, or know someone who does, we need you to let your local politician know that you support an integrated cycling network of bike lanes and paths.

A full list of councillors, contact info and ward boundaries can be found here:
(http://www.myhamilton.ca/myhamilton/CityandGovernment/YourElectedOfficials/CityCouncillors/)

Council will be voting on how much they will fund the Shifting Gears Cycling Plan Wednesday, June 24, 2009, at 7pm Wednesday, June 24, Hamilton Convention Centre, 1 Summers Lane.
If cyclists attend one city council meeting, this is the one!

The best case scenario: City councillors approve $2.5 million in funding each year , which would see the urban cycling network completed in 10 years and the rural web of bike paths completed in 20 years

AGAINST:
“Councillor Tom Jackson frequently hears from residents who want more recreational trails.
He’s not sure if those same people want to bike to work on city streets. ‘I’m not detecting a huge clamouring for commuter lanes. ’”

Flamborough’s Councillor “Margaret McCarthy is sceptical additional bike lanes would be well used given the escarpment, weather, transit improvements and heavy traffic. ‘It seems to me an unsafe practice, ’ she said. ‘For my money, this wouldn’t go forward. ’”

Terry Whitehead: "Convince me that investing over fifty million dollars on a seasonal activity would be better than making this investment into public transit."

FOR:
Councillor Bob Bratina “If you’ve been to Europe and seen it, you believe it,” he said. “We need to evolve a little more.”

HOW?:
“The key to achieving high levels of cycling appears to be the provision of separate cycling facilities along heavily travelled roads and at intersections, combined with traffic calming of most residential neighbourhoods. Extensive cycling rights of way...are complemented by ample bike parking, full integration with public transport, comprehensive traffic education and training of both cyclists and motorists, and a wide range of promotional events intended to generate enthusiasm and wide public support for cycling.”

– from Making Cycling Irresistible: Lessons from The Netherlands, Denmark and Germany by JOHN PUCHER and RALPH BUEHLER

COMPARE:
Annual Cost of Operating the Red Hill Parkway (8km total): $2.65 million
Annual Cost to Implement the Cycling Plan over 20 years : $2.5 million for a total of 566km of bike lanes

TRANSPORTATION FOR LIVEABLE COMMUNITIES HAMILTON @ tlchamilton.org
A working group of the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) McMaster

spreading summer food

Alex Bissley is excited to be joining Ndinda as a project assistant on the local food resource project: Hamilton Food Matters. Entering into her 2nd year at McMaster in Health Studies, her interest in whole foods nutrition and has extended into farming and community food security. This project provides her with an ideal opportunity to learn more and spread the word on good food.

Amazon article

Report from Venezuela, by Rika Sawatsky
(OPIRG McMaster assisted with some funding to help sponsor Rita's work)

After our sad goodbyes at the boys' home in San Sebastian, our team headed off to some city two hours away to catch a bus to our next destination. We were beginning to realise that a lot of Venezuelans do not stick to a strict schedule of time, or anything for that matter. When we arrived in Caracas, our host there had warned us about "Venezuela time"--that people never stick to a schedule but get to things when they get to things. Our bus in this city was three hours late, but when one of our team leaders went to make sure that our bus was not outside (for the fifth time at least), we found out that the bus was about to leave and had been sitting there for 2 hours unannounced. We had to argue our way onto the bus, and upon getting on the bus, found out that it was not a double decker bus, nor did it have a washroom (both of which were promised by the lady who sold us our tickets. The lack of a washroom scared a few of us at the time because we were suffering from TD). In short, our overnight bus ride into the Amazon was memorable, although incredibly uncomfortable.

Fifteen hours later, we arrived in Puerto Ayacucho, the capital of the Amazon state of Venezuela. We were surprised to see that the city was quite a bit larger than San Sebastian. We were staying at a Baptist church there, sleeping in hammocks on the roof of the parish. We took truck rides out to indigenous villages almost every day of our two-week stay in the Amazon. Although we had a native Spanish speaker on our team, it was hard for many of us to build much of any relationship with the people. She (the Spanish speaker) could not translate more than one conversation at the time, and because we were constantly on the go during the day, it was hard to find the time to really work out a conversation across language barriers. Nevertheless, hanging out with the kids and appreciating the people's hospitality did not require us to speak any native languages, and I truly enjoyed the opportunity to meet these people.

In terms of more "traditional" volunteer work, we repainted the church building, did a lot of gardening, and spent a day cleaning up garbage around the pastor's father's house. His neighbours had taken advantage of the fact that he was a bedridden old man and have been tossing garbage (including diapers) into his backyard. Our team had gotten frustrated at times trying to reconcile our opinions of how things could be done more efficiently with trying to avoid looking like overbearing foreigners. For example, despite our gentle suggestions, the pastors' sons who were instructing us on the church's paint job refused to sand down the walls and doors, so we ended up painting over peeling paint. They also refused to purchase primers, and they expected us to paint the second coat while the first was still drying. I was getting quite frustrated because the church does not have much money to begin with, and if they painted the church "properly," they would end up saving a lot more money in the long run. The other concerning event was that instead of disposing of the garbage in the pastor's father's backyard through the city's disposal services, the environmental engineer who had volunteered to help out instructed us to dig a shallow hole in the backyard and dump the garbage in there.

We then took a day-long boat trip into the Amazon. We had a couple of indigenous guides that took us and cooked for us for the three days we spent at their village. The village had at most ten buildings, and they had a camp set up a fifteen minute walk away for visitors. We spent our full day with the children at the school, playing soccer, volleyball, and other games with the younger children. The locals showed us how to make various crafts with some palm tree leaves. I was particularly horrible at learning it, so there was a lot of laughing over that. Later in the afternoon we took a boat with the kids to a large rock protruding into the river and went fishing and swimming. The kids were like little monkeys. They were climbing up to the roof of the boat and jumping off (none of them were over the height of our hips and yet they had no trouble climbing the boat while some of us couldn't even get up there). The next morning, the children made costumes out of palm leaves and performed a traditional Piaroa dance as a farewell/thank you gesture. They said that they would often get tourists visiting them but that they never brought school supplies, and so they were happy that we brought them notebooks, pencil crayons, and soccer balls (thanks to OPIRG's and many other people's donations).

We spent the next 28 hours traveling up to the coast on another unpredictable bus ride. We arrived in Puerto La Cruz for debriefing--discussing the trip with our team members and taking some time to relax. A couple of days later we were back in Caracas for our flight back to Canada.

original opirg winner

Crusader Hutton wins environmental prize TheSpec.com - Local - Crusader Hutton wins environmental prize

Eric McGuinness, The Hamilton Spectator, (Jun 4, 2009)

Peter Hutton, who has devoted himself to environmental and social justice issues in Hamilton for more than 30 years, is the winner of this year's Betty Blashill Environmental Prize, presented at the annual Environmentalist of the Year awards dinner last night.

Hutton, who lives in Dundas, was a founder of the McMaster branch of the Ontario Public Interest Research Group in the early 1970s and a member of Clear Hamilton of Pollution (CHOP), the city's first anti-pollution organization.

He went on to chair CHOP's successor group, the Conserver Society of Hamilton and District, and was a founder of the Hamilton Disarmament Coalition. He also served for several years as treasurer of the Ontario Environmental Network and co-chair of the Ontario Coalition for Social Justice, where he remains a director.

He is currently treasurer of both Hamiltonians for Progressive Development and the Transit Users' Group; a member of the city transit steering committee and waste reduction task force and a member of the Hamilton Roundtable on Poverty Reduction representing the Hamilton Social Justice Coalition.

The environmental prize, first awarded last year to Audrey Gamble of the Hamilton Community Peregrine Falcon project, is given in memory of Betty Blashill, noted for work behind the scenes on behalf of many environmental organizations and efforts to minimize her personal ecological footprint. Blashill was named environmentalist of the year in 2004.

Environment Hamilton, sponsor of the Blashill prize, says Hutton's car-free status symbolizes his lifelong commitment to walking and transit and his efforts to reduce his ecological footprint.

As previously announced, the Dr. Victor Cecilioni Environmentalist of the Year award went to Peter Rice, retired assistant director of the Royal Botanical Gardens. Awards of merit were presented to Dean Carriere, Peter Ormond and Julia Kollek.

emcguinness@thespec.com

905-526-4650

growing up

Some planters (pictured above) after planting nine planters on the 3rd floor of the McMaster University Student Centre, a mini "rooftop garden." This OPIRG project is possible through the graciousness of the MUSC admin, who offered the space so we could grow some native species and some edibles. We will post more details as we grow, but if you are intersted in helping out, we need volunteers to assist with watering this summer. Contact the OPIRG office if you are available to help! 905-525-9140 ext. 26026 or randy.opirg@gmail.com.

buttons of steel

Some Grandmothers of Steel gave the opirg button machine a work out today, in advance of their fundraising event that will get you a workout on the escarpment rail trail in Hamilton. (Grans of Steel Theresa Randles and Ruth Green, pictured making buttons)

The Grandmothers of Steel present Hamilton's 'Kiliman' Climb, Saturday, June 20, 2009, from 9 to 11am, a fundraising effort for the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

"Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania has been climbed by many as a means to raise funds to fight HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.
Hike up the Escarpment Rail trail from Wentworth St. S. to Mohawk Sports Park (Bernie Arbor)"

So grab a sponsor sheet and register for the climb: call 905-389-1405 or 905-385-8482 or e-mail grandmothersofsteel@gmail.com or visit the website at www.grandmothersofsteel.blogspot.com

You will end up with a "today I made a difference" button to proudly wear on your lapel!