Polar Bear Mascot Costumes Etc.

An update is slightly overdue and the only reason is that, for the first time in my professional career, I am working long hours. Another first has been the enjoyment of working so much because of a high sense of ownership over the work. One Sky's 6th annual goods and services auction is coming up this Saturday, September 15th, and it has taken up a lot of my time during work hours in order to collect donations from local businesses and individuals. We've also decided to go with a theme this year and so the event is called GO FISH! and includes the following jam-packed night: kids activities, a free magic show, a salmon BBQ, a live and silent auction, performances from the Local Vocals choir, the bellydancers group and our headliner, Yael Wand.

Along with GO FISH!, I have had to juggle the organisation of the Energetic Olympics, my project challenging 22 B.C. communities to reduce their energy footprint. It has been a multi-faceted endeavour ranging from finding a seamstress to make a polar bear costume (for our mascot Scuba, sporting a life-jacket) to creating "Energy Report Cards" for these communities and researching success stories in the developing world.

One Sky has a booth for the Energetic Olympics at the Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) Conference in Vancouver at the end of the month and I am creating the display as well as the overall concept of the booth. It might be very obvious for me to say but I've realized that with greater responsibility often comes a greater sense of ownership over the project and therefore, a heightened sense of motivation. This is what I have experienced at One Sky more than any other previous job (no offense to ATIP, I swear!).

In other news, Mali is coming up very soon and I feel like I am about to blink and find myself over the Atlantic, wondering how I got here so quickly as well as why the attendant is taking so long to bring me my microwaved lasagna.

One last thing, I came across a couple of interesting articles today that I wanted to share:

Millenium Village in Tiby, Mali

Green Roofs are cool...literally!

More than just a butt-crack