The Kerrisdale Community Centre Society invites you and your friends to the “Explore Neighbourhood Empowerment” presentationon Sunday, January 24, 2016 at the Kerrisdale Community Centre Auditorium.   Background A 2012 Vancouver Foundation study found that, while many residents are collaborating and working hard to create a vibrant and healthy community, far too many have retreated from civic life and do not participate in the many community activities. About 20 years ago, the City Council of Seattle established a very successful mechanism for citizen, neighbourhood, and community input into neighbourhood initiatives and planning processes.  The system continues to flourish today. Vancouver today The City does not appear to have an overall plan for growth and development.  Development has been undertaken with minimal neighbourhood consultation.  Decisions appear to be made on an ad hoc basis with little or no regard to the Community Vision plans developed through extensive citizen involvement a decade ago. The Neighbourhood Integrated Service Teams, a 2001 award-winning initiative to establish a holistic neighbourhood focused approach to local issues, has been disbanded. Centralization is now the watchword.   The Explore Neighbourhood Empowerment presentation led by Mr. Jim Diers will address: Advantages of neighbourhood involvement and empowerment, and how they can be measured. How you can keep your community strong. Participants will leave with an appreciation of the benefits of involvement in the decision-making processes of neighbourhood planning and developments, and an understanding on how to achieve them. Please join us and pre-register your attendance by emailing: kerrisdaleccsociety@gmail.com or calling 604.257.6904. Admission is free. See you on Sunday, January 24, at 2 pm. Kathleen Bigsby President – Kerrisdale Community Centre...

  Dear Readers, I recently traveled to DC for business but actually had the time to revel in the natural wonders of the East Coast hustle and bustle, not only because I used to live in the East Coast and felt at home, but because of the contrast effect of living in Vancouver. Whether or not I am deprived of vibrant environment for arts or cultural diversity here in Vancouver, I was breathing air of freedom and excitement there as if I have never breathed before 😉 But at the same time, I often catched myself saying, “We are so lucky to live in Vancouver!”, because of the incredibly humane and intelligent community we live and contribute together.    So here we are! The October issue is notable for its collection of authentic stories of our diverse and creative features including a centenarian Irene Ronnie, our beloved former board member! Irene’s message that we only do the things we enjoy is something to remember. Many congrats to Colleen Barlow for her stunning exhibition, Whale Dreams, at UBC Beaty Biodiversity Museum, as well as to Vancouver Island filmmaker Connor Gaston for his 2015 VIFF BC Emerging Filmmaker Award!!  A high school senior, Jasmine Teng, is a girl on fire on her sustainable WaterMe project. Vancouver Asahi is truly a beacon of hope for our children.  As Canadian Thanksgiving is just around the corner, there’s no shortage of ‘things’ to be grateful for during the long weekend, starting with delectable meal and wonderful company to toast!      Cheers! Keiko Honda, Ph.D. Editor-in-Chief Chair, Community...

By Josh Coward Photos courtesy of Josh Coward   Seventy years ago, on the baseball diamond located on Oppenheimer Park, in what used to be the heart of “Japan town” in Vancouver, the great Vancouver Asahi Baseball Team played it’s last game. In their daily lives, those Canadians of Japanese descent were not allowed access to certain jobs no matter how well educated they were. They were socially segregated at public places all the time. Only on the ball park were these “Japs” able to prove themselves as equals. The story of the Vancouver Asahi Baseball Team is not just about baseball, it was also how they played the game. In order to counteract the adverse conditions, the manager, Harry Miyasaki introduced a strategic style of offence and defense, putting great emphasis on discipline and training. This new type of baseball came to be known as ‘smartball’ or ‘brainball.’ The Asahi baseball team was a symbol of the Japanese Canadian struggle for equality and respect, and despite being disbanded and interned, left a legacy of inspiration for future generations of all Canadians.  Now, 70 years after the disbandment of a great team, a new spark begins to flicker. On October 11, 2014 a group of Japanese Canadian and Japanese people got together to revive this legendary team and formed the Canadian Nikkei Youth Baseball Club (CNYBC).   The CNYB is dedicated to creating healthy communities through the game of baseball. Inspired by the legacy of the Asahi Baseball team, for their skill, perseverance and accomplishments, it is our dream to bring back the Asahi Baseball Team to the Nikkei Community and Canada. We are a new club and are open to all, without regard to gender, ethnic origin or residency.   At the CNYBC we are...

By Katja De Bock Have you ever been in a situation of déjà vu before? Have you sometimes recognized places, tastes, smells or faces even though you’re sure you’ve never seen them in your life? In your present life, that is.   When Vancouver Island filmmaker Connor Gaston was four years old, he told his parents that in a past life, he was a carpenter named Peter, and fell off a roof. Gaston grew up in a Christian household and his parents had their faith challenged when they started looking into their son’s stories.   Some twenty years later, Gaston, an accomplished director of short films, researched cases of presumed reincarnation for a feature film screenplay.   The result, the buzz-making BC feature film The Devout, premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) on October 2nd and director Connor Gaston promptly won the BC Emerging Filmmaker Award at the festival.   “I’ve always been interested in supposed accounts of reincarnation, and in theories about the afterlife in general,” says Gaston. “I read about a specific case where a little boy remembered a past life with incredible detail. He grew up in a Christian household and the parents had their faith challenged when they started looking to their son’s stories. This crisis of faith the family faced was so enticing to me. ‘What a great premise,’ I thought. The idea of reincarnation is so prevalent in society’s hive mind, but there really aren’t many movies about it. So I started writing.”   The Devout follows a young, devoted Christian family in a small Bible belt town, where the unthinkable happens. Darryl and Jan’s four-year-old daughter, Abigail, has terminal cancer with only weeks to live. Bedridden at home, Abi, while playing with her rocket ship toy, mumbles...

By Kenta Motoike Photography by Alan Peng November 2nd will mark a significant milestone in Irene Ronnie’s life as she will become a centenarian and will be receiving a letter from the Queen herself. This distinction is a turning point for Irene that recognises her as a both a subject and a person. However, in order to appreciate such a milestone, the significance of this milestone can only be conveyed through context. At one point Irene even jokingly mentioned the Queen’s letter is just “for your own ego and no other reason”. Thus, the Playbook has decided to provide this context and insight through a personal interview of Irene and her experiences. What was it like growing up? Same as school kids as everywhere I suppose. Everyone was Scottish there; the atmosphere was filled with “Scottishness”. Is that a word? I was born in Aberdeen and went to school in there. Nothing unusual about the school, I had the usual courses and exams. I was not a great sportswoman, more of the bookish type. What was it like in school? The courses were the regular courses, we learned according to our age and we had the usual examinations. All together I enjoyed school as I’m quite studious by nature. Speaking through my own personal experience, I simply liked school; I liked the discipline that gave me a sense of direction. It directed you in your thinking and you could argue there was never anything to stop you from discussing what you wanted to talk about. You had the chance to argue with the teacher if you didn’t agree what they said. How did you get involved with the Air Force? At a certain age you had to decide what you were going to join,...

By Jasmine Teng Photogtaphy by Jasmine Teng The WaterMe project is created by Jasmine Teng, a high school senior at Crofton House School. Jasmine grew up in Shanghai and moved to Vancouver five years ago. Ever since then, she has been an active member of the community and student at her school. Strongly connected to nature and the environment, Jasmine has always wanted to contribute to the community by bringing a little green into the city. Jasmine Teng is very involved in her school; she is a student leader and an active member of numerous extra-curricular. As it is her final year in high school, Jasmine has set a goal for herself to be more active in her community outdoor the ivy walls of Crofton House. With her involvement in local senior homes and this project along the way, Jasmine Teng hopes to leave an impact in her community before she goes off to college. Currently in her grade twelve year, Jasmine is putting together an art portfolio for college applications. Interested in both creative and academic aspects of design, Jasmine hopes to study both facets in university which consequently is actually how the WaterMe project came about. The WaterMe project was originally created in response to a prompt of an admission challenge. The prompt was to created a three-dimensional gift that demonstrated human spirit. When the word “gift” came to mind, Jasmine immediately thought of an interactive project. Being a student leader at her school, Jasmine has always been involved with her community. In her grade ten year, Jasmine was part of an outdoor education program at her school in which she spent a lot of time in nature and its surroundings. Ever since, Jasmine has tried to keep a conscientious mind and incorporate...

  By Sean Yoon   Having been invited by artist Colleen McLaughlin Barlow to attend the opening of her latest exhibition, “Whale Dreams” on September 30th, 2015, I arrived at the UBC Beaty Biodiversity Museum mindful of images I had seen of her work through her website. So in a sense, before I walked into the exhibition, I carried preconceived ideas of what I was to see and experience. The exhibition turned out to be highly different from what I expected, in a visually heightened, enlightening way to be able to experience her artwork in person. In particular, I recall being fascinated to observe the guests engaging with her art by taking pictures, conversing about her artwork in groups, as well as participating in some of the activities set up in the exhibition such as a drawing station where guests are instructed to draw blind contours of whale bone structures set up in front of them. Just as the Beaty Biodiversity Museum emphasizes how important the interconnectedness, or connection between human beings and nature is, Colleen’s art revealed a similar vein of thinking as we the spectators are made to contemplate the whale bones not just as one animal’s remains, but as a spectral symbol of our own mortality, our own bones residing within us. The exhibition provides an excellent opportunity to experience this in person, as well as check out the huge 26-metre long blue whale skeleton suspended in the museum’s atrium. If you have the chance, I would definitely recommend taking the time to visit the exhibition at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum in UBC before it ends on February 14th, 2016.   October 1, 2015 – February 14, 2016 Beaty Biodiversity Museum 2212 Main Mall Website beatymuseum.ubc.ca  ...

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Dear Readers, “What I stand for is what I stand on” – Wendell Berry What does this quote mean to you? I met this powerful quote by Wendell Berry when I was visiting our city’s oasis, Southlands Farms last week.  I was haunted by this quote for a couple of days and kept pondering the question that has become a cliché and yet wonderous: What makes the community a great place to live?   Working as editor-in-chief of Kerrisdale Playbook has been one of my favourite experiences I had in general in my life, as I constantly explore the wonderful neighbourhoods and unique communities where life and real creativity seem flourishing.  For me, what makes the community truly a great place to live comes with a tremendous amount of passion. And I am proud to say that each and every person featured or involved in Kerrisdale Playbook is the embodiment of pure passion.     September issue is all about passion and perhaps most revealing, covering the themes of culture, community, urban agriculture and arts.  Now, after reading,  it’s your turn to ponder on what you stand for! Harvest season will be soon upon us. This fall, I am delighted to invite all the community members and city folks to the Placemaking Public Walk as we will be showcasing the results of our ongoing placemaking project. Please stay tuned….We also have a series of new and interesting public free events coming up, including Musqueam Chief Wayne Sparrow’s talk on Oct 1st. You will see how powerful our collective vision can be!  Happy reading and happy Back-to-School!   Keiko Honda, Ph.D. Editor-in-Chief   Chair, Community...

By Sean Yoon Photos: Sean Yoon/Alan Peng/Kenta Motoike/Chris Kay/Glen Phillips   When I turned into Christopher Kay and Glen Phillips’ neighbourhood on the 25th of July, I got a chance to look at how exactly placemaking (converting public space like boulevards into unique spaces of creativity) would go on to impact and shape communities. On the converted boulevard in front of Chris and Glen’s duplex is a sitting area with two worn lawn chairs and a bright red parasol, along with tree cover above to hide from the sun. Right beside the sitting area is a strange hedge figure in the shape of a bear, adding a sense of quirkiness to the area and in front is a raised bed with a spot reserved for a dinosaur sculpture in the shape of a stegosaurus. Before the interview took place, I was able to relax in one of those chairs for a few minutes and I got the sense that it would be an excellent place to hang out on a hot summer afternoon. For Chris and Glen, the sitting area came to be characterized as a common room space shared with the neighbours where they could just hang out and socialize. I was able to recognize the friendship between Chris, Glen and their neighbours as a group of residents sat on the curb outside their homes, watching the interview take place and occasionally conversing with us.   Moving from Yaletown to Kitsilano two years ago, Chris is a scientist in genetics striving for a PhD, while his partner Glen is a business owner coming from a business and science background. It was last winter back in February when Chris said to Glen, “We’ve got to do something weird. We’ve got to do something really...

By Sean Yoon Photographs: Sean Yoon/Alan Peng/Kenta Motoike   Situated within a ten minute drive from Kerrisdale Community Centre lies Southlands Farm, a rare plot of the last remaining class 1 agricultural soil in Vancouver. Being a much needed break away from the bustling noise of the city, I was pleasantly surprised when I found that Southlands Farm was not traditional in the sense where crops are grown in rows, but was instead highly efficient in the form of a polyculture space raising chickens, horses, ducks, honeybee hives; as well as integrating within the space a wide variety of produce such as apples, grapes, chicken and duck eggs, tomatoes, lettuce, kale, rhubarb, basil and other herbs. Feeling at ease among the sounds of people chatting, chickens running around and delightful atmosphere of the farm, I had the opportunity to walk around the farm and talk with Jordan Maynard, who is a manager and co-owner of the farm with his family.   Before I set out for the interview, while I was looking through the Southlands Farm website, I discovered that the conceptualization of Southlands Farm began in 2008 with a simple, but highly significant vision, which was and continues to be, “to farm in a sustainable way that could demonstrate to neighbours that true food security was possible within the city.” This statement raised some questions to my mind, such as what does food security mean and why is it an important concept to keep in mind in the context of Vancouver as a city? Jordan eloquently explained to me the concept of food security in Vancouver below.   “Food security is about having access to good food and in Vancouver right now and especially with the drought in California, we don’t have a...

 By Ellen McLaren Photos: Barb Mikulec   Steady drum beats reverberated throughout the hall, deep voices singing out a canoe journey song. Water nowhere in sight, the audience was still transported to riverbanks and shorelines, chants pulsing with imaginary currents. The Coastal Wolf Pack performance group then transitioned into an honor song, equally stirring – the friendly chatter preceding the opening ceremony had long since faded to a murmur, listeners all sitting in respectful silence. The auditorium had filled, organizers and volunteers leaving their booths to catch a moment of the final canoe journey song before the performers descended from the stage, still singing as they exited the room. Applause broke out as the Musqueam Band’s celebration of National Aboriginal Day was set into motion. Taking place every summer solstice, June 21, National Aboriginal Day is a time for all Canadians to honor the cultures and contributions of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. Festivities take place across the country as people, both within and outside Aboriginal communities, gather to learn about and appreciate Canada’s foundational societies. In Musqueam, the celebration took place a few days early on June 19, a sunny Friday afternoon. The day started with emcee Gordon Grant, who carried on a lively banter with each person he introduced to the stage. Chief Wayne Sparrow gave opening remarks, first acknowledging Musqueam’s elders and then extending welcome to visitors to Musqueam. This included the new Vancouver Chief of Police, Adam Palmer, who was there with a number of his force, all relaxed and chatting with other attendees. The crowd was decidedly mixed, attendance among Musqueam Band’s community traditionally high, but with a sizeable number of outside participants also present. Fellow intern Amy Cheng and I were there representing Kerrisdale Playbook, hoping for...

By Amy Cheng Photos Courtesy of Joanne Nakonechny   Art is not just about those usual paintings that hang on our walls. Rather, art is a way of understanding and unraveling how people piece their worlds together, with the medium being infinite. For Joanne Nakonechny, an avid connoisseur of textiles, this is especially true.   Joanne’s appreciation with textiles dates back to her childhood and that hasn’t dimmed. “While growing up, my mother regularly knitted and sewed, and in turn, she taught me how to cross-stitch, knit, and sew,” she fondly recalls. Additionally, she also has an aunt who is a weaver. Despite being well over ninety years of age, her aunt is still enthralled by the different perspectives in using Ukraine colours and patterns into her material work. ”It’s so incredibly inspiring,” Joanne gushes. Being surrounded by all those materials and inspirations involved in her mother’s and her aunt’s creative processes since young, her nascent fascination with textiles only grew. The more she wove, the more ideas came to her. And before she knew it, she was enamoured by a euphoric sense of freedom.   “I’m not only working with my hands, but I’m also working with various colours and my mind—thinking of the endless possibilities to the patterns. And within those frameworks, there is this constant rewarding engagement with chaos, which I just love,” she adds. “I understand that this can be overwhelming, but as long as you maintain within the weave structures, you have a hundred degrees of freedom. And this freedom is exactly what enables you to explore and find yourself within those very structures and boundaries,” Joanne explains. After all of her years of working with textiles, Joanne is still discovering herself in the process. For her, working with...

By Ellen McLaren Photos: Noriko Nasu-Tidball   Drums almost all handmade, leather skins are stretched taught across recycled wine barrels, wood still fragrant. In North America, this is the norm among taiko, percussionists finding it more practical to make their own drums than import them from Japan, where the prices run much higher. Since his entrance into the taiko world, Doug Masuhara has joined the ranks of BC drum makers. His odaiko, the largest taiko drums, sound rich and deep, craftsmanship clearly on par with musicality. Not that Doug would ever say so himself. Despite his success with taiko – establishing his own performing group, Tetsu Taiko, and managing several practicing circles – Doug remains exceptionally humble. He attributes many of his accomplishments to the hard work of his daughters, without whom he may have never tried out taiko drumming at all. Until 2000, taiko had no presence in Doug’s life. A Vancouver native, Masuhara is sansei, third generation Japanese Canadian. Growing up, he mostly connected with his Japanese heritage through his grandparents. Other than that, however, his homelife remained fairly western in nature. Certainly, traditional Japanese drumming was not something frequently heard. It was only fifteen years ago, at the Steveston Buddhist Temple, that Doug had his first introduction to taiko. In a workshop led by Shinobu Homma, of Chibi Taiko, a Burnaby based drumming group, Doug began his taiko lessons. Initially organized for children at the temple, “I was the only adult there,” he says, “and I was the most nervous!” They practiced mostly on car tires, using bachi drumsticks, also homemade from wooden dowelling.             Under the tutelage of Shinobu and his assistant instructor Naomi Shikaze, for two and a half years Doug, his daughters, and a handful of other students...

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