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Restorative Justice: Building Resilience for Future Generations
On Friday January 09, the Restorative Justice team welcomed young adults to join us in a conversation on how our community can aid in building resilience for our future generations. Extra special thanks to the youth that showed up! Our group started with a land acknowledgement, recognizing how we are lucky to be allowed to learn from each other in flexible and safe spaces. The history of residential schools has taught us how important it is to take care of those who may be in vulnerable positions. At Restorative Justice we do our best to model resilience, strength and compassion…
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An ASK Salt Spring 2025 Retrospective
Designed to enhance community engagement, ASK Salt Spring weekly gatherings bring together diverse groups to discuss challenges and find solutions. While admittedly hard to believe, according to MP Elizabeth May, ASK Salt Spring is the only such weekly forum in Canada. In 2025, ASK Salt Spring hosted 41 gatherings welcoming numerous guests from various levels of government including MP Elizabeth May, MLA Rob Botterell, Island Health, BC Ferries CEO Nicholas Jimenez, BC Seniors Advocate Dan Levitt, Owen Page of the Ministry of Transportation and Transit, and Local Community Commissioners. Community guests included teams from Lookout Housing and Health Society, Gulf…
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Connecting our Community Through Stories
We are on holiday until January 9! Please join us Friday, January 9,11-1, in the SIMS classroom next to the Boardroom, to welcome our Restorative Justice Team and continue the conversation about our youth, seeking to better understand their world as well as offering hope for their future. Hope you can join us. And, until then – Happy Holidays! Twelve joined this ASK Salt Spring gathering to welcome David Norget and to learn about the Mental Wellness Initiative (MWI). In his Territorial Acknowledgement, he spoke of his understanding of the First Nations’ teachings about relationship, respect, and connection. It is…
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Promising Primary Care News for Salt Spring
Coming This Week: Please join us this Friday, December 5, 11-1, in the SIMS classroom to welcome our Mental Wellness Initiative Team, including David Norget and Will MacPherson. Addressing the mental health needs of Salt Springers since 2021, this amazing group of volunteers and professionals, many of them with lived experience, are excited to announce the launch of its newest program, Reach Out Salt Spring (https://www.reachoutsaltspring.com),making mental health support available to all by the donation of 10 free sessions by our mental health professionals. Please join us to learn more about this program as well as the many other programs…
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Interested in Learning More About Co-Housing on Salt Spring?
Thirteen, including twolovely and well-behaved grandchildren,joined this ASK Salt Spring gathering to welcome cohousing (https://cohousing.ca/what-is-cohousing/) advocates Wendy Beatty, Bob MacKie, and Islands Trust Local Trustee, Laura Patrick. After our Acknowledgment and a chance for each of us to introduce ourselves, we learned how each of our guests had become enthusiasts for shared/cohousing, a tried and true model made even more relevant by today’s overheated real estate prices. Bob is “excited and delighted” by the concept of owning one’s own small home in a larger community of folks sharing common spaces and social opportunities. Generally called cohousing, this living arrangement generally…
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Hope and Resiliance for our Youth. . . Sometime it Begins with Eye Contact and a Smile
Nine joined this ASK Salt Spring gathering to welcome our Restorative Justice (https://www.rjssi.org/) team members Laura Dafoe and Tina Simpson. The intention of this gathering was to explore the challenges faced by our youth and how we as a community can offer them hope and resilience as they transition to adulthood. After our Acknowledgement and before we began this conversation, we reviewed and committed to the Group Agreements that would guide our time together: 1) Honour the talking piece.2) Speak with care. Listen with care.3) Speak from the heart. Listen from the heart.4) Honour confidentiality.5) Take care of yourself. We…
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Ganges Firehall – The Beginning of an Enticing Conversation
Eleven came to this ASK Salt Spring gathering to welcome Local Community Commissioner (LCC) Ben Corno (bcorno@crd.bc.ca). After he offered his Acknowledgement, noting that our governance decisions should be viewed through the lens of reconciliation, each of us had a chance to introduce ourselves. The group brought a wide variety of experiences and perspectives to this conversation, some having lived here for decades (one for over 50 years) with another only recently arrived. When asked what “excites and delights” him, Ben spoke briefly of his joy that he had just planted their Elephant Garlic, noting that he finds it more…
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It Takes a Village. . . And, You Can Make a Difference – Donate Now
October 31 The group who came to this ASK Salt Spring gathering to welcome IWAV Executive Director Alicia Herbert was small but enthusiastic. We got an added bonus by also welcoming our Library Director Karen Hudson, wearing her hat as one of seven advisory committee members meeting weekly to move the IWAV Norton Road initiative forward. (And, later in our time together, Alicia and Karen gave a “shout out” to Elizabeth FitzZaland who is also an invaluable member of this Norton Road committee.) In her Land Acknowledgement, Alicia spoke of respect and inclusion on our unceded land, noting that the…
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Whatever is Inclusionary Zoning?
The group welcoming Local Community Commission (LCC) Chair Earl Rook to this ASK Salt Spring gathering was small, causing a participant to question why more did not seem interested in learning more about the decisions and plans of our Local Commissioners. After our Acknowledgment, Earl shared something that had recently “excited and delighted” him: He had just participated in the Cross-Border Forum, a gathering of island leaders from both our local BC islands and the US San Juans. The forum focussed on building environmental and economic resilience across the Salish Sea bioregion, particularly given the potential economic impacts of tariffs.…
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Rescuing the Cats of Salt Spring in Need
Eight joined us to welcometwo members of the Cats of Salt Spring team, Jennifer McMillan (Founder and President) and Mary Beckett (Treasurer, as well as outstanding cat foster mom to 110 cats and kittens) to this ASK Salt Spring gathering. Also joining them was kitten Levi, a delightful 3-and-a-half-month-old little guy, eager for cuddles, who had been part of a large feral colony in the north end of Salt Spring Island. After our Acknowledgement, we learned a lot about this volunteer-driven charitable organization, Cats of Salt Spring https://catsofsaltspring.com/. When Jennifer and her husband moved to Salt Spring in 2020, intending to…