The Senior Ser­vices Coun­cil of San Juan Coun­ty shares an update about its oper­a­tional changes.

At its April 21 meet­ing, the Board of Direc­tors of the Senior Ser­vices Coun­cil of San Juan Coun­ty vot­ed to trans­fer the oper­a­tional func­tions of its three Dis­trict Com­mit­tees to three stand-alone non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions. This change is designed to sim­pli­fy and enhance oper­a­tion of Senior Cen­ters in all three geo­graph­ic areas.

Since April, the Orcas, Lopez, and San Juan Dis­trict Com­mit­tees have worked to estab­lish the infra­struc­ture and instru­ments nec­es­sary for a seam­less tran­si­tion. Three non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions have been iden­ti­fied to under­take the func­tions of the three senior cen­ters. They are Friends of Orcas Senior Cen­ter, Lopez Island Senior Cen­ter, and Mullis Com­mu­ni­ty Senior Center.

Cur­rent Dis­trict Com­mit­tees have begun work with part­ners to trans­fer busi­ness agree­ments to the three sep­a­rate non­prof­its. Direc­tors of the SSCSJC cor­po­ra­tion have met with San Juan Coun­ty and What­com Coun­cil on Aging staff to revise agree­ments for pro­vid­ing nutri­tion and trans­porta­tion ser­vices to ensure seam­less transition.

With sep­a­rate non­prof­its, patrons of Senior Cen­ters should notice lit­tle if any changes oth­er than improved ser­vices. The goal is to tran­si­tion func­tions from one over­ar­ch­ing non­prof­it to three sep­a­rate non­prof­its with min­i­mum dis­rup­tion to client ser­vices and busi­ness part­ners so that ser­vices are enhanced for seniors and adults with dis­abil­i­ties in San Juan Coun­ty. The three orga­ni­za­tions can still col­lab­o­rate on select­ed projects and grants as desired.

The tran­si­tion is expect­ed to be com­plet­ed over the next sev­er­al months. Dis­trict Com­mit­tees will con­tin­ue to oper­ate their senior cen­ters just as they do now until the new non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions are ready to assume their new roles. Dona­tions ear­marked for a spe­cif­ic senior cen­ter will con­tin­ue to go to that senior cen­ter. Cen­ters do not antic­i­pate any decrease in ser­vices, class­es, activ­i­ties, or offer­ings. Instead, this tran­si­tion peri­od is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for plan­ning great improve­ment, respon­sive­ness, and engage­ment as each loca­tion pre­pares to move for­ward independently.

Island Rec sends along details about this year’s fair-time run/walk event.

Island Rec and Island Strength and Move­ment invite you to take part in the 45th annu­al Fri­day Har­bor 8.8K loop run/walk, sched­uled for a 9 a.m. start on Sat­ur­day, Aug. 20. Peo­ple of all ages enjoy run­ning or walk­ing in this race.

Reg­is­ter by Sun­day, July 31 and pay the ear­ly fee — $20 for kids 12 and under, $25 for rac­ers 13 and old­er. These fees increase by $5 start­ing Aug. 1. All fees include race entry, a free pass into the San Juan Coun­ty fair, an event t‑shirt, and fin­ish­er medals to the first 120 peo­ple across the fin­ish line. Reg­is­ter online at the Island Rec web­site.

Race num­bers and shirts can be picked up the Fri­day before race day at the Island Rec Office at 580 Guard St. from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Run­ner check-in and day-of reg­is­tra­tions take place in the Wells Far­go park­ing lot, locat­ed on the cor­ner of Argyle and Spring streets, from 8 to 8:45 a.m. The race starts prompt­ly at 9 a.m. on the cor­ner of Spring and Sec­ond streets.

Con­tact Jen Hen­ry at Jen@islandrec.org if you are inter­est­ed in vol­un­teer­ing for this event.

Tran­si­tion San Juan Island’s Waste Reduc­tion group shares today’s habit shift inspi­ra­tion from the glob­al Plas­tic Free July campaign.

Recycle

Recy­cling is the last on the list of the 5 Rs because it real­ly is the last alter­na­tive before turn­ing items to the land­fill. Recy­cling is throw­ing it away, but it’s the last shot at giv­ing a reusable resource anoth­er chance at being made into some­thing use­ful again. It’s still very impor­tant to under­stand the recy­cling sys­tems where you live and, most impor­tant­ly, par­tic­i­pate. If you live in the Fri­day Har­bor town lim­its, here’s what you need to know. If you live out­side of town lim­its, the San Juan Trans­fer Sta­tion has recy­cling options for you too.

To give your recy­clables the best chance at actu­al­ly being recy­cled, it’s impor­tant to under­stand what your local recy­cling cen­ter’s require­ments are for each item and then respect­ful­ly fol­low those guidelines.

Con­tin­ue Reading

The orga­niz­ers of the Sum­mer Film Series at San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty The­atre send along a pre­view of this week’s film. The show­ing starts at 7 p.m. Admis­sion is pay-what-you-can. For this sea­son only, fresh pop­corn is avail­able for free.

David Byrne’s American Utopia

Musi­cal, not rated
Run time: 2 hours, 15 minutes

This film is a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort of two tow­er­ing mul­ti­tal­ent­ed genius­es, David Byrne and Spike Lee. Byrne, a Scot­tish-Amer­i­can singer, song­writer, record pro­duc­er, actor, writer, music the­o­rist, visu­al artist and film­mak­er is best known as the founder of the Talk­ing Heads. He has received an Acad­e­my Award, a Gram­my Award, a Tony Award, and a Gold­en Globe Award, and is an inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Lee is an Amer­i­can film direc­tor, pro­duc­er, screen­writer, actor, and a tenured pro­fes­sor at NYU. He has won numer­ous acco­lades for his work, includ­ing an Acad­e­my Award for Best Adapt­ed Screen­play, a Stu­dent Acad­e­my Award, a BAFTA Award for Best Adapt­ed Screen­play, two Emmy Awards, two Peabody Awards, the NAACP’s Pres­i­den­t’s Award, and the Cannes Grand Prix.

Lee cap­tures Byrne’s Broad­way show Amer­i­can Utopia, in which a cast of inter­na­tion­al musi­cians not only play many of Byrne’s songs but also per­form intri­cate dance rou­tines some­what akin to a march­ing band on steroids (or some­thing else!). As the film crit­ic Tim Robey said in his review, “What they’ve man­aged to do is cre­ate a per­ma­nent record of this amaz­ing show, which I think will go down as one of the most metic­u­lous­ly craft­ed and con­tem­plat­ed per­for­mances by a major musi­cian in his­to­ry.” It is not to be missed and is suit­able for absolute­ly everyone.

The San Juan Coun­ty Con­ser­va­tion Land Bank Com­mis­sion will hold a spe­cial meet­ing on Thurs­day, July 28 at 8:30 a.m. to dis­cuss issues regard­ing the con­ser­va­tion ease­ment and poten­tial future upland devel­op­ment on the recent­ly acquired Glen­wood Inn prop­er­ty on Orcas Island.

The Com­mis­sion will also dis­cuss the Land Bank’s guid­ing ordi­nances, required pub­lic process­es, and the Commission’s role and respon­si­bil­i­ties with respect to acqui­si­tion and dis­po­si­tion of Land Bank Prop­er­ty, as defined in the San Juan Coun­ty Code.

Mate­ri­als relat­ed to these items are avail­able here.

You can view the live stream of the meet­ing online or take part in per­son at the San Juan Coun­ty Parks and Fair Office, locat­ed at 846 Argyle Ave.

Tran­si­tion San Juan Island’s Waste Reduc­tion group shares today’s habit shift inspi­ra­tion from the glob­al Plas­tic Free July campaign.

Repurpose

It’s only sin­gle-use if you use it once. With a repur­pose mind­set, there’s so much more life in our dai­ly items then we think. That yogurt that came in a glass jar is per­fect for fill­ing with bulk liq­uid soap, pen­cils, art sup­plies or for food stor­age in the fridge. Did you know that fresh veg­gies washed and cut stay fresh longer in a glass jar in the fridge rather than in plas­tic? The pos­si­bil­i­ties for reuse are end­less and it can be a fun challenge.