What’s up for the kids, this summer?

Posted March 15, 2009 at 10:27 pm by

Deb­bi wrote and says she’s look­ing to make a com­plete guide for kids about what they can do this sum­mer — and she needs your help. Here’s more:

Hey, Ian!

I have a favor to ask.

I’m work­ing on the SJI Sum­mer Activ­i­ty Cal­en­dar for our Youth 2009. This will be our third year to offer this to par­ents, fam­i­lies and to our com­mu­ni­ty. The cal­en­dar is FREE with the help of the San Juan Island Pre­ven­tion Coali­tion. I’m in the midst of col­lect­ing infor­ma­tion from var­i­ous peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions, but thought, maybe I’m miss­ing some­one! Would you be able to inquire if some­one is offer­ing a new or unad­ver­tised youth pro­gram this sum­mer on SJI, they could con­tact me to add it to the calendar?

Last year’s cal­en­dar came out of neces­si­ty for me. I found some pro­grams weren’t adver­tised well, so they were can­celled because of low par­tic­i­pa­tion, or oth­ers would fill up before I heard about them. So, hav­ing all the infor­ma­tion in one place, made it a bet­ter sum­mer for my kids! The cal­en­dars will be avail­able at the Children’s Fes­ti­val (May 2) at the SJIPC booth and will be mailed out from the SJISD parent/guardian mail­ing list and var­i­ous email groups.

I feel the more pro­grams we can add, the more use­ful this tool becomes for fam­i­lies! I put mine on the refrig­er­a­tor and we kept on top of what was avail­able through­out the summer!

Thanks again, Ian, for your sup­port of the pro­grams we’ve been involved in. It takes a Village…

Deb­bi (fincher@rockisland.com)

Quote

Posted March 15, 2009 at 3:34 pm by

Have you noticed that what­ev­er sport you’re try­ing to learn, some earnest per­son is always telling you to keep your knees bent?
Dave Bar­ry

Tom rocks out, the country dances.…

Posted March 15, 2009 at 2:30 pm by

Tom Doenges, AKA Tom Henry

Tom Doenges, AKA Tom Henry

Last Fri­day, CNN aired a report on their iRe­ports sec­tion about Tom Doenges’ song, “Look­ing for a Bailout”.… I got reports from all over the coun­try (Chris­tiane Bier­mann was the first, writ­ing from Port­land, and remind­ing me that Vikky Dau­ci­u­nas did the real­ly cool video work. Way to go, Tom!)

You can see the CNN report by going to this page and look­ing for “Rockin’ the Reces­sion” — (it’s after the Dust Storm sto­ry, and before “Bar­bie Turns 50”), or you can go straight to the YouTube ver­sion, so you can see the song with­out all those reporters talking.

All about chocolate, from Ecuador.…

Posted March 14, 2009 at 3:24 pm by

Enrique won't be here this week, but the presentation at the Library is still on.

Enrique won't be here this week, but the presentation at the Library is still on.

Lin­da & Mau­reen have been help­ing the folks with the Slow Food Project & the cool direc­tion that healthy eat­ing is going on the island (I love it! Have you eat­en at the high school late­ly? It rocks!) Here’s more from our friends:

Please see our lat­est update: http://slowfoodlandandsea.blogspot.com/

Enrique Cer­da, the truf­fle mak­er from the Kallari choco­late cooperative
who was to vis­it SJI won’t be here. The U.S. embassy in Ecuador has been
hold­ing up his pass­port and visa. (Con­tact info for the embassy is on our
web page).

His trans­la­tor and intern Bec­ca Roeb­ber, who also lives and works with
Kallari coop­er­a­tive in Ecuador, will have a choco­late tast­ing and
pre­sen­ta­tion about Ecuador, sus­tain­able farm­ing, indige­nous rights, the
very suc­cess­ful Kallari choco­late farm­ers’ coop­er­a­tive, and prob­a­bly a
lit­tle about the pol­i­tics that hold up visas. The pre­sen­ta­tion is called:

“FROM BEAN TO BAR”
WED. 3/18 at the SJI LIBRARY MEETING ROOM from 3:15–4:45 pm.
1010 Guard St. Fri­day Har­bor 360–378-2798
Admis­sion is free, and the meet­ing room holds 35 people.

Kids love chocolate....

Kids love chocolate....

Bec­ca will bring a lot of Kallari choco­late — “the best choco­late on earth”.

The truf­fle class sched­uled for 3/18 was full, but is can­celed due to
Enrique’s absence. He hopes to vis­it next year…

Our Youth web page has pic­tures of some of our recent activ­i­ties. We’ll
post more pic­tures and sto­ries soon -

http://sites.google.com/site/landandseayouth/pictures‑1

Best wish­es,

Lin­da and Maureen
Land & Sea Slow Food Fri­day Harbor/San Juan
slowfoodlandandsea@gmail.com
360–472-0880 Maureen/360–317-5890 Linda

Chocolate beans.....

Chocolate beans.....

The book about Friday Harbor continues to sell well.…

Posted March 14, 2009 at 2:59 pm by

mike-julia1That book about Fri­day Har­bor that Mike & Julia Vouri (right) wrote with the His­tor­i­cal Muse­um con­tin­ues to sell well…Museum Direc­tor Kevin Lof­tus says you can still pick up your copy at the Muse­um, so drop by & get it.

The book starts with a pic­ture of Fri­day Har­bor from the har­bor in 1883, and tells the sto­ry of the town’s growth through the first half of the last cen­tu­ry. It’s a good read, to find out where today’s town came from, and how our fore­bears envi­sioned things. I sat down and read my copy in a cou­ple of hours one Sun­day, and the choice of old pho­tos & com­pelling, well-writ­ten nar­ra­tive that goes with them is won­der­ful. Get yours now!

Mike tells me Richard Walk­er is doing a sim­i­lar book for Roche Har­bor’s his­to­ry, so I called Richard, who says it’s been a blast to com­plile the pic­tures & sto­ries of the com­mu­ni­ty there, over the years. He says the book should be avail­able in late June — I know I’m look­ing for­ward to check­ing it out.

Taking tourism on the road.…

Posted March 14, 2009 at 2:13 pm by

The Vis­i­tors’ Bureau here in the islands is pret­ty active when it comes to spread­ing the word.…last week they were in Olympia vis­it­ing with our new­ly-mint­ed state sen­a­tor Kevin. Here’s more from Robin:

On March 9, Deb­o­rah Hop­kins and Robin Jacob­son of the San Juan Islands Vis­i­tors Bureau, as well as Car­ol and Bog­dan Kul­min­s­ki of the Blue Heron B&B on Orcas Island, rep­re­sent­ed the San Juan Islands dur­ing “Tourism Day” in Olympia, with more than 250 tourism indus­try pro­fes­sion­als from around the state.

They took part in the “Why Tourism Mat­ters” ral­ly on the Capi­tol steps, met with Dis­trict 40 leg­is­la­tors Sen­a­tor Kevin Ranker, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jeff Mor­ris and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dave Quall, then enjoyed a recep­tion at the Governor’s Man­sion.  Gov­er­nor Chris Gre­goire spoke at the recep­tion, with enthu­si­as­tic sup­port of the tourism indus­try, which is Washington’s 4th largest indus­try (fol­low­ing soft­ware, aero­space and agriculture/food/wine).

Left to Right – Robin Jacobson, Carol Kulminski, Deborah Hopkins, Sen. Kevin Ranker, Bogdan Kulminski

Left to Right – Robin Jacobson, Carol Kulminski, Deborah Hopkins, Sen. Kevin Ranker, Bogdan Kulminski

The news release below con­tains fur­ther infor­ma­tion, fol­lowed by the list of media cov­er­age received so far.  The day was coor­di­nat­ed by the Wash­ing­ton State Des­ti­na­tion Mar­ket­ing Asso­ci­a­tion and Seattle’s Con­ven­tion & Vis­i­tors Bureau.

(The pho­to was tak­en in Sen Ranker’s office.  Left to Right – Robin Jacob­son, Car­ol Kul­min­s­ki, Deb­o­rah Hop­kins, Sen. Kevin Ranker, Bog­dan Kulminski)

++++++++++++++++++++++
News Release & Media Report By David Bland­ford, Direc­tor of Pub­lic Rela­tions, Seattle’s Con­ven­tion & Vis­i­tors Bureau

Wash­ing­ton State’s Tourism Indus­try Unites in Olympia
New Statewide Advo­ca­cy Cam­paign to be Announced on Capi­tol Steps,
Gov­er­nor Pro­claims “Tourism Day in Wash­ing­ton State”

OLYMPIA, WASH. – Today more than 250 tourism indus­try pro­fes­sion­als from Taco­ma, Spokane, Belling­ham, Yaki­ma, Van­cou­ver, Seat­tle and many oth­er com­mu­ni­ties across Wash­ing­ton will con­verge on the state capi­tol to tell leg­is­la­tors Why Tourism Matters.

An indus­try ral­ly and press con­fer­ence will be held on the state capitol’s north steps at 1:30 p.m. by a coali­tion of con­ven­tion and vis­i­tor bureaus, cham­bers of com­merce and oth­er des­ti­na­tion mar­ket­ing orga­ni­za­tions from across the state.

The effort inau­gu­rates the statewide roll-out of the Why Tourism Mat­ters pub­lic out­reach and advo­ca­cy cam­paign which will con­vey the impor­tance of tourism by way of adver­tis­ing, online con­tent, pub­lic rela­tions and coop­er­a­tive communications.

The cam­paign web­site at www.whytourismmatters.com will go live today at 1:30 p.m., fea­tur­ing the lat­est tourism sta­tis­tics for the state and many com­mu­ni­ties, indus­try news and links to nation­al ini­tia­tives. Much of the web site is ded­i­cat­ed to pro­files of local tourism indus­try pro­fes­sion­als, or “tourism ambas­sadors,” who work on the front­lines and serve as the industry’s face of tourism.

These tourism ambas­sadors will attend today’s event in Olympia. Oth­er par­tic­i­pants – many clad in work-day uni­forms and cos­tumes — rep­re­sent the spec­trum of the tourism indus­try: from hotel man­agers and house­keep­ing atten­dants to restau­ra­teurs and servers, tour lead­ers, trav­el agents, con­ven­tion cen­ter pres­i­dents, vint­ners, artists, bell cap­tains, tour boat cap­tains and at least one cabaret performer.

“Today the tourism indus­try in Wash­ing­ton State has many mes­sen­gers but one com­mon mes­sage: tourism mat­ters,” said Kather­ine Kertz­man, Pres­i­dent of the Wash­ing­ton State Des­ti­na­tion Mar­ket­ing Orga­ni­za­tions (WSDMO). “Vis­i­tors to the state spent $15.7 bil­lion here last year and gen­er­at­ed $1 bil­lion in state and local tax­es. Tourists sup­port near­ly 150,000 jobs and gen­er­ate $4.3 bil­lion in earnings.”

Fol­low­ing the ral­ly, the statewide tourism indus­try con­tin­gent will call on state leg­is­la­tors to ask for their sup­port in two areas of con­cern: main­tain­ing cur­rent fund­ing lev­els for the 2009–2011 state tourism office bud­get; and sup­port of SB 5875 and SHB  2297 which call for fund­ing to study expan­sion options for the Wash­ing­ton State Con­ven­tion & Trade Center.

Today’s state ini­tia­tives coin­cide with nation­al news, includ­ing cur­rent tourism indus­try efforts to coun­ter­bal­ance the harm­ful polit­i­cal rhetoric and sen­sa­tion­al­ism that is influ­enc­ing the unnec­es­sary can­cel­la­tion of cor­po­rate meet­ings and events across the U.S.

The U.S. Asso­ci­a­tion of Amer­i­ca ranks $740 bil­lion trav­el and tourism indus­try fifth in nation among 20 major pri­vate indus­try sec­tors. The indus­try direct­ly employ­ees 7.5 mil­lion peo­ple, gen­er­ates pay­roll of $178 bil­lion and tax rev­enues of about $110 bil­lion. Vis­i­tors to the U.S. spent more here than U.S. res­i­dents trav­el­ing abroad, cre­at­ing a pos­i­tive bal­ance of trade of $8.3 bil­lion for the nation­al economy.

Wash­ing­ton State’s core of pri­vate sec­tor des­ti­na­tion mar­ket­ing orga­ni­za­tions com­pet­i­tive­ly mar­ket their respec­tive cities, coun­ties and regions to leisure trav­el­ers and meet­ing and con­ven­tion groups.  Large­ly non-prof­it eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment agen­cies, these con­ven­tion and vis­i­tor bureaus and cham­bers of com­merce work in tan­dem with the Wash­ing­ton State Tourism Com­mis­sion and Wash­ing­ton State Tourism office to joint­ly posi­tion the state as a pre­mier trav­el des­ti­na­tion.  Direct vis­i­tor spend­ing ben­e­fits hotels, retail­ers, restau­rants, attrac­tions, trans­porta­tion ser­vices and oth­er busi­ness­es, and sup­ports jobs in through­out the state.

++++++++++++++++
To learn more about why tourism mat­ters to Wash­ing­ton State, vis­it www.whytourismmatters.com.

Here’s what we know so far on the news front.  More is com­ing in and we’ll send an update in a day or two. –David Bland­ford, Seat­tle CVB

Yaki­ma Her­ald (page one, 3/9) – “Invis­i­ble Tourism”
http://www.yakimaherald.com/stories/2009/03/08/invisible-tourism

Taco­ma News Tri­bune  (3/9) – “Taco­ma Tourism Sees Mini Boom
http://www.thenewstribune.com/1031/story/651556.html

Taco­ma News Tri­bune (3/8) – Tourism Funding
http://www.thenewstribune.com/voelpel/story/650836.html

KING‑5 TV (3/9, Seattle)

North­west Cable News (3/9, statewide)

KONG TV (Seat­tle, 3/9)
http://www.nwcn.com/video/travel-index.html?nvid=340151

KIRO News­ra­dio
http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=11&sid=143136

KAYA Fox TV News (Spokane) – sto­ry about half-way through
http://www.myfoxspokane.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=8371025&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=3.2.1

KREM TV (Spokane)
http://www.krem.com/news/local/stories/krem2-030609-rallyforeconomy.e1e47c8.html

KSTW TV (Taco­ma) – sto­ry to follow

Q13 TV (Seat­tle) – sto­ry to fol­low 3/9 or 3/10

PR Week (nation­al trade) – sto­ry to fol­low in March

Soci­ety of Amer­i­can Trav­el Writ­ers nation­al newslet­ter – sto­ry to fol­low in March

Islanders noted for helping with salmon recovery.…

Posted March 14, 2009 at 1:53 pm by

You know, one of the rea­sons the local killer whales are on the endan­gered species list is a short­age of their main din­ner: salmon. Recov­er­ing the salmon’s pre­vi­ous num­bers is a key to restor­ing a healthy ecosys­tem… and sev­er­al islanders have been key to that recov­ery effort. Here’s more from Bar­bara Rosenkot­ter, who is the Lead Enti­ty Coor­di­na­tor for Salmon Recov­ery for our county:

San Juan Coun­ty Vol­un­teers Receive Salmon Recov­ery Cit­i­zens Awards
On March 10 at the State Capi­tol in Olympia, the Wash­ing­ton State Salmon Recov­ery Lead Enti­ty Pro­gram hon­ored out­stand­ing vol­un­teer cit­i­zens at the ten year anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion of the Lead Enti­ty.  Eight cit­i­zens and groups from all over the state were select­ed for their ded­i­ca­tion and sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion toward salmon recovery.

The San Juan Islands com­mu­ni­ty was well rep­re­sent­ed among the win­ners with awards being giv­en to Jim Slo­comb of San Juan Island and vol­un­teer beach sein­ers from through­out the San Juans.

The first local win­ners were a group of over 44 vol­un­teer “Beach Sein­ers”. The beach sein­ers were rec­og­nized for out­stand­ing and ongo­ing vol­un­teer efforts sup­port­ing crit­i­cal salmon recov­ery projects that assess the use of the San Juan Islands’ nearshore envi­ron­ments by young salmon.

Many of the sein­ers are WSU Beach Watch­ers work­ing with Fish­eries Oceanog­ra­ph­er Dr. Tina Wyl­lie-Echev­er­ria to gath­er data crit­i­cal to the under­stand­ing of salmonid resources and habi­tat use. To do this work, they trav­el via a 20’ research ves­sel and, dur­ing the March through Sep­tem­ber sam­pling sea­son vis­it five or more sites, in all kinds of weath­er, ten times per month. They set over 500 beach seines on nine islands, sam­pling thou­sands of fish includ­ing pink, chum, Coho and Chi­nook salmon as well as impor­tant prey species for fish, marine birds and marine mam­mals such as sand lance, her­ring, surf smelt and shin­er surf perch.

Anoth­er group of beach sein­ers are a part of com­mu­ni­ty cit­i­zen sci­ence teams orga­nized by Kwiaht on Lopez and Wal­dron Islands. This group helped with the project described above and also con­duct­ed a study of the prey used by juve­nile salmon guid­ed by Rus­sel Barsh. These vol­un­teers, work­ing in small groups with micro­scopes on evenings and week­ends, iden­ti­fied and count­ed more than 4,000 bits of fish, crus­taceans, insects and oth­er prey items and devel­oped dig­i­tal tax­o­nom­ic keys and pho­to atlases for ref­er­ence and train­ing future vol­un­teers. More than 35 Lopez and Wal­dron vol­un­teers par­tic­i­pat­ed in exten­sive spe­cial­ized train­ing, field and lab work, con­tribut­ing over 1200 vol­un­teer hours.

Both high­ly ded­i­cat­ed teams plan to mon­i­tor juve­nile salmon abun­dance and prey use over the next few years.

The beach sein­ing vol­un­teers are: Marolyn Mills, Chuck O’Clair, Har­ry Dick­en­son, Rick Ekstom, Martha Dick­en­son,  Mike Kaill, Zach Williams, Mike Grif­fin, Chuck Rust, Mar­tye Green, Robin Don­nely, Tom Don­nely, Phil Green, Mar­ta Branch and Orcas Island stu­dents, Lor­ri Swan­son, Chris Davis, Mike O’Connell, Jim Pat­ton, Andria Hagstrom, Quinn Freed­man, Kim Secun­da, Don­na Adams, Fred Adams, Lance Brit­tain, Isa Delahunt, John Droubay, Lau­rie Glenn, Ann Gwen, Hol­ly Love­joy, David Loyd, Julie Loyd, Daphne Mor­ris, Diane Robert­son, Steve Ruegge, Josie Scru­ton,  Dan Silkiss, Elsie Silkiss, John Swan-Sheer­an, Lor­ri Swan­son, Gretchen Wag­n­er, John Waugh, Susie Waugh, Cathy Wil­son, Susan Wilson.

These 44 ded­i­cat­ed cit­i­zen vol­un­teers demon­strate that it tru­ly does take a com­mu­ni­ty to sup­port salmon recov­ery efforts and have pro­vid­ed over 2400 hours of vol­un­teer time.

Anoth­er San Juan Coun­ty award win­ner was Jim Slo­comb. He was hon­ored for his efforts as a ded­i­cat­ed salmon recov­ery project vol­un­teer. He began donat­ing time in 2001 with the For­age Fish Habi­tat Assess­ment project and has con­tin­ued ever since.  Slo­comb has recent­ly vol­un­teered hun­dreds of hours in order to com­plete the very com­plex Geo­graph­ic Infor­ma­tion Sys­tems (GIS) mod­el­ing required for the Salmon Habi­tat Pro­tec­tion Blue­print project.

“Many in our com­mu­ni­ty are grate­ful for all the time that Slo­comb ded­i­cates to marine resource pro­tec­tion efforts.  He has served on the coun­ty’s Marine Resources Com­mit­tee (MRC) for ten years and con­tin­ues to pro­vide count­less hours of vol­un­teer ser­vice to help the MRC achieve their goals and pro­gram objec­tives” com­ment­ed Bar­bara Rosenkot­ter, Lead Enti­ty Pro­gram Coor­di­na­tor for San Juan County.

Jim often donates the use of his boat for sur­vey and mon­i­tor­ing work. For the past two years, Slo­comb has also vol­un­teered hun­dreds of hours sam­pling water qual­i­ty in San Juan County.

Dur­ing the cel­e­bra­tion event in Olympia, mem­bers of the pub­lic also had an oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn more about lead enti­ties, which are local, cit­i­zen-based orga­ni­za­tions that devel­op salmon habi­tat pro­tec­tion and restora­tion projects with the help of tech­ni­cal experts.   Lead enti­ty coor­di­na­tors and vol­un­teers from across the state were on hand to dis­cuss their work and projects.

Estab­lished by the state Leg­is­la­ture in 1998, the Lead Enti­ty pro­gram has grown to 27 lead enti­ties across the state and is con­sid­ered a nation­al mod­el for cre­at­ing effec­tive restora­tion projects at the local level.

“Salmon recov­ery and habi­tat restora­tion in our water­sheds would not be pos­si­ble with­out the part­ner­ships and com­mit­ment cre­at­ed through this crit­i­cal pro­gram,” WDFW Deputy Direc­tor Joe Stohr said.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, please con­tact Bar­bara Rosenkot­ter, San Juan Coun­ty Salmon Recov­ery Lead Enti­ty Coor­di­na­tor, 360–370-7593 or barbarar@sanjuanco.com

Somebody wrote, so I looked it up for you…

Posted March 14, 2009 at 12:00 pm by

Some­body wrote, so I looked it up for you:
This is a good link to book­mark so you can stay on top of this impor­tant issue:

Has the Large Hadron Col­lid­er destroyed the world yet?

Click here. Now.

Fill out the survey.…

Posted March 14, 2009 at 11:56 am by

Pamela Williams biking with Ian.

Pamela Williams biking with Ian.

Tim & Shan­non & the bike club want to hear from you — this is get­ting off to a great start (that’s Pamela Williams out bik­ing with Ian last sum­mer, right):

The San Juan Island bike club is look­ing for input from local bicy­clists and would love to have any­one who is inter­est­ed go to our web­site and click on the Sur­vey link on the home page. We are a new­ly form­ing club here and would like to have more mem­bers and we would like to know what poten­tial mem­bers are inter­est­ed in. So far we haven’t had an offi­cial club meet­ing, but we’re think­ing that when the weath­er gets nicer, and more peo­ple par­tic­i­pate in our group rides, one of these times we’ll have a meet­ing after the ride and start mak­ing this club more of a tan­gi­ble thing.

Could you put a link to our web­site www.bikesanjuan.com on your update, and let your read­ers know about our sur­vey invi­ta­tion? The sur­vey clos­es at the end of March so we’re hop­ing peo­ple will get on there before that.

Thanks so much!

Tim Dus­trude and Shan­non Dean

The Gulliksons are back.…

Posted March 14, 2009 at 11:31 am by


Glen and Bobbie

Glen and Bobbie

It was a nice sur­prise to see Glen and Bob­bie (right) on the fer­ry yes­ter­day — they’re back from their tour of the States (and a chunk of time in sun­ny Flori­da) to move back aboard on their boat & return to work on the island.

Grandma and Cam…

Posted March 14, 2009 at 11:29 am by

Aimee and Cam

Aimee and Cam

That’s hap­py grand­ma Aimee spend­ing the day last Sat­ur­day with her daugh­ter Mis­a’s boy Cam, who, by the way, is two.

Putting girls in the middle of things.…

Posted March 12, 2009 at 3:56 pm by

A friend sent me this lit­tle video, which I thought you might like.…after you take a peek at it (it’s only a cou­ple of min­utes long), you might check out the Heifer Project & the peo­ple at Kiva for ideas. See what you think. Let’s get things moving.

WSF adds back the Sidney/Anacortes run.…

Posted March 12, 2009 at 3:42 pm by

After dis­cussing whack­ing the spring­time run of the inter­na­tion­al boat, Wash­ing­ton State Fer­ries announced today they will run the route, start­ing March 29th. Here’s more, from them:

WSDOT Fer­ries Divi­sion (WSF) will add ser­vice hours and re-open the Anacortes/Sidney, B.C. route with the begin­ning of the spring sail­ing sched­ule on Sun­day, March 29.

WSF will pro­vide one round trip sail­ing per day between Ana­cortes and Sid­ney, B.C. through the spring on the 124-car fer­ry Chelan. Cus­tomers are encour­aged to make reser­va­tions for trav­el on this route on the WSF Web site.

Anacortes to Sidney ferry in Washington State

Anacortes to Sidney ferry in Washington State

Getting sports back in the schools.…

Posted March 12, 2009 at 3:41 pm by

volleyball at FHHSJust received this note from schools super­in­ten­dent Michael Soltman.…as you know, the school board cut the fund­ing for school-fund­ed sports last week. Now, the schools are look­ing for anoth­er enti­ty to work with on this, so they’re get­ting a cam­paign ready to reach their goals, with Island Rec. Here’s more:

Island Rec and SJISD Announce Part­ner­ship to Fund Ath­let­ic Pro­grams: San Juan Island Park and Recre­ation Dis­trict (“Island Rec”) and the San Juan Island School Dis­trict have announced a part­ner­ship to devel­op a fund­ing strat­e­gy to con­tin­ue an inter­scholas­tic ath­let­ic pro­gram for Island stu­dents.  At a School Board meet­ing last week, the board took action to reduce near­ly $800,000 from its $9 mil­lion oper­at­ing bud­get.  Pro­gram reduc­tions includ­ed sig­nif­i­cant cuts in admin­is­tra­tion and non-instruc­tion­al ser­vices, reduc­tion of 3 teach­ing posi­tions, and the elim­i­na­tion of fund­ing for the ath­let­ic pro­gram.  At the meet­ing, Super­in­ten­dent Solt­man said, “We remain com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing inter­scholas­tic ath­let­ic pro­grams to our Island stu­dents, but we must find a way to fund this pro­gram out­side of the Dis­tric­t’s gen­er­al fund.”

“Island Rec is the com­mu­ni­ty’s Park and Recre­ation Dis­trict and a nat­ur­al part­ner to approach to obtain resources to sus­tain this essen­tial pro­gram for our youth.  Over 289 stu­dents par­tic­i­pate on 14 ath­let­ic teams, annu­al­ly, includ­ing stu­dents from the pub­lic school, pri­vate schools, and home schools through­out the com­mu­ni­ty,” Solt­man said.  Ralph Hahn, Chair of the Island Rec Board of Direc­tors said, “Island Rec’s Board is in full agree­ment of doing what we can to sus­tain the sports pro­gram for our kids.  It is just not an option for our com­mu­ni­ty to elim­i­nate its inter­scholas­tic sports program.”

Details of the fund­ing strat­e­gy will be dis­cussed at a pub­lic meet­ing sched­uled for Wednes­day, March 18th, 7:00 p.m. at the Mid­dle School Com­mons.  “Now is the time for all peo­ple con­cerned about sus­tain­ing this sports pro­gram to join us at this meet­ing,” said Sal­ly Thom­sen, Island Rec Direc­tor. The fund­ing solu­tion must include a plan to renew the Island Rec Park Dis­trict levy in Novem­ber with suf­fi­cient capac­i­ty to sup­port the annu­al cost of the ath­let­ic program. 

football at FHHS

football at FHHS

Assum­ing a suc­cess­ful levy in Novem­ber, first tax receipts would be received in April 2010, pro­vid­ing enough rev­enue to fund the win­ter and spring sports sea­sons. How­ev­er, in order to fund the fall 2009 sea­son, $45,000 must be raised this spring.  Pur­ple and Gold and Fri­day Har­bor Ath­let­ic Asso­ci­a­tion have joined this effort as part­ners to con­duct fundrais­ing and serve on the Island Rec. Levy Com­mit­tee.  “It’s up to us as a com­mu­ni­ty to devel­op a sus­tain­able fund­ing source for this pro­gram,” said Elisa Howard, Pres­i­dent of Pur­ple and Gold. “Fri­day Har­bor Ath­let­ic Asso­ci­a­tion is com­mit­ted to this part­ner­ship.  We must insure that a sports pro­gram is avail­able for our kids,” said Don Galt, Jr., Pres­i­dent of FHAA.

Coming into the harbor.…

Posted March 12, 2009 at 3:40 pm by

Coming into Friday Harbor in late winter.....

Coming into Friday Harbor in late winter.....

All the snow, clouds, driz­zle, and cold were set aside
Sun­day after­noon as the
Sealth pulled into Fri­day Har­bor’s sun­ny waters.