Btw, here’s a little wrapup video I did:

Related posts:

1. Cambridge Photowalk: Southworks Reminder
2. Southworks Photowalk Photos
3. First Cambridge Photowalk – Southworks (updated)

Related posts:

1. Cambridge Photowalk: Southworks Reminder
2. First Cambridge Photowalk – Southworks (updated)
3. Did I mention the prize money?

Related posts:

1. Southworks Photowalk Photos
2. First Cambridge Photowalk – Southworks (updated)
3. Did I mention the prize money?

That was so last year. This year, Ontario voters find themselves in the throes of another election campaign – this time to elect their Members of Provincial Parliament. As I’ve promised before, I’m not going to get into my personal partisan here.

What I do want to share with you, however, is a campaign within the campaign being run by the Heart & Stroke Foundation. The campaign, called ‘Healthy Candidates’ encourages all provincial election candidates to endorse a set of policy recommendations. Among the policy recommendations is the following:

Healthy Communities: greater support and funding for community planning that encourages mixed land use, greater density to enhance active transportation that is safe, secure and financially viable. A specific concern that was expressed was the construction of mega-schools even at the elementary level that require busing.

via Healthy Candidates.

Now, I will admit that this does not say “build smaller schools” but the idea is clearly there that larger schools with larger boundaries are necessarily pre-disposed to relying on busing to get kids to school. You may recall that we are dealing with this ourselves here in south-east Galt.

I applaud the Heart & Stroke Foundation for making the connection between walking vs. busing and its impact on childhood obesity. I also hope that the candidates from all parties who have endorsed the campaign will also support efforts to create smaller schools across Ontario.

Related posts:

1. A New School in the Neighbourhood
2. Campaign Information
3. Exciting News

The Groupon deal expires October so I was mostly resigned to losing the $30 unless we could somehow squeeze a night out into an already busy September.

Which brings me to the email from Groupon:

Hi Colin,

We are writing to inform you that Encore! has closed. While most of you have already redeemed your Encore! Groupon, we know that some have not, and we want to get your money back to you as soon as possible.

If you haven’t used your Groupon, you are eligible for a refund. To claim your refund, sign into your Groupon account at www.groupon.com/mygroupons. From here, click “Claim Refund” and select either a refund to the form of payment originally used for the purchase or to your Groupon account to be used for future purchases.

We know how disappointing it is when a great business closes, so we appreciate your understanding and apologize for any inconvenience or frustration this may cause.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to share them with us at support@groupon.com.

Thank you for your continued support.

Regards,

Alicia P.
Groupon Customer Support

It’s great that Groupon took the pro-active step of notifying me (with a solution) rather than waiting for me to discover that Encore! had closed and then having to login and figure out how I get my money back, etc. I probably shouldn’t be as impressed as I am as this kind of thing should be standard operating procedure for ALL retailers, online or off. I guess too many years of reactive customer service makes me easily impressed.

Disclosure note: Links to Groupon are referral links that earn me Groupon Bucks

No related posts.

The first two posts about this issue are here: here and here.

A very quick update to report that two WRDSB Trustees got in touch with on Friday and asked me on Friday to form a delegation to the Board to see if we can restore some common sense to the boundaries. If your family attends Chalmers and you would rather walk to Stewart Avenue than bus to Myers Road, please get in touch!

During one of those conversations, I was told that there is another group of parents who are upset about being bused to Stewart Avenue when they could be walking to Myers Road! Someone seriously dropped the ball on this accommodation review!

Update: The Cambridge Times published a guest column that I submitted last week: http://www.cambridgetimes.ca/opinion/columns/article/963483–boundaries-needs-to-be-revisited

Related posts:

1. Update on the New School Controversy
2. A New School in the Neighbourhood
3. Lawyer update…

If you haven’t read my first post on the new school controversy, you can find it here: http://colincarmichael.ca/a-new-school/

Earlier this week we attended a public meeting that we hoped would shed some light on the new school boundary situation. I honestly hoped that in talking to the school board planners that some previously unknown bit of info would surface that would make it all logical.

Didn’t happen that way. In fact, when I pointed out my concerns, the response I got from the planner was “you’re right, it’s not ideal.” Wow. Unfortunately, despite that acknowledgment of the non-sensical boundaries, there was a definite “nothing we can do” attitude. No invitation for alternative solutions or offers to be accommodating to certain neighbourhoods.

I’ve always felt that one should never complain about a problem without being willing to proffer a solution. I do not claim to be a “planner” or to take into account all of the intricacies of urban planning but here is how I would approach the situation…

Below is a map of southeast Galt with Stewart Ave school and the new school marked. I’ve overlaid a 1km radius on each school – which I think is a reasonable distance to expect kids to walk.

click for larger version

You can see that most of the kids in southeast Galt fall into one or the other of these 1km walking zones. There are, of course, those which fall out of the radius, and those within the radius but whose actual walk is too far. These children could easily be picked up by the buses bringing the rural kids into town from North Dumfries township.

Can it really be that easy? I doubt it. If it were that easy, the school board would have just done this in the first place. There must be, however, some middle ground – some way to ensure that kids aren’t being bused to one school when they could be walking to another.

if you’re interested in seeing the current boundaries compared to the board’s proposed ones, I’ve uploaded them here: http://colincarmichael.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/newandoldboundaries1.jpg

Related posts:

1. A New School in the Neighbourhood
2. Another New School Update
3. Healthy Candidates: all parties support smaller schools

Proposed New Logo for Cambridge

On Monday, Cambridge City Council approved new branding for the city. The new logo, wordmark and tagline (shown at right) were almost three years in the making and came at a cost of $25,000.

Update: I forgot to include a link to the report to Council that supported the new branding: Cambridge Branding Report

The reaction on Twitter and Facebook was generally negative – and one local graphic designer took it upon himself to whip up a much improved version in a matter of minutes (shown below).

To say I was disappointed with the new branding is an understatement – I hate it. My list of reasons for disliking the branding so much grows by the hour, but here’s the note I sent to city council Tuesday night.

Councillors,

When I heard that the city had undertaken a “re-branding” exercise I was nervous but hopeful. Mostly I was excited for something fresh and new that would capture the vibrancy of the Cambridge that I love.

Imagine my disappointment when I saw the article about the new logo in the Record yesterday. I am not a graphic designer nor an “identity expert” but I am a marketing and PR professional who understands the power of branding. Please allow me to offer my two cents on the matter.

• when I posted the image to Twitter, the first two responses I got were: “it’s a napkin ring!” and “it’s a mullet!” — not a strong start
• the image conveys nothing about Cambridge except that we have some water and a strange half-circle bridge (which we don’t)
• The bridge resembles nothing in Cambridge and due to its shape would be impossible to cross. Not a good message there.
• The water just about the only thing I like about this logo
• The tagline: I get the double meaning, but there’s a significant third meaning. It could be interpreted to mean: “Cambridge: It’s so-so here.” In other words, “all right” is often used to mean something less than great. Again, not a good message.

Contrast this to the image I’ve attached which was done in about twenty minutes (working from the proposed logo) by a Cambridge graphic artist (who understands the city).

• this bridge is instantly recognizable as “from Cambridge” though not “exactly” the Main Street bridge
• this bridge also conveys a feeling of forward motion – even “leapfrogging”
• the ribbon-like treatment of the bridge is lighter and seems to float on the page (the proposed logo seems much more like a paperweight)
• the two streams of water could be seen to represent the two major rivers (Grand and Speed)

I could go on…

While I support new branding for the city, I cannot support this logo.

I’ve heard back from a few councillors who have expressed second thoughts about approving the logo – they also indicated they much preferred the logo I sent them and that they would be forwarding it on to city staff. I’m not so naive to think that the City will simply walk away from their $25,000 logo, but at least they’re taking a second look at it.

A few more thoughts on the logo that have occurred to me since I wrote to council:

• the “little old bridge” feeling has a small hamlet feel to it the betrays Cambridge’s desire to be a “player”
• I just can’t stop seeing a dog with its tongue hanging out on a hot day
• the report keeps talking about “two rivers” yet the logo clearly only has one
• I don’t understand the emphasized R in Cambridge – it throws the whole word off-balance
• if you have to BOLD a word in your tagline to make sure it’s read correctly, you have the wrong tagline

Update 2: here are two stories that have appeared in the Record:

• Cambridge council to vote on new city logo
• Councillors don’t want former towns named in new Cambridge logo

Related posts:

1. Cambridge Reporter Revisited

My wife sits on the ‘School Council‘ at our kids’ school. The new school planned for southeast Galt (the part of Cambridge that I live in) and the boundary implication were mentioned at a recent meeting. This isn’t news but I hadn’t thought about it for a while and I was curious how the existing school boundaries would be affected.

A quick Google search brought me to the Waterloo Region District School Board’s Accommodation Review for southeast Galt elementary schools. There is a LOT of information here, and I will admit that I have not read it all. I did, however, spend a little time poring over the maps provided in Appendices C&D. (I love maps)

Appendix C: JK-6 boundaries:

click image for full-size

Appendix D: 7-8 boundaries:

click image for full-size

There are a couple of weird things I noticed:

• our kids will go to the new school for 7-8 even though Stewart Ave is closer. This is even more problematic for us since we’ll have kids going in two directions (Chalmers and Glenview to the west and ‘NewSchool’ to the east even though Stewart Ave is situated between Chalmers and Glenview.
• kids who live on Dudhope (a block away from Stewart Ave) will now be bussed the 1.9 kilometres to ‘New School’?
• Based on my reading of the busing rules (here), it would seem that our kids will be bussed to ‘NewSchool’ (1.85 kms) when they could easily walk to Stewart Ave. (1.1 km). It’s ridiculous to bus kids within city limits when there’s a school within walking distance!

I realize that these are pretty complex things to figure out (especially with the Jr/Sr split) but I will maintain my position from my trustee campaign last fall that if we had smaller schools in more neighbourhoods we could probably eliminate all intra-city busing.

If you live in southeast Galt – or even if you don’t – what do you think of the plan for the new school? Leave a comment below…

Related posts:

1. Update on the New School Controversy
2. Another New School Update
3. Healthy Candidates: all parties support smaller schools

1) On Monday, May 31st, I registered as a candidate for Public School Board Trustee for Cambridge and North Dumfries. I don’t intend to write much about the campaign here on this site, so if you want to follow my campaign, please visit the official campaign site at www.cambridgepublischools.ca.

2) My sister and I finally went public with a little side project we’ve been working on for several months. We are partners in a new venture called Carmichael Digital with a mandate to improve digital literacy in organizations and individuals. You can find out more about what we do at www.carmichaeldigital.com.

It will be another busy and exciting summer for me and I’m looking forward to it!c

Related posts:

1. Campaign Information
2. Welcome Back!
3. Healthy Candidates: all parties support smaller schools