On November 18, 2024, GVPN held its Annual General Meeting with members. We said goodbye to departing board members Molly Rose, Ray Straatsma and Kris Nichols and warmly welcomed Ciara Chamberlaine and Jim LaMorte (Jim is returning after taking a year off and it’s great to have him back). You can find bios for all our board members here.
Treasurer Susan Z. Martin gave a presentation about the importance of neighbourhoods, neighbours and neighbourliness and we’re sharing a 6-minute movie of Susan’s presentation for those of you that weren’t able to attend in person) with the slides that led to a post-presentation discussion among those present.
Here are some of the ideas that participants brought up under each of these sub-categories. Note that these were hastily scribbled notes and so the plan is to expand on each of these ideas in a blog post over the next few months (particularly when the weather is less amenable to outdoor placemaking activities). We’ll gather raw material by chatting with some of our town’s many experienced placemakers (perhaps GVPN is like Hotel California – you can never really leave), scour the web (Placemaking Canada and probably our own archives) for past successful projects and identify learning resources available in print or elsewhere.
Learn
- How to work with (and conversely without) local government
- How to do inventory/mapping of your neighbourhood
- About successful projects, either from the past or in other jurisdictions
- How to work with/develop a ‘neighbourhood persona’ (not every neighbourhood is the same and that’s often part of their charm – placemaking shouldn’t be cookie cutter)
- How to plan and execute accessible walking tours that are appealing to all kinds of people and facilitate group learning and interaction
- How to implement temporary changes (what is sometimes called tactical urbanism – though it doesn’t need to be only in cities)
- How to design successful neighbourhood events (hint – nourishing refreshments are key!)
- How to uncover/pinpoint a neighbourhood focus/theme (kind of like #4 but not exactly the same)
Do
Placemaking doesn’t have to be something complex and intricate – here are some ideas that range from something that can be done in less than an hour and gives months of enjoyment to something that will take more organizing but can be the catalyst for building neighbourhood placemaking into an ongoing, community-involved project.
- Chalk art – whether it’s drawing fun images or patterns or reproducing pithy quotes sidewalk chalk can create eye-catching and engaging placemaking projects quickly, easily and cheaply
- The Creature on Carrick – a simple (but frighteningly large) pretend spider hanging in a tree that kids below can control (and drop in front of unsuspecting adults) has become legend in the neighbourhood
- Fairy door festival – like the Gorge-Tillicum community, why not get the neighbours together to paint pre-made doors and maybe even fashion little creatures, mushrooms and other fairy door accessories from air dry clay
- Block parties, carolling and other seasonal and special occasion events
Share
We were excited to learn from a couple of attendees that they have already undertaken a bunch of placemaking initiatives in their neighbourhood over the years and we’ve invited them to create some blog posts, with pictures, about their projects. You too can share your story with the Placemaking Network! We invite you to submit your questions/ideas about the learn and do part of our initiative or your photos and stories about things you’ve already undertaken to us at info@victoriaplacemaking.ca and come with us on this journey to building community through the vehicle of placemaking.
Here’s to a more neighbourly 2025 and turning neighbours into friends and friendships into community.
Guest Author Susan Martin
