UPGRADING FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW
The Library will be officially re-opened on Tuesday July the third, so please do not return your books until then, but dont worry, no fines will be owed! All books will have a July 3rd. due date.
The library board is happy to thank PIRAHA, which owns the library building, for agreeing to pay for the cost of the remediation work done. All the mould and rot is gone and the building received a clean bill of health from the testing company. Also, the board is most happy to report that PICSS (Nu-to-Yu) has given the library $10,000 towards the cost of the electrical work done in the updating. Thank you!
The Fund Raising team, led by Heather Rumble and Barb MacPherson, is hard at work planning events through the summer. Mark your calendar for Saturday, June 16th, the renewed librarys PREVIEW CELEBRATION! From 1 4 pm, there will be tours of the library, childrens activities, toddlers story time, finger food and refreshments by donation and brand new book bags for sale, $15 each, 2 for $25. The librarys brand new logo will be featured in embroidery on the bags. Very stylish! A big Thank You to Leroy at MinskyDesigns for donating his time to design the logo.
Starting at 5:30 pm, the fun continues at the Community Hall. Books, Burgers & Boogie is a licensed event (adults only) where you can grab a burger, some salads and dessert plus shake your bootie all for $20! (dance only, $10). No host bar. DJ Colin Watson will be providing the music. Between dances, there will be 50/50 draws and fun games for silly and not so silly prizes! Bring your loonies and toonies and outdo your friends see who can win the most! Tickets are available at Talisman Books and Southridge Farms. As a bonus, you can reserve a whole table (8-10 people) for only $1 per person.
A second date to note is 11 am, Sunday, August 26th. The PENDUCKY DERBY is back! Thanks to the Lions Club for loaning the little, yellow rubber duckies! If youre not sure what Im talking about, let me explain. Years ago, each summer islanders would gather on the bridge or in boats or on the Spit, wait for the spilling of little yellow ducks from a tractor bucket and then cheer madly as they waited to see which ducky would be first to cross the finish line (reach the floating boom). If your numbered duck is the winner, you win the big prize. Most exciting and a real Pender event! Volunteers will be selling Penducky Derby tickets at the Library, the Driftwood and the Farmers Market. Get your ducky tickets, $5 each, and plan to be there on August 26th (day after the Fall Fair). It is a sight to see!
The third big event to mark is Saturday, September 8th. BOOKS, BITES & BORDEAUX, to be held in the Community Hall, will be an evening of food and wine. More information about times and tickets, etc. will follow in future articles.
Speaking of fund raising, the board and everyone at the library would like to send out a big THANK YOU to all who have donated to the library so far. To give you an update, the budgeted total for the Librarys updating was $325,830.00, (including $50,000 needed for fixtures and furniture). To date, $253,354.00 is in the Building Fund. There was $175,000 in the fund at the beginning (money saved over the years) so that means $78,354 has been raised from donations to this point. THANK YOU! The Fund Raising Goal for the team is now $72,500.00. Thats it, thats all that is needed to get it all done!
A big thank you must go out to all members of the eight book clubs on Pender for a successful May 7th event, A Celebration of Books, held at the Golf Club. Forty five members were at the event. Attendees were treated to an amazing talk by South Penderite, Dr. Maria Tippett, award winning author and historian. Along with many other books, Dr. Tippett has written acclaimed biographies of Emily Carr (for which she won the Governor Generals non-fiction award), Bill Reid, Yousuf Karsh and Fred Varley. Special guest, Shivaun Gannon, attended and presented her new memoir, Listen to My Heart, as a special door prize. Also attending were Anne and Melanie Chernyk, the new mother and daughter team at Talisman, who very kindly donated a gift certificate and books for door prizes. Thank you, also, to the Golf Club for offering the venue free of charge. The total amount raised, from both members in attendance and those not able to be there, was a whopping $2,675. A secret angel had offered to double the amount raised so the total for the evening came to $5,350. What a success!
Carrying on with fund raising information, the library wont be able to go on the Tru Value Spirit Board because there are other groups waiting for a spot ahead of the library. No queue jumping on Pender! Thanks to all of you who asked the cashiers to put your support to the library with your grocery purchases.
If you are considering a donation to the library, here are a few points to ponder. Our library is unique in B.C. Did you know that it is owned by the community, through the Pender Island Public Library Association, is run almost entirely by volunteers and is free for all to use! Our librarys upgrading will give the community a safer, seismically upgraded building, provide wheelchair accessibility, have a better designed, larger childrens area and more usable and flexible computer space. Lighting and ventilation will be improved and the volunteer librarians will have functioning computers in a more flexible workspace. Book storage will be better and our Head Librarian, the indomitable Jean Macdonald, will have a proper office space from which to run the librarys daily activities.
Donations to the Library Renovation Fund can be made at the HSBC bank at the Driftwood and/or cheques made out to Pender Island Public Library Association can be mailed to Box 12, Pender Island, B.C. V0N 2MO. Tax receipts will be issued for donations of $10 and up.
Our twenty-plus year old library is going to be a wonderful community space and you can have a part in making it happen!
Monica Bennett, Trustee
Where do I go, if not with you?
Hi All you PenderBlog devotees (an overstatement maybe?),
As you may have noticed, I have not posted a lot in the past year. I started PenderBlog back in 2007, yikes, 5 years… poof! And I have learned a lot in the process, what worked, what didn’t. It’s a big world out there and everyone is watching. But it has been fun, and isn’t that the point of almost everything we should be doing with the short time we get on this crazy planet.
Five years ago I had barely heard of a blog and what they were for. Now, as someone said to me, “Everybody has a blog”.
My original concept, however, was different. PenderBlog was hopefully going to be Pender Island’s blog, not mine. Trust me, I don’t have enough interesting things to post every week, but collectively Pender Island does.
Of course there are so many avenues of expression out there today, but I have been a bit surprised by the loyalty the subscribers to the PenderBlog have been. PenderBlog has a facebook page and many friends now carry the flow of island observations through PenderBlog on facebook.
So, at the risk of being too wordy here, I would like to keep the PenderBlog going, but encourage any of you dear readers to make a submission if the urge comes along. I will volunteer to be your lowly moderator.
Now that it’s dark outside, maybe I’ll even muster up a few new posts!
Thanks for the five years and happy Hallowe’en.
John Mackenzie, PenderBlog