Christopher Roy

Video - Orca Pod In Ganges Harbour

This past Saturday an Orca Pod was spotted in Ganges Harbour and captured on video. An amazing day to appreciate the natural beauty of the island. Video by Terri Bibby.

Reduced Post Office Staffing Levels

Canada Postmasters and Assistants Association has sent out notices to Salt Spring Island post boxes informing the community that Canada Post Corporation is planning to reduce staffing levels at the Ganges Post Office by reducing staff hours. They are asking you the community to contact various representatives to make your voice heard if you do not agree with reduced staff times at the post office in town. Do you agree that staffing levels should be reduced?

McDonalds and Tim Hortons Opening on Salt Spring

Big developments all around the island today. New businesses and changes in management. Busy day for Salt Spring's local economy.

Five Thousand+ Fans of Salt Spring on Facebook

Whew! Salt Spring Island is popular. This past week we hit a new milestone on Facebook. We now have over 5,000+ fans of our little emerald isle in the Salish Sea. This isn't a surprise to those of us that live here or have visited of course, Salt Spring Island is a special place with fans all over the world. Our community uses Facebook to share local stories, photos, news, events, classifieds and more and works together with the over 15,000+ people who use the Salt Spring Exchange site each month to stay engaged with our vibrant island community. Consider becoming a fan if you aren't already. More importantly, we just simply want to thank you. We've worked hard to build up this page to promote and share all that is Salt Spring and we thank all those you that follow on Facebook for staying with us as we work to share the beauty of the island. We thought you might be interested in knowing what 5,000+ fans of Salt Spring looks like and where everyone is coming from. You c…

BC Ferries Raising Fees

BC Ferries announced today that it is reminding customers of increases in passenger and vehicle fares effective April 1, 2012. Prices will rise by 4.15 per cent on average on all routes across the fleet. This increase was approved last spring in Bill 14, an amendment to the Coastal Ferry Act. Subsequent price caps will be determined following the Province’s response to the BC Ferry Commissioner’s report. Fare increases are required due to the rising cost of operating and capital expenditures coupled with lower than anticipated traffic levels.

See chart of fares below:

Power Outages on Salt Spring

UPDATE: Less than 100 homes now without power. Most of the island has had hydro service restored. Big wind storm last night and this morning on Salt Spring. BC Hydro and local residents are reporting numerous outages. Call 1-888 POWERON (1 888 769-3766) to report an outage.

Ganges Fire Hall Farmers' Market Poll

The Salt Spring Island Farmers’ Institute has proposed that the current Ganges Fire Hall be turned into a year-round covered farmers' market once a new location for the current hall is secured. Is this something you would support? Share your response in our poll. Should the Ganges Fire Hall be turned into a year round Farmers Market?

Sh*t Salt Springers Say Campaign for Version 2

Okay, we'll there isn't a version two yet, but you know you want one. We, like so many of you, loved the "Sh*t Salt Springers Say' video made this past week by the local island Lemon Grease Productions starring Thomas Messer, Rebecca Nygard, Michelle Duncan, Billie Woods, David Alex Eveno with guest appearances by Jada-lee Watson, Ross Duncan and Mike Nelson. We want them to make another one! If you want them to make another one vote yes by leaving a suggestion, Liking this post, or leaving a comment. To help encourage them, we want your help. Let's gather up some perfectly Salt Spring expressions for them to work with and hope we can get them to make another one. If you have a suggestion for an expression you'd like to include, like "Where's the yeast?" submit it in the form below and we'll pass them all along to the video producers. Take Our Survey! polldaddy.add( { type: 'iframe', auto: true, domain: 'opendirections.polldaddy.com/s/', id: 'sal…

Salt Spring's Official Population Increases 6.2%

Population on Salt Spring Island Trust Area A has officially increased to 10,234 according to official Census Canada figures released today. This is a 6.2% increase since the 2006 census. The number of private dwelling is at 5,643 with 4,662 of those occupied by full-time residents. See the full details below:

Additional details can be found directly at Census Canada.

Victoria Population Changes

Vancouver Population Changes

Population Changes by Province

Coastal Ferry Act Review Report Released

BC Ferries Commission News Release Gord Macatee, BC Ferry Commissioner, delivered his review of the Coastal Ferry Act to the Honourable Blair Lekstrom, Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure today. The report contains 24 major recommendations for government, BC Ferries, ferry users and other stakeholders, all intended to better balance the interests of ferry users with the financial sustainability of BC Ferries. The Commissioner reports that the ferry system is facing challenges now, which are only expected to get larger in the years ahead. Declining ridership and financial losses in the current year, coupled with huge capital investment requirements for fleet renewal and terminal upgrades, is putting strain on the financial sustainability of BC Ferries. Ferry users consider further large fare increases to be unaffordable, and are concerned that the operator is not sufficiently accountable. Furthermore, the Coastal Ferry Act, and its guiding principles, is not perc…

Four-Way Stop Approved for Central

In response to recent community feedback and a history of collisions at the Central intersection, the Ministry of Transportation called into the recent CRD Transportation Committee meeting shortly after we delivered the Salt Spring Exchange community petition to verbally confirm that they will be implementing a four-way stop at the intersection. The CRD Transportation Committee and the Ministry of Transportation will provide further details in the coming days. It's unclear what the decision making process was to select this particular approach, but it was clear that the majority of respondents to our poll would have preferred the roundabout option. However, roundabouts are considerably more expensive than implementing four-way stops. Is this an appropriate result?

Delivered: 700+ Petition Signatures to Fix Central

The community petition calling for action to fix Central was delivered today to the CRD Transportation Committee containing all 700+ signatures. The final petition signature count was 703 and included the 586 votes in the poll asking for input on the various options to either change the intersection or leave it as is. The petition was delivered to the committee on behalf of all signatories and Maggie Ramsey, whose original call to action initiated the signature drive. Salt Spring Exchange representative Christopher Roy delivered the petition to Donald McLennan, Chair of the Salt Spring Island Transportation Commission and Salt Spring CRD Director Wayne McIntyre at their first meeting of the year. Thank you to all of those who participated as well as those who shared their feedback in comments on the Exchange, these will also be reviewed by the committee to help them determine how they might to proceed. Embedded below is a copy of the final document outlining the poll a…

Salt Spring Resident Shot and Killed in Mexico

From CBC News: A 67-year-old man from Salt Spring Island, B.C., has been killed in Mexico. Police in the Pacific coastal town of Melaque confirmed Robin Wood was shot and killed early Tuesday morning at the holiday home of fellow Canadian Arvid Chalmers, who is also from Salt Spring Island. Police said Wood was returning from a benefit concert in La Manzanilla, and was shot after challenging two robbers who had entered the home. Melaque is located between Puerto Vallarta and Acapulco, just north of Manzanilla. Police director Ruben Hernandez Bonilla told CBC News robberies in the area and associated murders are very common. Read the full story at cbc.ca

Poll: Which option is best for Central?

Which option would you like to see the CRD implement at Central to improve safety at one of the most dangerous intersections on Salt Spring? How would you change the Central intersection? [emailpetition id="1"] [signaturelist id="1"]

Fix the Central Intersection Petition

To support Maggie Ramsey's call to action to ask the CRD Transportation Committee to fix the Central traffic intersection, we are collecting signatures to let the committee know just how many people are in support of a change. If you support a review and possible changes such as a traffic circle, four way stop, etc., then sign the petition and share this widely with your friends. We will deliver the results of the petition to the committee at their January 10th meeting. [emailpetition id="1"] How would you change the Central intersection?[signaturelist id="1"]

Wow! 15,000 People Posted 75,000 Listings

It's coming up on the end of 2011 and the 3rd birthday of the Salt Spring Exchange. We wanted to give you an update on how things are going here behind scenes. Since 2008, the Exchange evolved from a basic email list, merged with Harry Burton's email list, turned into to a Google Group email list, then into the web based experience you now see. It has taken hundreds of hours of work each year, the financial support of many donors and support from local businesses to keep it going. The vision is simple: * Serve the residents of Salt Spring Island with a vital resource for community sharing * Deliver the best possible online experience for local news, stories, event and classified listings * Dedicate that online experience exclusively to the residents and fans of Salt Spring Island * Give as much as possible of the service away for free or very low-fees * Provide an unparalleled platform for local business advertising Here are some current stats as of the writing of …

Online Poll vs. Official Voting Match-up!

We've had numerous requests to comment on how the online poll that we ran during the lead up to the elections performed against official voting results. We were curious too! The online poll ran for 18 days and over 750 people voted in every one of the three polls for CRD Director, Islands Trustees and School Board Trustees. During that same time, well over 12,000* people used the Exchange (* verified by Google Analytics). Our goal had been to have 500 people participate in the poll. Relative to the number of people that used the site, the participation in the poll was relatively low. Less than 10%. This is likely because we implemented the highest level of poll blocking that the service we use has, and also because some people simply just didn't want to participate. We did get numersous questions during the poll itself about security and added this note as the poll ran to clarify how scientific online polling is: NOTE: Salt Spring Exchange online election polls are not…

Official Election Results

Salt Spring, here are your official, preliminary, election results. These results were posted tonight by Anthony (Tony) Kennedy, Salt Spring's Deputy Chief Election Officer at 9:01 PM on the doors of the Community Gospel Chapel. We were there in person to get you the results as fast as possible. The results are totals from all Salt Spring Island polling stations. The final, official results still need to be verified by the Chief Election Officer in Victoria before they are confirmed as final. It may take a number of days for these results to be finalized and there is a small chance they may change. See photos below of official results as posted by the Deputy Chief Election officer and detailed break downs of votes by polling station, advance polls and off island polls. Here are the winners: Wayne McIntyre wins for CRD Director Peter Grove and George Grams win for Islands Trust Directors Rob Pingle, Kathy Page and Katherine Byers win for School Trustees …

Local Elections - First Week Polling Results

We've been running our local elections online poll now for one week, with the elections now less than two weeks away. Leading into tonights candidate debates at ArtSpring, we wanted to update everyone on how the polls are shaping up. As people participate in the polls and make decisions about their candidates we've seen an excellent response . As of the writing of this story, 464 people have participated in the School Trustee poll, 455 in the Islands Trustee poll, and 407 in the CRD director poll. Our goal was 500 participants before the election and we're likely to reach and exceed this goal. 500+ voters represents apx. 5% of the 10,000 or so permanent residents of Salt Spring and we believe having this many participants will begin to give good insights into the potential outcome of the election on the 19th. If you're going to tonights candidate debate, and haven't made up your mind, be sure to log your vote once you make your candidate commitment. Here are the individua…

Salt Spring 'Introvert' Island

Last week we ran a survey asking residents of Salt Spring if they considered themselves to be *mostly* introverted or extroverted. The results are bit a surprising. Our survey closed automatically when we hit 100 responses and of those 100 responses, 79 people identified themselves as *mostly* introverted. Speaking with a colleague via email about this who has a background in Jungian psychology, he shared that in general it is understood that about 40% of the population identify as introverts and that the dominant culture, at least in North America, is extrovertedly oriented. Is it possible that 79% of islanders are mostly introverted at double the average in North America? Is this just another thing that makes Salt Spring special? Should we have gone out and surveyed at a party where all the extroverts are? Should we become the destination for introverts everywhere, or do we need to import some more extroverts to balance this place out?

One of the country’s best-kept secrets

A Weekend on: Salt Spring Island by Neal Webster Turnage featured in American Way Magazine One of 225 Canadian Gulf Islands, charming Salt Spring is just a hop, skip and a ferry ride from Vancouver — and one of the country’s best-kept secrets. Despite the fact that the scenery is spectacular, the epicurean possibilities world-class, the cultural highlights significant, and the hotels and inns delightfully rustic to dangerously decadent, Canada’s Salt Spring Island still somehow manages to stay off most travelers’ radars. Maybe it’s because it sleeps in the shadows of its more-celebrated seaside neighbors, Vancouver and Victoria. Or maybe it’s because it’s reachable only by seaplane or ferry. Either way, all this means for you is that the island is an insider’s secret — and we’re here to share it with you.... read the full article on the American Way Magazine site.

Christopher Roy

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