Don’t Wait For Spring: Grow Regina Wants to Hear From You!!

Just got a comment from John Fagan at Grow Regina — they’re taking applications for community garden plots right now, so head over there and sign up!

John mentioned that they have different sized plots this year, so you can put in a couple tomatoes or 500 hills of potatoes, whatever gives your green thumb some pleasure!!

It’s reason enough for me to add them to the ‘lots o’ links’ section in the sidebar too.

So sign up already!

Community Registration Night! Tuesday, September 12!!

Wow, what happened to summer? It sure came quick and left just as quickly. Remember those +38C days in July?

But now autumn is here and if you want to stay active this winter it’s important not to miss your local community association’s registration night. No matter where you are in Regina, your community association will be having a registration night on Tuesday, September 12 at 7PM Locations vary by community association — check out your CA website or newsletter for more details.

The Eyes Have It (Fun, that is!)

The University of Regina Engineering faculty puts on an excellent series of summer day camps for kids called EYES — or Educating Youth in Engineering and Science. The week long programs include robot building, making thing explode/crash/foam/turn green and lots more fun science. My 11 year old when last summer and he had an absolute blast!

If you’ve got a child in the 9-13 year range, make sure to check this program out.

Community Gardens in Lakeview?

I just sent off my letter of support to Grow Regina, who are working with the City to establish a new community garden in Lakeview. It’ll be in what’s known as Macleod Park, which is on Queen Street just south of Hill Avenue. It’ll be a great addition to the community — can’t argue with more vegetables, and hopefully they’ll get a nice mix of young and old folks out to tend their plots.

A lot of people expressed support for the plan at an open house in conjunction with the Lakeview CA fall registration night. Hopefully the approvals happen soon and the garden is ready by spring 2008.

I plan on taking a plot out — I might finally get some decent potatoes and corn going. How about you?

Insider Tip #1: Central Scheduling

I’m learning a lot today. For example, I just posted the phone number if you want to check if your ball diamond / field is rained out. Well it’s the same number as Central Scheduling: the place you call if you want to book any city facility, neighbourhood centre, school gymnasium, ice rink, ditch, culvert or patch of grass. Have you ever been there? I have and it’s not pretty. 2-3 frazzled looking (but very nice) people up to their eyes in application forms, phones ringing off the hook, etc. Nicest people you’ve ever met, but wow are they busy.

So here’s my first tip (maybe in a series if I figure out more) of how to make your interactions with the City as easy as possible:

Don’t call to book something if it’s raining. Wait for a nice day, preferably after lunch when you’re confident the weather will hold till evening.

Oh, and don’t call in June either. They just got 1000+ ice rink applications in the mail from hockey, ringette, figure skating, power skating and community people trying to claim a small piece of our eight (8) hockey rinks. If the others applicants are like me, the schedulers are then dealing with innumerable phone calls from people trying to change dates and times in February of the following year. (hey — you try to think about power skating when it’s +25 outside!)

There you have it. Sunny days, not in June. You’ll be fine.

Bonus Tip: If you go in person (they’re in a small room at the Fieldhouse), make sure to smile. They’re really nice folks!

Is your field rained out? Check here.

I promise that this site won’t just break down the City of Regina site (unless you like that sort of thing) but I just noticed that you can check the web site to see whether your soccer field or ball diamond got rained out.

No real link, since they just slam the info on the home page (look for the header of Athletic Fields) so you’ll have to check back, but they did publish a phone number. So now I will too: (306) 777-7484.

Now you know.

City of Regina BizPal — Strange Name, but might be useful

While I was building out the links (psst: over there, on the right sidebar –> ) I stumbled across a wacky banner on the City of Regina web site. Turns out they’ve launched a service called BizPal. It appears to be a wizard to guide you through the complex but very important processes involved in obtaining a business permit or license.

While digging around a little it seems to be a ‘national’ app. I can get a license in the Yukon if I like.

Might take a while to find on the city site but the link above takes you right to the wizard. Now stop selling those muffins door to door and go get legal!

Lots o’ Links

To get you started on all there is to do in South Regina, I’m compiling a set of links to some of the service groups, sports organizations, etc. One stop shopping, down the right side of the screen…

Welcome! Why are we here?

Welcome to the first post of Big Creek News. I’ll gussy up the site a bit over the next couple days but I want to focus on content for a while first.

Why does this site exist?

The simple version: I’ve lived in Regina, Saskatchewan my entire life and in South Regina since around 1992. Most of my friends growing up have left the city, since “there’s nothing going on in Regina.” That’s hogwash! Whether you’re 8 or 88, there are more things to do in this lovely city than hours in the day. What’s missing is a place to learn what’s going on.

The complex version: More to come over time. Suffice to say I hope we can share all the good things that our going on in town. I hope we can discuss the unpleasant things that go on in town as well, with an eye to working through issues. I think the term for this is ‘Building Community’, but I’m not very precise with the Big Terms.