The story behind the picture
 
This is Bev’s story really. She turns 81 this year and has participated in the Times Colonist 10K walk for the past 11 years. She issued a challenge to Harboursiders to join her in training for it this year. As a result, every Wednesday for many weeks, a small group of Harboursiders (joined sometimes by the two Bobs, David, Warren, Gail, and Eileen) have gradually increased their walk along the Galloping Goose Regional Trail from a few kilometers to the full 10K this past week. Missing from this picture is Shirley, who Bev says is "our shining light because she is such an amazing walker".
 
Bev is the one who encouraged Wynn to try to meet the challenge. Wynn didn’t think she could do it because she was involved in a serious car accident a few years ago. But here she is in the middle of the picture with the smile of success on her face. Berken is the one leaning down to give Marg’s dog, Murray, a special pat. (Berken has a soft spot for Murray who recently alerted Marg that Berken needed help outside a closed door.) 

All three completed the 10K this past week and will be joined by Marg A and Shirley for the TC10K walk on Sunday, April 29th.
(photo by Marg and story by Arlene)
Rene sent us this picture of her outstanding garden taken in mid April. Our cool spring has had the benefit of extending the blooming period for all the spring blossoms.
A Taste of Art
 
Jean organized a very successful display of art by Harbourside residents in the Art Room recently along with wine and cheese and a silent auction. Works on display spanned a wide range of media with many showing an impressive level of skill and creative talent. The work of professional artists was shown alongside accomplished amateurs to create an inspiring environment.
 
Donations of works and money to the silent auction raised over $200, more than enough to cover the cost of Jean’s collaborative painting project. What a great way to kick-start the Art Room! Thanks Jean! (Arlene)
Rubbish Team aims for Zero Waste

Kudos to John and Warren, pictured here just after completing the new shelving in our rubbish room. Our "Rubbish: Recycling, Compost, Garbage, Spills Team" has consistently worked towards a goal of zero waste.  By expanding the categories of things available for reuse and things collected for recycling, we have been able to reduce the amount of garbage produced by 31 units in a week to just 2 containers. 

This team consists of many people (Ellen, Arlene, Bev, David, Donja, Doug, Jean, Naomi, Shirley, Susan and Warren) but ultimately everyone at Harbourside contributes their efforts to the work of this team by sorting and recycling as much of their rubbish as possible, taking recycle bins to the curb, redistributing the compost our Joracans produce, and by cutting back purchases wherever possible. 
 
A composite image of our flowering decks!
"Our mission is to be a sustainable senior cohousing homeowner community that promotes healthy aging in place."
If this is an idea that interests you, follow the link to learn more about available sales and rental units at Harbourside:
http://harbourside.ca/available.php
Don't let the grey hair fool you!

On the left, Marisa leads a small group in figuring out how to replace the bottom element in our common house oven. (photo of Marisa by Jasmine)
On the right, Jasmine expertly manipulates her excavator to prepare the area below building 3 for the planned vegetable gardens. It was a pleasure to watch the fine-tuned way in which she redesigned the earth levels to increase accessibility on this difficult site.
Stretching our imagination

Jack Gegenberg is a retired theoretical physicist whose obvious love and deep knowledge of his subject was  infectious during his recent Speaker Series visit to Harbourside.  Although he was discussing deeply abstract concepts such as the curvature of space-time and the theory of relativity, he engaged our attention and created an environment where people felt free to ask their questions.
 
In the picture above, he is demonstrating the curvature of the space-time continuum and the passage of light through it. Although Einstein's genius has provided a framework for physics during our lifetime, he reminded us of phenomena such as 'dark matter' and 'black holes' that open up possibilities for new theories. Meanwhile science fiction writers play with their imaginings of multi-dimensional worlds and theoretical physicists work on new equations. (Arlene)  (photo by Margaret)
 
Warren (pictured here with Ralph and Rene) is offering classes in perspective drawing in the art room.  
Karen Wells, a recently retired CBC broadcast journalist, revisited Harbourside recently to get an update on our cohousing project. She put together the first, widely-listened-to story on Harbourside in November, 2015 under the title “BC Seniors build a new way to age in place”. Over a soup lunch, Karen asked us how things were going? Some of the attendees were part of her original broadcast while others have joined Harbourside more recently. She surprised us by bringing along a microphone to record our comments. A follow-up radio commentary may very well be in the works. We’ll keep you posted…(photo by Margaret)
Harbourside presented details of their recycling programme at the recent Earth Day celebrations in Sooke.
Bev with the cake she made for our 6 Harboursiders with April birthdays. Pam, Ellen, Marisa, Shirley and Jack (Paivi was unable to attend) We celebrated their 416 years (or thereabouts) of life experience! 
Bev and Moki introduced us to their beloved Beynon retreat in Alberta during a recent Speaker Series.
Workshop & Info Session May 5-6!
 
Happy Spring! It’s finally here and have we been busy flapping our Raven-
wings in site search and community development!
 
If you’ve been wondering what cohousing is all about, there’s no better way than to ‘try it on’ and mingle with people who live in cohousing, are creating cohousing, and are curious about cohousing. Join us May 5-6 at the Sidney Library for our 2-day Is Cohousing For You? workshop (with Dr. Margaret Critchlow) and Information Session (with members of our group).
 
You’ll find out the latest on our Society site search and we hope to have some exciting news to share…. Please plan to attend if you are interested in Associate membership, we will be taking a waiting list.
 
And as you may know, we recently announced our new name: Ravens Crossing Cohousing. Today we’re equally delighted to announce the launch of our new website. https://www.ravenscrossingcohousing.ca We’d like to hear what you think, and if you find something amiss, we’d like to hear about that too. 
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