Victoria's Family Collaborative Law Group: Raising the bar on ways to manage family conflict

The Collaborative Family Law Group (CFLG) is a Victoria-based interdisciplinary group of independent professionals, whose mission is to encourage and promote a new process to create positive solutions for people in conflict and families in transition. Indeed that’s why I’m a fan of theirs. Recently I attended, as a guest, one of the regular monthly […]

Are you welcome in your neighbourhood?

Walk down any street in your neighbourhood.  How do you feel as you walk along? Do you feel welcome or is it a closed shop? Structure influences behaviour.  Just like the many ways to physically structure your office for collaboration, how we structure our personal property influences our relationship with our neighbours.  We can structure […]

Restorative Justice: A community response when bad things happen

Bad things happen.  They did to Katy Hutchison on New Year’s Eve in 1997. Her husband Bob was beaten to death while checking on a party being thrown by their neighbour’s son.  It happened in Squamish, a small town just north of Vancouver.  A wall of silence grew up around the murder.  It was four […]

The Market on Millstream: A community-oriented hub for food producers and consumers

Increasingly, I find myself thinking about food security, and the people and businesses who support local farmers and food producers.  The Market on Millstream is one such business. In late 2009, The Market on Millstream, a local grocery store where I live, was named Canadian Independent Grocer of the Year, in the medium surface category, […]

Ten Thousand Villages: Working with Haitian artisans – past present and future

Ten Thousand Villages is the oldest and largest Fair Trade organization in North America. Through a network of 50 stores in Canada and 150 stores in the United States, Ten Thousand Villages sells artisan-crafted personal accessories, home decor and gift items, from around the globe. Ten Thousand Villages works with artisans, otherwise unemployed or underemployed, […]