Tag Archives: volunteer

Muskoka Watershed Council Report Card Presentation

I had the pleasure today to do a presentation on the 2010 Report Card on behalf of The Muskoka Watershed Council.

I was invited by John McCaig Vice President of Probus Huntsville to talk about the work of the Muskoka Watershed Council and detail the 2010 Report Card. We had a good session with many, many questions.

According to the surveys, and as I asked prior to the presentation,  there was very little prior knowledge about the Report Card or even the Muskoka Watershed Council itself. Afterward, I was very pleased to see many positive comments about the presentation with most people commenting that their knowledge of the watershed and good stewardship practices was increased substantially. It certainly makes it worthwhile.

Thank you to everyone in attendance, I enjoyed it immensely. -Steve

cottageinmuskoka.ca donates 27 bicycles to a community charity

Last week while showing a cottage with Catharine on Lake Muskoka, I got a call that some 27 bikes abandoned at a number of Toronto condominiums, were going to to be crushed for scrap the following day unless someone intervened. So we attached our old trailer and headed from Muskoka to Toronto to load up the bikes. We then delivered them to a back alley behind a church; given the recent activities of Toronto’s Igor, the unofficial world champion of bicycle thieves (here’s a NY Times article), our trailer load drew some real attention from good samaritans.

Trailer load of bikes, some with locks still on them.

We were able to support a Toronto charity: Community Bicycle Network (CBN). CBN is a non-profit that repairs bikes, refurbishes and sells donated bicycles, sells new and used parts, rents trailers and bikes at affordable rates, and offer space to practice and learn bike mechanics and cycling skills. CBN has been dedicated to promoting community-based sustainable transportation initiatives since 1993.

Steve with John at Community Bike Network

With just a little bit of time and effort, the donated bicycles will be sold at a very low cost to people that couldn’t otherwise afford them; instead of heading for a landfill.