UnderGrouse: Photos of Life in North Van

The Presentation House Gallery in North Vancouver is running a super cool contest through the month of October called UnderGrouse: Photos of Life in North Van, which encourages North Shore teens (13-18) to pursue a deeper interest in photography by submitting a series of three photos following the theme.

Together the photos should relate to each other in a way that creates or implies some kind of narrative. Put some thought into it! Be creative! Is there an aspect of North Vancouver that you feel is worth photographing? This is your opportunity to show us more than just a pretty picture, so give us something to think about.

Now, there’s even $1,000 cash on the line plus some other great prizes for 2nd and 3rd place. So check it out, invite your friends, and get out there! The deadline for submission is October 31st.

The Presentation House Gallery is located at 333 Chesterfield Avenue, on the corner of Chesterfield and West 3rd Street.

The Greater Vancouver Food Bank is looking for a few passionate volunteers

The Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society has been supporting those in need for the past quarter century. What started out as a temporary measure to provide food assistance to a small number of people in need now serves approximately 25,000 recipients each week, and 10,000 are children.

Food Bank programs include the Basics for Babies program, Kids Picks, Community Kitchens, and Community Angel Food Runners program which recovered the equivalent of 1.3 million meals last year (providing food to 100 to 120 agencies weekly the food they need for their food programs). The food bank is busy within our communities trying to meet these needs and could not do this without volunteer support.

Turkey Trot 10k Run, October 12th and 13th –
40 Volunteer Positions Available

The Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society has been involved with Turkey Trot from its beginnings in 2000. In its ninth year it continues to grow in popularity as one of the must-do races of our community. This fun event promotes and celebrates wellness for people of all ages, and all participants are encouraged to bring food or cash donations in support of the Greater Vancouver Food Bank to fight against hunger in our communities.

Benefits of being a Turkey Trot Volunteer:

• Exclusive Turkey Trot t-shirt
• Gourmet food at race
• Camaraderie with a great, generous team!

The available shifts:

• Sunday, October the 12th. From 11am to 3pm
• Monday the 13th. From 6:30am to 11:00am. **Race Day**

The available positions:

• Race registration
• Chip distribution
• Course marshals
• Food distribution
• Set-up, and take down
  
  

Investors Group Comedy Tour, October 28th –
15 Volunteer Positions Available

The Investors Group’s Western Canada Comedy Tour will be held Tuesday October 28th at 8:00pm at the Orpheum Theatre at 884 Granville Street, Vancouver. The Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society is looking for 10-15 volunteers to help out on site from 6:00pm to 8:00pm. The task will involve assembling boxes and taking food donations and then loading the boxes into a van at 8:00pm. Free tickets are available for the volunteers to attend the show if they wish.

Contact Doug Aason at douga@foodbank.bc.ca or 604-876-0659 ext. 109 to help out with either of these events for this great cause.

Where to find Grouse Mountain on the web

As social networking and spending time online becomes a way of life for many people (me included), we've decided to implement a few ways you can find out what's going on here at the mountain. We want you to be able to find what you're looking for quickly and easily and we don't want to bombard you with a bunch of information you don't want.

Here are a few options:

Grouse Mountain Email Newsletters:
You can sign up for our email newsletters and choose from a whole bunch of different options:

• General Interest
• Winter Recreation
• Blue Grouse Sustainability
• Y2Play Pass Info
• Winter Snowfall Alerts
• Terrain Parks
• Summer Recreation
• Hiking and Grouse Grind
• Dining Info and Events
• Career Opportunities
• The Peak Times: Corporate Newsletter

Our RSS Feeds:

• This What's New at Grouse Mountain blog
• The Park Sessions terrain parks blog
  (this will get far more exciting once the snow starts falling)
• The Ranger's Journal blog from our very own wildlife expert, Devin Manky
  
• Grouse Mountain Calendar of Events
• Grouse Mountain Press Releases

Facebook:
We have a few different pages and groups going on Facebook

• Grouse Mountain Fan Page
• Grouse Grind Fan Page
• Last year's BYOP group (where you can find and connect with terrain park riders)
• Grouse Mountain Refuge for Endangered Wildlife group
  

Plus, most of our events get posted there too, so if we're having an event and you want to talk about it, chances are others are talking about it too, so we'll take the conversation there where discussion boards and walls are built in features.

Twitter:
Yes, Grouse Mountain is on twitter. Follow @grousemountain for updates about changes in hours of operations, big snowfall, event updates, or just general banter as I see fit.

Friendfeed:
You can also follow Grouse Mountain's friendfeed updates on friendfeed if this is more your style. This includes updates from multiple sources on the web.

We also have a Grouse Mountain YouTube channel, but that's mostly just for hosting videos, but we'll get your comments if you leave them.

So I hope you'll check these out and figure out which ones are important to you. Alternatively, if there's somewhere you want us to be, let us know and we'll check it out.

Smoke-Free on Grouse Mountain

May 31 was officially World ‘No Tobacco’ Day. Here at grouse Mountain, we took things literally and instituted a smoke-free resort. As such, staff and guests were asked to remove themselves from the property (yes, that means go all the way back down the mountain) if they wanted to light up. Our goal is to become the first ‘smoke-free’ resort in BC. We discovered this will likely be more easily attainable than first thought. Our guests were very supportive, and our staff who do smoke have been interested in the initiatives we have planned to help them quit. These include money towards smoking cessation products, prizes and days off with pay for milestones met, and more. In collaboration with the Canadian Cancer Society, we are working hard for the health and safety of our employees and guests.

With annual visitors reaching about 1.2 million, we have the ability to make a large impact. Likewise, we are the largest youth employer on the North Shore. With the youth population being one of the largest groups to take up smoking, we have a responsibility to take action. Check out this clip courtesy of Global TV who came to cover this event.

Grouse Mountain on Global Television all summer long

We're excited to bring the people of Vancouver a taste of Grouse Mountain all summer long via Global TV. Starting June 16th, this awesome 3o-second commercial will play not only on Global, but on the Tourism Vancouver TV network at tourism info centres and in hotel rooms throughout the city.



Whenever you ask someone if they know about Grouse Mountain the standard reply is, "Yeah, sure! I was at grouse, um... maybe 15 years ago." Well things have changed... a LOT. While we have kept some of the old favourites of years gone by - the Grouse Mountain Fly-In, for instance - we have way more to offer than you will remember from many years ago.

In summer, experience lumberjack shows, Birds in Motion demonstrations, scenic chair lift rides, guided or self-guided Eco-Walks, Ranger Interpretive Sessions at the grizzly bear habitat of the Grouse Mountain Refuge for Endangered Wildlife, spectacular dining and now the brand new Air Grouse mountain zipline adventure - Vancouver's only zipline circuit.