Put on your thinking caps, and join us at the Branch Restaurant on
 February 13th at 6:45pm. We’ll be entertaining you with an array of 
short video clips, interspersed with games of trivia that relate to 
issues of sustainability in North Grenville and beyond. Bring your friends and form a team, or play for prizes individually!

As usual, a buffet, coffee, tea and sweets will be on offer by 
donation.

Attention Students! SNG Video Challenge Launch
Get inspired by the numerous video shorts that will be highlighted at SNG’s “Video Shorts and Trivia Night”. On February 13th, join us for an evening of fun, and learn more about our upcoming student video challenge!

Please join the United Counties at one of the upcoming community workshops between January 24 and 26 that will create a vision for a sustainable future in Leeds Grenville! You can participate at the workshops and online at www.leedsgrenville.com/icsp and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LeedsGrenvilleICSP

Registration begins each evening at 6:30 p.m. with sessions running from 7 – 9 p.m.

Dates and Locations

January 24
Westport / Rideau Lakes
North Crosby Community Centre - 
875 8th Concession Road, North Crosby

January 24
Gananoque / Leeds and the Thousand Islands
Firehall Theatre
 – 185 South Street, Gananoque

January 25
North Grenville / Merrickville-Wolford
Merrickville Community Centre – 
106 Read Street, Merrickville

January 25
Front of Yonge / Athens
Front of Yonge Community Hall
 – 76 County Road 5 South, Mallorytown

January 26
Augusta / Prescott / Edwardsburgh / Cardinal
South Edwardsburgh Community Centre
 – 24 Sutton Drive, Johnstown

January 26
Elizabethtown-Kitley
Cedar Valley Golf & Country Club
 – 7041 County Road 29, Forthton

For more information please visit www.leedsgrenville.com/icsp

Canada’s cherished healthcare system currently faces many challenges. Millions of Canadians do not have access to a family doctor, and healthcare currently gobbles up nearly half of the provincial budget in Ontario. Chronic disease has reached epidemic proportions, with rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer on the rise. Yet, our current healthcare model repeatedly fails to deal with these problems effectively, despite the billions spent. Antibiotics are swiftly losing effectiveness against resistant bacteria, and pandemics like swine flu revealed just how ill prepared our governments are to deal with an outbreak of serious infectious disease. Juxtaposing these realities against the backdrop of an aging population, budgetary restraint and climate change, is our healthcare system sustainable?

Is there a more sustainable model for healthcare? How can we as a community help each other live healthier lives and prevent illness, rather than just reacting to it? What is the role for traditional healing methods such as herbal medicine and nutrition in preventing and treating disease? What are the untapped economic opportunities that a new approach could offer the residents of North Grenville?

In this talk, Dr. Shawn Yakimovich, ND reviews the challenges facing the current system, and looks at the opportunities for positive change that this crisis presents to our community. Shawn is a naturopathic doctor who lives and practices in Kemptville. He brings a unique perspective to the healthcare discussion, based on his background in human nutrition and naturopathic medical practice.

Shawn will outline how naturopathic principles create a medical paradigm that is rational, preventative, holistic and responsive to community needs. Such a system requires us to be good stewards of our environment and is therefore both dependent on, and supportive of sustainable ecological, agricultural and economic practices. He believes unique opportunities exist in our local community that can make North Grenville a model community when it comes to the health of our residents and our environment.

Enjoy some friendly bidding (we hope!… no wrestling allowed!) and get some great ideas for spending your gift-giving dollars locally. Monies raised will support the 2012 Sustainability Fair on April 22nd, 2012.
There will be a buffet, coffee, tea and sweets on offer by donation, as well as a cash bar.

Please join us on Monday, December 12th at the branch restaurant. Doors open at 6:30PM. Admission is free.  

For more information or to learn how to get involved please contact info@sustainablenorthgrenville.ca

The branch restaurant

November 14th, 2011 — 6.45pm
Oil is a wonderful substance. Produced over a geological timeframe, it is a once-in-a-planet’s gift to the species that worked out how to extract, purify and utilize it. What it has allowed us to do is truly remarkable, both good and bad. It has transformed our social structure, our work habits, our food network: almost everything we now take for granted would have been totally alien to our forebears who celebrated Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in Kemptville in 1897.

It has been, for the western world at any rate, a rather wonderful ride, albeit with a few hiccups here and there.

Within an embarrassingly few generations, however, we have come to the point where most of the easy-to-get oil has been scooped up and used. This comes at a time when the world’s dependency on oil has never been greater.

How will our oil-dependent way of life change, should production fail to meet demand? Is there any fat that can be trimmed from our society that will allow us not only to meet this challenge, but which will actually improve the way of life for us all? Has our ability to make life easier for ourselves made us less flexible? Can we transition away from something so fundamental to our lives here in the snowy northern hemisphere?

In this talk Doug Hendry explores some of what we have achieved using the reserves of oil, and looks at whether Peak Oil is a problem or might in fact be an opportunity.

Doug is a Kemptville resident who, in real life, works all day at solving problems. He also teaches at the University of Guelph, Kemptville Campus and is the former Director of Archives for the North Grenville Historical Society as well as a member of many other community organizations and initiatives.

Everyone is welcome to attend this free presentation.
A light buffet, coffee and sweets by donation, as well as a cash bar, are available.

For everyone interested in the film itself, as well as the various water related issues raised we have included some resources and links below:

We look forward to seeing you all at our next event. Stay tuned for details!

In BLUE GOLD: WORLD WATER WARS, based on the book of the same name, we follow numerous worldwide examples of people fighting for their basic right to water, from court cases to violent revolutions to U.N. conventions to revised constitutions to local protests at grade schools. As Maude Barlow proclaims, “This is our revolution, this is our war”. A line is crossed as water becomes a commodity. Will we survive?”

Sustainable North Grenville is pleased to announce that we will be screening the movie ‘BLUE GOLD: WORLD WATER WARS’  at the Branch Restaurant on Monday, August 8th.
The movie will start at 7:00PM with available light buffet, coffee and sweets by donation. A cash bar is also available. Door open at 6:45PM. $5.00 admission at the door. 

To view a trailer for the film click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikb4WG8UJRw&feature=channel

For more information or to learn how to get involved please contact info@sustainablenorthgrenville.ca

The message of Planeat is so powerful that it was screened in Parliament in London, England as requested by Willie Bain, Shadow Minister of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to an audience of Members of Parliament, industry peers and NGOs with an interest in sustainable food policy.  A panel discussion followed with Head of One Planet Food Mark Driscoll, Tom MacMillan of The Food Ethics Council and Dr. Mark Sutton, lead author of the recent European Nitrogen Assessment, which concluded with plans to begin the effort behind asking government for a change in UK food.

View the trailer at:  www.DonnalynMurphy.com/planeat or http://planeat.tv/watch-the-trailer .

Brought to you by Body & Soul Health Coaching & Donnalyn Murphy, the only Canadian licensed to host screenings of Planeat.