I intensely hate goodbyes. Perhaps it’s because the folks who I am now the closest to generally live far away. And when I get to see them, I don’t like to see the end of another visit or get-together.

About a week ago, at the end of a celebratory lunch, Herb Noseworthy said “toodle-loo” to me and that was much easier to take.

Herb, recently retired from Norseman Plastics, has a house-chores list that is gradually getting completed. And by mid-to-late July, he is heading towards the Philippines and other Eastern locations. He has a return ticket available for use within the year and an email address that will enable him to provide updates when internet access, a power supply and the interest makes it convenient.

Good on Herb.

And how fortunate for composting that he devoted so much of his time and efforts to promote backyard composting and curbside green bin collection programs through the products he and his team so ably created and represented.

When asked, he thought that they have distributed well over 2 million backyard composters and many additional millions of green bins and kitchen collectors to-date. And while most of them have been sales, he was always generous to our Council’s efforts.

What now seems like many years ago, we once got into a horsetrade situation that enabled our Council to have the funds for Composting Week. A discontinued product donation that otherwise was destined for landfill became our trade-for-cash which saved both the day as well as our week.

And, like so many of his direct competitors as well as the wide range of companies and organizations who have helped build the composting industry in Canada, our national conference planning was always made a little easier when we got his team’s “yes, we want to exhibit at your conference” nod each year.

These type of things don’t make headline news but they do help make our world go round, allowing things to get done to keep composting and our Council moving forward.

And so when a chapter closes, it is always good to take a grateful pause for a moment to acknowledge the magnificence of the achievements, celebrating past successes and hoping for future possibilities of having paths cross again.

Posted by Susan Antler at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is a week of travelling. I can’t remember now where I was on Monday… oh, in the office and at a meeting near the airport.

Tuesday in Montreal for a great meeting with the folks from Recyc-Québec, the Ville de Montréal and the Quebec Interdisciplinary Ornamental Horticulture Federation (FIHOQ).

A train ride to Windsor today, a super visit to the Essex-Windsor Solid Waste Authority and a chat with Todd, Cam and Ralph about their compost program and issues that need to move forward to advance “the cause”. (How great Todd Pepper was to accommodate the meeting, being only 24 hours away from a trip to Sri Lanka to help a community over there with their waste management issues. GO COMPOSTING!)

Tomorrow, we have a morning meeting in Guelph to talk about the “organics” issue that our Government of Canada has dealt us… and a trip later that evening to Moncton for a Friday meeting about our National Conference, to be held in September (19th – 21st as a matter of fact – please plan to attend ---- with the 18th being an optional trip to PEI for a compost facility tour and a round of golf).

Friday will also involve a trip to both the composting facility at the Westmorland-Albert Solid Waste Management Corporation as well as the Greater Moncton Sewerage Commission.

And then we’ll meet up with Rod & Caroline Fry and drive to East River, Nova Scotia for a Compost Celebration on Saturday involving Envirem Technologies and Louisiana Pacific.

There have been 2 birthdays in the office this week that have missed their “lunch & cake” (at least for the office part of their lives) and my little 4-legged girl, Christie, has insisted on a couple of extra walks-to-the-office in the early morning with me, knowing full well that packed luggage or "getting suited up" is a sign of going away.

And everyone on our team is pulling together --- Danielle and Maité doing lots of heavy lifting, supported in the wings by Tyrone, Shannon, Michaela and Dana, with Bouchra having left last week to get big business experience before heading back to France.

Our 2 summer students, Ashley & Sabrina, are hyped and fitting in to the groove and the charm of our office (also known as Bart, Tucker and Christie --- our very own canine-doorbell/”it’s the courier”-sound machine, uniquely created ‘cause 3 of us have dogs that come to work with us).

We are making it up as we go along … that’s what happens when new paths need to be blazed.

We got agreement for a vegetable garden-composting-compost-Un Rang pour ceux qui ont faim display at FLORA, an outdoor garden event that is held from mid-June to Labour Day in Old Montreal. An amazing opportunity for our efforts in Quebec.

We have a beyond-fun series of displays planned for the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver this August.

We are moving forward with plans for our meadow garden dream at the Roxton Road Parkette, having received support from the Phoenix Community Foundation and the Toronto Parks and Trees Foundation (goodness, when do I tell my parents that we are going to be doing this? This is high potential parental-flipping material. This parkette is located on their street and it has been left virtually untouched since the street began its housing development in the early, early 1900s. It must be one of the last remaining pieces of undeveloped land in the downtown Toronto core. And it’s on my parents’ street. Here we are doing these community garden projects all over the place and I drive up the street and see this forgotten treasure … sitting at “the doorstep”. Extra personal (and parental – when they find out) pressure to make sure that it turns out great.)

And so a week happens.

Emails, phone calls, persuading, commenting, listening, suggesting, learning, faxing, getting mad, breathing deep and trying to make sure that no one sees you sweat.

And with all that is good, there is much that is not.

I love the fact that the environment is a high priority issue right now. And I hate it because it is bringing out lots of not-nice-things at the same time.

Posted by Susan Antler at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)