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Page 28 The OSCAR - OUR 37 th YEAR by: Elisa Zucconi On Saturday September 11 the Rideau River will become more than just a beautiful staple of the Old Ottawa South community, it will act as an important guideline by which dedicated Ride the Rideau participants will follow for a 100 kilometer journey. The Ottawa Hospital Foundation has launched the inspirational event Ride the Rideau which will commence in Ottawa and travel right through Old Ottawa South along the river until the final destination of Merrickville-Wolford is reached. The events main function is to not only celebrate groundbreaking research being done by The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) but to raise funds that will further this research and help build a brand new Centre for Innovative Cancer Research which will be located on the third floor of the newly expanded Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre. This new centre will be at the General Campus which will result in one of a kind research being conducted merely ten minutes from Old Ottawa south itself. The Hospital Foundation says the New Centre will accelerate research into “biological” treatments that harness viruses, cells and genes to eradicate cancer using new and advanced therapies that do not produce the same side effects as chemotherapy or radiation. The cancer centre being built will promote time acceleration meaning the time between lab discoveries to patient trials will be cut in half, therefore increasing your loved one’s chances of becoming cancer-free. Community members will have the chance to gather along the Rideau River to cheer on inspiring riders such as Gary Stein, 50, who was diagnosed with cancer three and a half years ago and will be riding in the event on September 11. The Stein family lives in Old Ottawa South close to the river on Fentiman avenue, and after moving to Ottawa they have never contemplated living anywhere else, “we realized we never want to leave this neighbourhood. You know, whatever city you’re in you find a great spot to live, this neighbourhood is very friendly, it’s very caring and it feels small town-ish in the middle of the city. It’s a place where I hope we’ll live for a long time.” Gary has been a long distance runner for about a decade and has participated in seven marathons: three in Ottawa, one in Toronto, Quebec City, New York City and his most recent and proudest race, The Boston Marathon in 2005. Although Stein has always taken care of his heart through exercise, doctors discovered he had a rare form of cancer called synovial sarcoma in 2006. “The place I had it, in my groin, wasn’t a usual place...so it was a rare cancer in a rare or unusual place. It was a bit puzzling, to me of course, but also to the doctors.” It’s been over three years since Gary underwent surgery and received chemotherapy at The Cancer Centre and he has been well on his way to never looking back. Stein explains, “I don’t like to use the term survivor because it July 2010 The Ottawa Hospital’s Ride the Rideau Through Old Ottawa South To Raise Funds For Local Cancer Research doesn’t quite work for me as that kind of metaphor, and there’s always a risk something could...you know, reoccur, but things have been going so well, I believe that it’s highly unlikely. Two months ago my oncologist finally told me ‘I don’t need to see you again for a year’ so that is very good news! I was ready for that.” When Gary heard of this event through the media he immediately felt it epitomized the perfect way to give back to a local cancer-fighting cause. He continues, “it was up my alley for a whole bunch of reasons! I thought, this sounds like a great way to give back. It seems like the hospital is taking the first big step in trying to do an event that is really doable for most people, I don’t think you nee to be a professional rider or a really fit person to do it. I think you just have to want to do it.” Who wouldn’t? Every participant is asked to raise $1500 from which every penny will go towards The Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre’s innovative cancer research. If TOH receives this amount from just 100 riders (this is the number of riders currently registered) it will warrant an impressive $150,000 of cancer-fighting funds. For dedicated and motivated individuals such as Gary, the goal of $1500 was not enough. “I achieved my original goal of $2000 within a few days. It’s all because of the generosity of my friends and family and it wasn’t that difficult. The Ottawa Hospital Foundation have a great website that you can use to design your own webpage...it made it easy for people who know me to link what I went through to the important goal of local cancer research.” Stein has now proudly raised over $3,400 and is quickly approaching his improved goal of $4000, more than double the required funds. Gary Stein is now technically over 3 years in remission, but prefers to think of it as cancer-free, and feels that everybody deserves to receive the care they need as quickly as resources allow. “Cancer research might sound distant from the individual who needs the care but it’s not, I don’t think it is at all. The more that rare cases such as my own can be researched, it’s going to lead relatively quickly to better care for people who need it.” The Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre is one of the top 5 institutes in Canada and deserves support from members of the Ottawa Community and is especially personal for Old Ottawa South members who live so near to the river, the new Cancer Centre and neighbours like Gary Stein. “Between those two things, wanting to give back for the care and support I had and still get, and doing it in this way, on a bicycle, seemed like the perfect combination. It’s a good goal, an important goal, and it felt for me like the right thing to do.” To give back and/or participate in this influential event simply visit www. ridetherideau.ca and click ‘register’ to take part or ‘give’ to sponsor a fellow rider and a fantastic cause. To learn more about this local cause please visit The Ottawa Hospital Campaign at www. ohfoundation.ca
July 2010 By Rob Campbell There are all sorts of conferences all the time of one sort or another that one could go to. I’m sure that many readers have had to pick and choose wisely as well given limited budget and mostly - that most precious of commodities - limited time. One of the ‘must-attend’ conferences, in my view, that comes up once a year at a retreat north of Toronto is unusual in that it is a joint conference for both elected progressive school board trustees and municipal councillors. They often have a green theme and key note speakers have been from ecoleading municipalities such as Seattle and Germany and there have been sessions on greening schools and so forth. It is an opportunity for Trustees across Ontario to network in part. This year there was a panel reporting on the fallout from the failed Stockholm climate change conference. However, this year’s retreat had an additional twist to it. For an extraordinary fee, one could instead attend alternate sessions put on by a different organization and extend the retreat to a full weekend to take Marshall Ganz ‘Camp Obama’ training - with Marshall Ganz! Now, for anyone wondering, Marshall Ganz is a legend in organizing circles in the US and internationally. He helped organize US agricultural workers with Cesar Chavez, went on to teach at Harvard, and was the strategic brains behind the organizing revolution which powered the Obama campaign. His Camp Obama training weekends were conducted across the US in the period leading up to the Obama victory using an everexpanding train-the-trainer sort of house-meetings organizing model which was, now famously, The OSCAR - OUR 37 th YEAR My Weekend at Camp Obama massively successful. The magic in it is to go low-tech and to create authentic relationships with people and not to rely so much on top-down mass pamphleting, or radio ads, or e-mailing bombardments. Instead the focus is on creating a network of activists and a network of regular people taking leadership organizing roles and to create a real movement. Obviously relationship formation is appealing in a natural human way but apparently is also provably very effective. So, anyway, here I was being offered a chance not just to take any old Camp Obama weekend, which would have been worthwhile in itself, but a weekend with Marshall Ganz himself! He had decided one time only to venture north to Canada for this session in part, as he explained it, to help give back to Canada. When organizing the North America wide grape boycott as a young man he was tasked to go to the third largest market for grapes in N.A., which was Toronto, and to organize the boycott by grocers, wholesalers and restaurants there. Toronto embraced it enthusiastically and he cut his own organizing teeth in some ways here. So, some personal money, another two days away from home, but what a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! I did not hesitate to sign up. Marshall is a quick, smart, rotund, balding, white-haired, mustached and chuckling man. He brought a team of his students up from Harvard with him to help out at the event. There were maybe 200 of us existing or would-be organizers in attendance, some of us elected officials but mostly not, and with people from BC to Ottawa. The idea in part is to learn by doing, to gain confidence Sudoku Sudoku Solution on page 44 from doing, to be authentic and to have purpose. The science behind it all from brain to social research was explained, video speeches were analyzed, biblical and rabbinical stories shared, but mostly the focus was on the Ganzian method of learning most truly by doing. In a nutshell, the method is to create meaningful relationships between people and between people and their organizing work. Relationships require connection and a primary means of establishing connection is by means of the power of narrative. What? Storytelling?! Yup. Initially disbelieving, I have to say that I am now something of a convert to this method. Other hard-boiled sceptics at the table left similarly impressed I know. The training starts out with focusing on how to tell the story of your own self and how you came to this point and your actual motivations. Boiling that down to an ever-shorter but compelling and entirely genuine personal Story of Self. This is important in order to introduce yourself to people as something more than a ‘stick figure’ of some sort. Then one moves to the Story of Us. In listening to others’ stories one needs to detect and define what is common amongst us all. Right now, what unites me and you is an interest in community (or you would not be reading this). What is it then that motivates such different people to come together on, say, a weekend or to fight for some cause or other back in our towns? This story is important as it establishes a genuine basis for common action and motivation. Finally, we worked on creating a Story of Now. What is it that is going on now that is important to the Story of Us and that the Story of Self demonstrates is inescapably integral and necessary to oneself as well? The increasingly refined multi- To complete the puzzle: 1. all rows must contain digits 1 to 9 only once 2. all columns must contain the digits 1 to 9 only once. 3. each of the nine boxes must contain the digits 1 to 9 only once Page 29 part stories get interwoven on the final day and build into a simply brutally timed short speech. The ‘final exam’ on the second day is to actually organize something real in a team and to immediately, as in *NOW*, from the training site, use one’s cell to phone home to organize something real for a specific date. This breaks down barriers to action and is enabling, and a crucial part of the training. The very structure of Marshall’s own training weekend followed his method: his own story of self was presented at first, then our stories were told and common themes emerged and then what we needed to do next was set out clearly and convincingly (ie. organize others), and so forth. What seemed natural as a training camp was in fact clearly a very skilfully and thoughtfully constructed program which itself exhibited what it sought to instil. I don’t think I was exactly transformed by the weekend but I did come away feeling empowered and perhaps more confident. Also, somewhat more determined to help improve this world of ours and maybe to raise my own inner activist bar a notch. I became determined as a result to encourage others in their busy lives to think freshly about maybe putting themselves into a more socially engaged picture than they may have been heretofore. A sense of possibility and of hope is important but hopefully we all already harbour this. We all care about our community too, and in improving it, and there is no better time to get involved in improving it really than right now for, as the rabbi said, if not now then when? Thus endth the lesson. To book an OSCAR ad call Gayle 730-1058 oscarads@ oldottawasouth.ca
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Page 3 and 4: July 2010 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Sen
Page 5 and 6: July 2010 OSCA PRESIDENT’S REPORT
Page 7 and 8: July 2010 CITY COUNCILLOR’S REPOR
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Page 17 and 18: July 2010 Squirrel Talk By Michaël
Page 19 and 20: July 2010 By Robert Taylor A sell-o
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Page 33 and 34: July 2010 By Anna Sundin The OSCAR
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Page 37 and 38: July 2010 117ABBOTSFORD HOUSE By: J
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Page 41 and 42: July 2010 Big “0” Cake 0 fat. 0
Page 43 and 44: July 2010 By Anant Nagpur I just re

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