What we do: PHCRI Initiatives

Farmer's Market

In collaboration with the Enviro-Friends of Coldstream, PHCRI helped organize the first year of the Coldstream Farmer's Market in 2009. Fresh local produce, homemade crafts, food products, and plants/flowers are brought together on Saturday mornings from 9:00am - 12:00pm from spring to the autumn harvest. A wonderful group of hardworking vendors brought the fruit of their harvest to the edge of the Coldstream Conservation area behind the historic Marsh Store to be enjoyed by both locals, and those passing through town. We look very forward to watching this exciting initiative grow in the coming years!

The 2009 flyer can be found here.

 

Skills Inventory

PHCRI is conducting a skills survey in Poplar Hill and Coldstream to get an idea of what skills/talents/knowledge our friends and neighbours have. We do this in the hope that we can promote more local business and trade, make note of our collective strengths, and promote local self-sufficiency.

As we are able to, members of PHCRI are visiting each household in Poplar Hill and Coldstream to invite people to fill out the form we've developed. If you'd like to fill out the form, and we've not visited you yet, please feel free to download the form below.

Skills Inventory Form (pdf)

 

Other Future Initiatives

We're excited about the possibilities for the future! At each PHCRI meeting, we look both backwards at the amazing ingenuity of our grandparents and great grandparents, and forwards towards the world we will leave for our children, and their children. Of course, we in the present can and do make a big difference too.

Future initiatives include:

• Getting involved with the Transition Towns movement, an exciting international initiative that looks toward making sure our lives are happy and fulfilling on the down-swing after peak oil production, and the new world of global climate change.

• Developing a community garden, where people can share their knowledge and skills in regards to growing our own food, and get involved in growing even if they did not previously have somewhere to do so.

• Organizing Skills Workshops, where talented community members teach others how to do a certain valuable handicraft, or about a certain area of interest.

• Building a sample 'rocket stove', a form of simple stove that is designed to heat very quickly with small sticks.

Individual PHCRI members are also involved with activities such as:

• Developing alternative methods of power generation from the wind, using innovative methods, and without massive towers.

• Getting involved with larger, Canada-wide initiatives that ask our polititians, no matter which party they belong to, to take the issues of Climate Change and Peak Oil seriously

• Designing edible landscapes using organic methods to grow fruit, vegetables, and nuts right at home, without risking groundwater pollution from synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. (Taking much inspiration from the idea of Permaculture.)

Find out how to get involved!