Last year I supported closing the airport and I still support it. Exactly what happens at ECCA, how and when, is something I am interested in.

It’s not often a city has a chance to redevelop such a large parcel of land so close to its downtown. It needs to be done right.

So, to summarize, here are the messages Envision Edmonton and its supporters are sending out:

• We’re worried about what will happen to existing jobs at the City Centre Airport
• There may be family upheaval
• People will die because medevac patients may take longer to get to the hospital
• The “average” person wants the airport to stay open

So, Mack, you know what your opposition to the airport is going to do? It’s going to kill people and force them out of work (not necessarily in that order)! (I am kidding of course, but this is the undertone of the opposition.)

How valid any of Envision Edmonton’s points are, is up for debate. I haven’t extensively researched what has been done to make the case for the closure yet, but I have some questions that I believe are important.

I would like to see an analysis of the business case for closing the airport, from the city’s perspective, and have some questions:

• How much does the city currently net from the airport? Does the city make anything on it in terms of property tax?
• Has the city done an estimate of how much it would net if the City Centre Airport were to be fully developed? How does that compare to what it currently nets? How much will the city make from the sale of City Centre Airport land?
• If an environmental cleanup is required on the site, how much will it cost and who will pay? And, if an environmental cleanup is required, why hasn’t it already been done if people are aware of that need?
• What will be done to ease the transition for the businesses affected? How about for medevac flights? For helicopter flights, can they land directly at local hospitals? It would make sense if they could.
• Has there been a realistic assessment of how the businesses at the City Centre Airport will transition? Which ones are likely to close? How many jobs are likely to be lost? What will it cost the city to break leases, etc?
• How many jobs are likely to be created during a reconstruction of the City Centre Airport lands?

From the city’s perspective, I suspect the business case is strongly in favour of the current course of action. It’s not like this kind of thing hasn’t happened before. Vancouver’s gone through redevelopments like Granville Island, Yaletown and the Expo lands. Any other examples?

Development that made sense in the past may not make sense in the future. Sometimes tough decisions have to be made and it’s not always the case that nobody will suffer.

It’s a personalized self-directed learning (PSDL) format school, so I was instantly suspicious that it’d be a way for him to further coast through school.

Today’s discussion and past discussions leading up to our allowing him to attend St. Joseph have helped to more than allay our fears that this would be the case. If anything, there’s actually far more structure in this PSDL program than a regular school program.

We met his teacher advisor this morning and after learning more about St. Joseph, I wished I had gone to this school when I was in high school. It’s a neat place and I’m really impressed by the hands-on approach the teachers take at the school.

Courtyard at St. Joseph High School in Edmonton

While they are hands-on and in regular daily contact with students (many times throughout the day), they really rely on student initiative to succeed. Students have to step up to the bar and take responsibility for their studies and everything surrounding school.

I think that this expectation will work well for my son, who is a smart kid, but really sporadically motivated. I’m not going to go into a rant about the public school system because there’s no point. I think it serves most students well and St. Joseph, part of the public but Catholic school system, will serve my son the best.

This is just one more reason we’re happy we moved to Edmonton. In smaller cities and towns this just would not have been an option. I know my son’s happy to go, but happy for summer holidays too. We can’t wait for September! I know my son is interested in the drama program at St. Joseph too. Should be an interesting year!

It’s a rare thing, I can assure you. Normally my opening paragraphs are the size of most people’s entire blog posts. I’ve become much better lately at producing shorter, snappier posts in the interests of (hopefully) entertaining my visitors and attempting to keep you awake.

I feel good that the weekend is here and I’ve actually accomplished a few things this week. I’m beginning my journey towards becoming an early riser. I’ve been a night owl since late high school, so this is like climbing Everest to me.

I’ve still been getting to bed a little later than I should, but getting up early so I’m sort of burning the candle on both ends.

But, the weekend is here! I always like to have images in my posts and what do I find when I search Google Images for “thank God it’s Friday!”? You’ve got to laugh at that one. At first I thought it was a Dutch site, but  I think they were Swedish.

Anything going on in Edmonton this weekend worth noting?

I don't encourage drug use, but I do encourage laughing and this picture worked.

I have a particular obsession for macro photography and I especially enjoy taking pictures of plants, particularly flowers. I normally enjoy taking photos of wildflowers most, but there are certain domesticated flowers I’m fond of, such as the irises we’ve moved with us from B.C.

I think I like taking pictures of wildflowers because of the thrill of finding an unusual specimen in its natural environment. I like to wander in the wilderness or forgotten places searching for these flowers. I may be the only one ever to witness a particular flower in its fleeting beauty. I can be a little annoying as a hiking partner if I’ve got my camera.

Tips for photographing irises. Check out more of the wildlife and flowers in my yard.

Admittedly, it’s partially due to my participation in Empire Avenue, a kind of social media stock investing community/game. The more active you are, the higher your stock value will get.

There’s nothing wrong with having a little motivation. Sometimes we forget about things that are important to us and in recent years I’ve gotten away from writing and photography, at least on a personal basis. I still write professionally, but it’s not always the same. You certainly don’t have quite the same freedom.

I’ve been documenting some major family events recently, such as my uncle’s memorial service in Spokane, my daughter’s graduation in Williams Lake and my son’s grade 9 farewell from a Catholic junior high.

I’ve been putting as many photos as I can up on Flickr. As I say in my profile, my Flickr account isn’t so much a gallery of what I’d consider my best work, but more online storage of photos I have taken. I weed out the truly bad ones.

I know I’ve got lots of good photos in there, but I really don’t take the time to tinker with them in Photoshop as I see many people doing. My Flickr account certainly doesn’t function as a resume of my best work in hopes someone will randomly wander by and offer me a job as a professional photographer. I’m a little ways off from that.

I think my Flickr account is more of a documentary of my life and those around me, for better or worse. I also have been trying to get other family members to connect to my account if they’d like to download any of the full size photos so they can print them themselves. That’s been more of a chore, which is a shame because I think that Flickr functions pretty well as a hub for family and friends to share photos.

Colour accuracy

One of the issues I’ve always had with digital cameras is colour accuracy. It can be so tough to accurately capture the colours you’re seeing. I shot a set yesterday that I wasn’t too happy with, looking at the camera. I was pleasantly surprised when I loaded them onto my computer.

The colours of the flowers in my photos are very close to what I was seeing. That makes me really happy! If you look at my photostream in Flickr, you’ll see a lot of flowers. I’m a bit obsessed by them, but I prefer wildflowers and it’s better when they’re in their natural setting. I do have a few DVDs worth that I still have to upload too.

Sunsets and sunrises are another of my favourite photography subjects. It can be tough to get the colours just right there too. I don’t like to have to Photoshop them to get the colour correct. I prefer it to come out of the camera looking as it should.

I’ve been using my digital camera for four years now and I would say I’m reasonably accomplished, but I still have a lot to learn. I just bought a flash a few weeks back and that’s a whole other area I’ve got to learn.

I would like to try doing portraits with studio lighting eventually. I don’t want to be a pro, but I want to give it a try.

New camera equipment

As for equipment, one of my favourite kinds of photography is macro photography, so some type of macro lens is in my future. I would like a good quality wide-angle zoom, like a Canon 28-70mm f/2.8, but a Canon 24-105mm f/4 is another one I’m considering.

I have a 70-200mm f/4 already, and the 28-70 would be nice to cover the range. I thought a 24-105 might be nice for the overlap.

Eventually I’d like to get a full frame sensor body like a Canon 5D MkII. Then I’d be able to do some video also. Once I’ve done that, I’ll invest in a good wide angle lens.

I don’t plan on doing any of these things any time soon. Still undecided and I’ll invest in more lenses before I buy a new body.

Any suggestions on what lenses might be better or other lenses I hadn’t considered?

A bit of a mouthful, but what it does right now is allows you to “invest” in people and websites who are part of Empire Avenue. You can buy and sell stock in websites and other site members using Eaves (Empire Avenue currency). Eaves might actually be worth more than the Euro these days (there’s an obvious similarity between the two symbols).

You can build your bank full of Eaves by performing tasks on the site such as filling out your bio, linking feeds to your sites like Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, Stumbleupon, blogs, YouTube and more. You’ll also receive dividends each morning from your investments and past day’s activity.

Achievements are awarded in Empire Avenue based on your activities. The more active you are, the more you can achieve. You will be rewarded by adding feeds, others investing in you, spreading the word about Empire Avenue, amassing levels of wealth, listing your favourite brands and interests, rating the feeds of others and much more.

There’s a lot going on in this new site already, and I suspect it could be somewhat like Facebook and Twitter in terms of its ability to consume your attention, if you’re not careful. I’ve already found it to be a lot of fun and it may also be a good way to promote your business or website in a fun and different way.

I have to give the site creators a lot of credit for the thought they’ve put into Empire Avenue. The site is still in beta and requires an invite to get in, but if you can find an invite, it’s well worth it. I’m eager to see how the site develops

Empire Avenue Tips & Advice

Empire Avenue is really a game, and when I try a new game, I’m always eager to learn winning strategies. I’m not going to profess to be any kind of investment expert, but I’ve noticed a few things that have worked in Empire Avenue so far, and some strategies I believe will work going forward.

If you’d like to amass a large amount of wealth, you need some starter capital. Empire Avenue starts you out with some Eaves (Fresh face achievement of 1500?) If you’d like to quickly build your bank, make sure to do these things ASAP:

• Fill out your bio (picture, country, gender, location, birthday)
• Add 50+ interests (Three keen interest achievements. If you’re stuck for interests, look at other profiles to jog your memory.)
• Add 50+ brands (Use the same advice in interests.)
• Add yourself to 3 categories
• Rate 500+ items (Look for these in feeds on other profiles. Thumbs up or down.)
• Convince people to buy at least 100 of your shares (Don’t be annoying about it. You can buy ads. Connect with people.)
• Review Achievements you haven’t got yet (New ones are added regularly and can be easy to get.)

Once you’ve done these things, you’ll want to take your small fortune and invest it in other Influencers. Like Tony Soprano, you want to get your money “on the street” working for you. As far as I know, you don’t collect interest on Eaves sitting in your bank. You have the opportunity for capital gains (increase in share price) and dividends (period earnings based on shares) if you invest in other Influencers.

So, get to it! I did the usual thing by starting small and investing in friends. I quickly realized that you’ll want to invest in those who are prolific and active on their RSS feeds such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Stumbleupon, Flickr, YouTube, etc. Why? You can’t just go around clicking on thumbs to make money. Activity in social media is rewarded with higher share prices in Empire Avenue.

You want to make sure to invest Influencers who are active. Their share prices should remain high, increase your portfolio value and perhaps pay better dividends. You can see how active the person is by having a look at the feed on their profile. If there are few updates, they may not be so active (or on holidays).

Are they a good investment? Well, that depends. They could be a good buy if their stock price has suffered lately, but you know they’re normally quite active. Maybe they’re in hospital getting their appendix removed. That’s known as insider information and, as far as I know, there is no penalty for that in Empire Avenue. It could represent a buying opportunity.

Keep no cash

I quickly used up all my capital and put it on the street. I invested it all! The only downside is you might miss buying opportunities as more people come on to Empire Avenue. You might consider reserving a little cash for those opportunities.

Active in social media

If you look at “My Profile – Connections” you’ll read this: “Empire Avenue is all about building your online Influence empire. Building such an empire requires you to be active all over the web. As an Influencer connects more sites and services to Empire Avenue their share price, their influence and indeed, their value, will rise.”

How obvious is that? You need to post on Twitter and Facebook, share links, blog, post photos and videos, Stumble, etc. The more you do, the higher your value and the higher your stock price. More people will invest in you (hopefully they see the value) and you get a bit of a kickback when someone buys shares in you too.

It’s important to note that before any of your RSS feeds will create value for you, you will need at least five people to endorse your feed. The quicker this happens, the better it is for you (and them).

Once those feeds are endorsed, make sure to blog, post photos, videos, Stumble, etc. The web feeds on fresh new content and so does Empire Avenue. I really like this because I know I become a little complacent (lax) about new blog posts, etc, so this might spur me on to blog more and get out shooting photos and videos.

Empire Avenue Feeds

I had some difficulty adding my Flickr account. Your feed will look like this (http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?id=19599223@N00) but there’s one key thing to remember: for your Flickr feed, add the verification code to the title of a recent photo. It will NOT work in the description.

I suspect almost any RSS feed you have will work. I wasn’t sure where they were in YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/user/AlainSaffel) or Stumbleupon (http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/alainjournalist/), but it appears that your main page address will work. Make sure to upgrade those feeds to blog status where possible.

Having more, active feeds will show investors you’re active and a valuable commodity. Hopefully you’ve actually got something decent to say too!

Empire Avenue Future

This is just a primer on Empire Avenue. I’ve increased my share value almost 50 per cent in just a couple of days by doing these things. Who knows where I’ll end up, or whether I’ll end up in the hospital getting my appendix removed, but I am hoping my share value will continue to rise.

If you’ve got some more advanced Empire Avenue investment tips, feel free to share them. I haven’t even touched on longer terms strategies such as buy and hold. Hopefully your friends understand when you dump their stock!

You can keep up to date with Empire Avenue news too.

(PS I noticed after I posted this that there’s a fairly detailed explanation on the home page when you login about how Empire Avenue works. Just go to the help tab. Yes, I’m the guy who doesn’t read the instructions first. I feel I gain a better understanding by putting things together and taking them apart several times.)

I’ve heard that some people aren’t so fond of the design of the place, from the outside, but I actually don’t mind it. It’s certainly not the style of building I’m used to seeing in Edmonton, not that it’s a bad thing. I think it’ll be something that grows on people as well. You certainly won’t forget it!

Personally, I think it’s a fine addition to Edmonton’s downtown. The new art gallery is adjacent to Churchill Square  and has already attracted a great deal of attention downtown. I’m sure they’ll see a lot of walk-in traffic to the gallery during Edmonton’s many festivals held in Churchill Square.

I would like to thank Gilles Hébert, Executive Director, and Sarah Hoyles, Media Relations and Communications Coordinator, for taking time out to talk to the large group of Edmonton bloggers assembled there. I can imagine that January has been an extremely busy month for them as they work towards their grand opening in less than a week.

Quick facts: AGA Edmonton:

• Grand opening day: January 31, 2010
• 85,000 square feet
• 30,000 square feet of exhibit space
• Permanent art collection of more than 6,000 pieces
• Designed by Los Angeles architect Randall Stout
• AGA was founded in 1924
• Cost – $88 million

I hadn’t been sure of what to expect of the gallery tour, but I love art so I was curious to have a look at what’s going on. I’m not an art snob either, so I wasn’t too worked up about not seeing the displays or galleries yet. There will be time for that later.

Art Gallery of Alberta – Edmonton – Q&A session from Alain Saffel on Vimeo.

Check out more of my Art Gallery of Alberta photos on Flickr.

I also wasn’t too worried, as apparently a couple in our group were, that our two guides didn’t have every answer during the question and answer period. One question in particular, about whether the theatre could show Super 8 movies, was controversial (not that you’d know if from the video). (The Super 8 exchange starts at 1:45 in my Vimeo video.) Sarah and Gilles weren’t sure and I don’t think that’s a big deal. Ask most younger people today and they’d probably wonder why you were talking about movies from a motel. As any good reporter knows, you can always follow up and get that information.

Outside of that tempest in a teapot, I enjoyed the tour and the photo opportunities. I was actually quite caught up in taking photos, which I really hadn’t expected this day. With the facility not being complete, I’ll get a fuller look around once the galleries are open to the public. I think the intent of this tour was to get a little word of mouth happening in social media, and I applaud them for that.

Edmonton has been lucky to get some major art exhibitions in the past, and this new, expanded gallery should further assist in that effort.

Upcoming AGA exhibitions

• Jan 31–May 30, 2010 – Edgar Degas: Figures in Motion
• Jan 31–May 30, 2010 – Franciso Goya: The Disasters of War and Los Caprichos
• Jan 31–May 30, 2010 – Yousuf Karsh: Image Maker
• Jan 31–May 09, 2010 – The Murder of Crows by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller
• Jan 31–May 30, 2010 – Building Art: Photographs of the Building of the AGAby Edward Burtynsky
• Jan 31–May 30, 2010 – BMO World of Creativity: Play on Architecture!

I don’t know what the daily admission will be, but I noticed that an AGA family membership is only $85 and gives your family free admission for a year. Talk about cheap! Worth the investment I think. The individual and student rates are also quite low. The art gallery is also working on corporate sponsorship to be able to offer free days for public visitors.

If you’re a fan of architecture or art, looking for something different to do, or just trying to occupy the kids for an afternoon, the new Art Gallery of Alberta is definitely worth a visit.

Yes, I know, Edmonton is a big city and it’s a big job. Tell me something I didn’t know. What I do know is that I grew up in a place that got a hell of a lot more snow than Edmonton and it was dealt with just fine. Obviously when you get hit with a big dump of snow, the roads will suck for a while.

How the City of Prince George, B.C. deals with the roads now, I don’t know, but I know they actually did a pretty good job when I was growing up. They’d have graders and loaders out clearing main roads and residential streets and make pretty quick work of them. The graders even had drop gates to clear the front of your driveway so you didn’t have a three foot tall mountain of ice to clear.

Before I moved to Edmonton I had been here in the winter before, including during April 2005 when it snowed about a foot in one day. What a gong show! It seems better now, but marginally.

Now we have a house here and pay taxes here. So, we have a right to complain. Period. If the city isn’t doing a good job of spending the tax dollars of Edmonton residents and is proposing to raise taxes by eight to 10 per cent, we have a right to complain. Period. It would also help if we suggested ways of improving how they go about spending our money.

In that vein, I will throw a few suggestions out there and make a few observations.

In this sprawling city (whose fault is that?) there are a lot of streets to clear and the major routes should be the priority. I do find it puzzling that when I was sitting in a restaurant at 137 Ave and 97 St. on Friday night I saw nine snow plows in a row heading north on 97 Ave. Spread out a bit guys.

I was out driving the next day on 137 Ave and it was a mess, and that was down towards 66 St. They can’t even cut the snow back to the curb. I would think three plows should be able to clear the entire two lanes to the curb. Done.

And get the windrows as close to the curb as possible. I know it can be tough. God knows driving in Edmonton can be brutal when you’ve got people chit-chatting on the old cell phone, even in snow. I saw that yesterday too. Seriously.

I do wonder about how efficiently those resources are allocated out on the streets when this kind of dump of snow happens. I understand they won’t get to my street for a while, if ever, but at least do the major routes properly! They really aren’t.

I was also puzzled last year when I watched out my window after a snowfall, as at least three or four graders cleared snow on my street one day. I swear they must have made three or four passes each, and it’s a two lane street.

WTF? I’ve never driven a grader, but I’m convinced I could clear my damn street in fewer passes. I might even move a few neighbours’ cars off the street in the process. (Snow route anyone?)

End of season snow clearing

I have talked about the city’s end of season snow clearing a few times, perhaps even ranted. I’m prone to that, but I’m justified. (Usually)

Why, particularly on a residential street, do I need the snow cleared from the side of the roads at the end of the season? I took a bunch of pictures of the City of Edmonton snow clearing efforts in the early spring of 2009. There were:

• Three graders
• One large snow blower
• One flag person
• Someone in a City of Edmonton pickup following the snow blower
• A fleet of semi-trailer trucks hauling away the snow

I understand the city likes to recycle the gravel it spreads on the roads. Recycling is a shrewd and lofty goal. Sand and gravel are expensive, and recycling it makes sense. Here’s an idea though: let the snow melt. Novel, I know, but you’re going to send the street sweepers around anyway.

One sweeper with a couple of trucks (smaller and cheaper ones, I might add) to haul the gravel away is far more efficient than a whole fleet of people hauling away snow that will melt.

I would love to see the accounting analysis on this. Considering all the machines processing and hauling away that snow, I just can’t see them hauling enough loads of gravel per hour to make the activity pay.

How much does the city pay per load of sand? What’s the total cost per hour to do this snow clearing to recover the sand?

So, why not let it melt and let the sweepers pick it up? Yes, there will be more loads of sand, but it will be concentrated. You’ll need fewer, smaller trucks and they’ll only be hauling sand, not larger, more expensive trucks hauling a fraction of the amount of sand. That should save some money in the budget.

Street sweeping obsession

I have also noticed that Edmonton seems to have a bit of a street sweeping obsession. It’s not a bad thing that we like clean streets here, but I think there are limits. I swear I saw a sweeper on my street at least three times this summer, well after the spring sand and gravel had been picked up and well before my street had been repaved.

I would watch as they drove by, sweeping up virtually nothing! I was a little puzzled at that. Why not only sweep areas that actually need it? Don’t just sweep for the sake of sweeping. More money saved in the city budget.

Police directing traffic

As if the preceding cases weren’t insane enough, I have repeatedly seen Edmonton city police out directing traffic. At first, I thought there was an accident. Drug bust? Murder? Umm, parade? Nope.

Construction! Yes, our police, who apparently cost around $100,000 per officer, are out directing traffic through construction areas. Are you kidding me? I don’t care if they’re part of traffic services. They should be out stopping the speeders, red light runners, drunk drivers, texting drivers and others who make this city such a danger to drive in.

Instead the City of Edmonton installs green light cameras, like that’s going to solve the problem. It’s certainly going to chip away at the $20 million extra the Edmonton Police Service was hoping to get this year.

Why do they need $20 million more this year? I guess the City of Edmonton is going to be doing a hell of a lot more construction next year!

Why not get the EPS out stopping drivers causing problems and not directing traffic? Are we to believe there are no flagging companies who would like to bid on a city contract to control traffic in Edmonton construction zones? Are there not enough unemployed people in this city to fill the inevitable positions that would come out of this?

I know flag people don’t each cost $100,000 per year. More money saved in the budget and hopefully some dangerous drivers off the road.

Citizen auditor: Alain Saffel volunteers

Maybe our city needs to start ripping apart a few departments at a time and make sure they’re doing things properly. I have cited only a few examples here that just don’t make sense. Maybe an outsider perspective is needed? I’d be happy to help out. I’ll be a citizen auditor. I’m sure there are plenty of people in the city who would also like that opportunity.

For those who are telling people to leave the city if they can’t handle a bit of winter, you’re missing the point. It’s about efficient allocation of resources, and there are legitimate questions about how the City of Edmonton allocates its resources. I would prefer that the City does not waste a single tax dollar, especially when they want to raise taxes again. Every citizen in this city has the right to hold our city councillors and the accompanying bureaucracy accountable for its actions.

I’m sure we can find plenty of money to save in these tough times, with a sharp pencil, creativity and a critical eye. Can I just ask for one teensie weensie little favour please?  Could we spend some of those savings on taking care of the sewer smell that seems to be so pervasive in this city?

If you hadn’t heard about ChangeCamp happened October 17 at Lister Hall at the University of Alberta. The goal of ChangeCamp was to answer the question: “How do we re-imagine government and citizenship in the age of participation?” It’s an “unconference,” which means that there’s no set agenda. The agenda is set that day by the participants in the room.

Our goal was to get 150 people out to the event and it seems that we succeeded. The room was full and we had about 25 people pitch topics to discuss that day. There were so many interesting topics; I would have really liked to have been at more sessions.

Overall, I was really impressed with how smoothly the event was run. The team running the event did an excellent job! I heard a lot of good feedback and everyone seemed pretty happy.

Who was missing?

Many people attended who billed themselves as “average citizens” which was nice to see. If political change is going to happen anywhere, in my opinion, it has to start from the bottom up. There are a lot of unhappy citizens out there. The evidence? What was the voter turnout in the last Alberta election? 40%? There are a lot of people frustrated with status-quo politics.

The rumour was that provincial employees were ordered not to attend. We only saw a few local politicians and, I believe, two MLAs. Granted, our politicians are busy people and this is the first ChangeCamp event we’ve had, but a few more would be nice. I’m hoping we have more ChangeCamps and get better attendance by our leaders.

There are some great posts I’ve listed below that go more in depth about what happened and their views on the events of the day. I’ll let the video and audio content I’ve posted speak for itself.

Technical stuff:

I was able to record the audio from several sessions and video from a few. That consumed quite a bit of my time on the day and I learned a lot from covering the event. I hadn’t planned on bringing my video camera, but I’m glad I did. I focused on individual sessions and tried to cover them completely. I’ll be posting to Flickr, YouTube and other locations as I get the files processed.

I haven’t watched all the footage but it seems good, generally. I’m not a post-production video guy, so processing the video and posting it has been a learning experience. I’d just like to say I hate YouTube’s 10 minute rule.

Things I’d do differently?

• Bring my video camera charger and an extra battery.
• Bring more SD cards for my video camera.
• Bring a proper microphone for my video camera.

What I did right

• I brought my tripod (I hate shaky video).
• I brought two audio recorders & fresh batteries (to record sessions I wasn’t in).
• Brought my point and shoot digital camera.

I really enjoyed covering the event the way I did (I still miss being a reporter). While I didn’t participate as much as I would have liked, I felt an obligation to record what was happening so it wasn’t lost.

Links, media, photos, video

Photos of ChangeCamp Edmonton

• ChangeCamp Edmonton Flickr group

Youtube videos/audio about ChangeCamp Edmonton

• Accountability journalism – 4 parts – audio (link to part 1)
• Opening video – Mark Kuznicki

Blog posts about ChangeCamp Edmonton

• Chris Labossiere
• Dave Cournoyer – Daveberta
• Alex Abboud
• John Winslow – SirThinks
• Andrew McIntyre
• Robert Burwood – bOpen
• The Edmontonian
• The Edmontonian – Why I’m going
• Debra Ward – Edmonton Ambassador

Media about ChangeCamp Edmonton

• Edmonton Journal
• The Gateway – University of Alberta
• See Magazine
• Metro News
• Vue Weekly
• Unlimited Magazine

ChangeCamp Edmonton – official

• Wiki – day of ChangeCamp
• The Grid – what we talked about

Social media

• Twitter search – #yegchange
• Scribblelive – ChangeCamp #yeg

If you’ve got any suggestions for links to add, please comment. I’ll also add more of my audio and videos from the day of.

The idea behind ChangeCamp is “How do we re-imagine government and citizenship in the age of participation?”

This is also on the ChangeCamp Edmonton site: “ChangeCamp addresses the demand for a renewed relationship among citizens and government. We seek to create connections, knowledge, tools and policies that drive transparency, civic engagement and democratic empowerment.”

I think those both capture it fairly well, but I feel like I need to inject a bit of my vision, for what it’s worth. This is why I’m involved and this is my view, not necessarily the view of others who are involved in ChangeCamp.

I’m participating in publicizing the event and trying to get various interest groups and interested parties out to the event. It’s a time consuming task to contact all the groups who really should be represented there and who would have a strong interest in what’s going on.

In some ways it reads like a “who’s who” or “the usual suspects,” depending on your point of view. I’m not saying it’s going to be an elitist event where you have to be “in the know” to be able to attend. That’s not the intention of anyone involved, and I wouldn’t want that perception to be out there either.

Value in diversity of opinion

What I would like to see is a good mix of the population represented at ChangeCamp Edmonton, from the business community right down to those living in poverty. I think ChangeCamp needs a broad cross section of the community to talk about the issues around governing, accountability, transparency and citizen engagement.

Does this capture how you feel about politics lately?

Let’s be honest. We are far from having truly accountable and transparent government at any level in Canada, no matter what the party. Citizen engagement is something most politicians seem only to consider up to and including election time. After that? Well, it depends on the politician.

I know the types of people who will show up to ChangeCamp for sure. They’re the same ones that show up for so many of these kinds of events. They’re the type of people who are interested and engaged in what’s happening in our society, and I thank them deeply for that.

The people who are not as likely to be represented at ChangeCamp Edmonton are those who are disenfranchised, poor, frustrated with the system, marginalized, haven’t voted in a long time, have never voted, new to Canada or just plain pissed off.

These are the people, in addition to the rest, that I would really like to see attending ChangeCamp. These are the people that, if they got involved in the political system, have an incredible amount of political power and ability to change things. For a variety of reasons, they’re not represented.

I don’t see ChangeCamp as an advocacy group and it’s not. There are people from across the political spectrum involved. I see it more as a group trying to facilitate a discussion among this country’s citizens to see how we can make government into something that works better for everyone.

Frustrated with politics? Come out to ChangeCamp. Got friends who feels the same way? Bring them too.

I’m not expecting to change the world in one day, but it’s a first step. It’ll be your opportunity to get out and interact with people who are also interested in changing politics, making government more accountable, transparent and increasing civic engagement and voter participation.

I am hoping to see some of our MPs, Alberta MLAs and Edmonton city councillors in the room to participate in the discussion.

Please take the time to attend. It’s important to have your contribution to the process and to have an open, honest, civil discussion about our political system and how to make it better. It’s an “unconference” format where you help to decide on the topics that will be discussed. Perhaps you’d like to help out by leading a discussion on a topic?

There have been other ChangeCamps in Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver.

ChangeCamp Edmonton happens on:

October 17, 2009 Saturday
Lister Conference Centre – Maple Leaf Room, University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta
Lunch will be provided.

You can get involved by signing up to the Facebook ChangeCamp page.

Or register right at the ChangeCamp Edmonton registration page.