Musicians wanted for Duke Street West Music Fest! (March 2018)

 

The first ever Duke Street West Music Fest will take place on June 23 at the Duke St. Playground. The event will run from 2pm-5pm, and will feature an all Mount Hope-Breithaupt Park-based lineup.

We currently have several musicians lined up, and we want to hear more local talent! We are planning to host an open mic for those who want to play one or two songs, and also have 15-20 minute sets available. Amateur, semi-professional, or professional, this is your chance to play the most laid-back festival in Waterloo Region. Kids are welcome to play the open mic or sign up for a set. We can also offer accompaniment if you’d like to sing a song or two.

If you would like to play, email mhbpna@gmail.com. If you just want to play on the playground while others make music, we can’t wait to see you on June 23!

Public Forum: Approachable Density (March 2018)

 

On January 25, 2018 the Mt. Hope – Breithaupt Park Neighbourhood Association held our first public forum of 2018 called “Approachable Density”. This featured Robin Mazumder, a doctoral candidate in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Waterloo and Craig Beattie from Perimeter Development group. 

MHBPNA Co-Chair Levi Oakey played a key role in organizing this and other forums because “we wanted to help bring neighbours together and challenge everyone to see their neighbourhood through a different lens. Our first forum was an attempt to see a more humane way of building a neighbourhood through good design that would bring people together rather than separate them.”

Approachable Density took place in Workplace One at the Breithaupt Block and demand exceeded our expectations! The room can seat 30 – 40 comfortably and the event “sold out” on Eventbrite a couple of weeks before it began. Many Neighbourhood Association events are held at the Breithaupt Centre and we wanted to try holding these forums in other places around the community, but it has been difficult to find public space. 

Robin’s research is inspired by his passion for urbanism as well as his front line experience working as an occupational therapist (OT) in mental health. He graduated with his Master’s in Occupational Therapy from the University of Toronto in 2011. He worked with discharging patients and understood that city design impacted mental wellness. Robin saw how many people were lonely and when walking through their neighbourhoods with “cookie cutter houses” and poor transit, sociability was adversely impacted. Robin mentioned “Happy City” by Charles Montgomery as a book that influenced his thinking. Previously Mazumder has stated “People are becoming increasingly urbanized and moving to cities, and we have to start building cities and design them in ways that promote wellness and happiness”.    

Craig Beattie originally came to Waterloo Region through his work with the Waterloo Town Square. In that development, Craig’s work at the square earned him an Urban Land Institute Award as one of the top projects in North America. Craig discussed “why design matters” and analyzed several buildings to discuss what worked and what did not. For example, Absolute Towers in Mississauga won many design awards and look great from a distance but up close the design falls apart. When Craig and Perimeter Development proposed removing the parking from in front of Waterloo Town Square and creating an urban space there was resistance from the merchants. But over the past few years the former parking lot has transformed into a space for events and is used every day.

Both speakers received many questions and the audience was engaged throughout the evening. We thank everyone who came out and apologize there was not more room. This event highlights the need for more community space in our neighbourhood.

MHBPNA has initiated a development committee to engage with the city and developers about planning within our neighbourhood. We also want to provide more information about engagement meetings, developments, government and citizen interactions and many other pieces of information that are often lost.

 

 

Public Forums Sell Out! (Jan 2018)

 

Just a Reminder, our forum on Thursday, Approachable Density, is Sold Out! We wish we could fit more people in the room, but space is limited. We will post a summary of some of the issues and comments on our website/blog in the next week or two.

The next one, Inclusive Neighbourhood, on Feb 15, is also sold out.

These are our first public forums we’ve sponsored and we’ve been very excited and surprised by their success. We are trying to experiment with holding them different places around our large neighbourhood, instead of all at the Breithaupt Centre. But there are not a lot of publicly available spaces and they are all limited in size.

We thank everyone for their interest.

Trudy Beaulne (Jan 2018)

 

 

MHBPNA is sad to learn of Trudy Beaulne’s passing. Trudy was a volunteer with our association for many years and served as President and Treasurer. She helped run a movie night at the Breithaupt Centre for several seasons and was always available at picnics and other events to sit at our NA table and discuss community ideas. Trudy also helped organize the Festival of Neighbourhoods, an annual event that brings together all the Kitchener neighbourhoods to celebrate our accomplishments and to award prizes that encourage community building.

During our many Neighbourhood Association meetings Trudy would always ensure we remembered the disadvantaged in our plans for events and in any political activism on which we embarked. She also had a happy and slightly mischievous laugh. We will miss her.

For more information about Trudy’s life, here is an article in The Record and funeral information is here.

 

 

 

Photo Contest! Win prizes! (Jan 2018)

 

We’re having a photo contest! You may have noticed our new website design, and we’d love to have a rotation of great photos in the banner to showcase the best of our neighbourhood.

To enter, submit a photo that you have taken in the Mount Hope-Breithaupt Park area to mhbpna@gmail.com. Include your name, the name of the street that you live on, and a blurb about the photo. You may use existing photos if they fit the qualifications.

Your photo must:
1) Be taken within the MHBPNA boundary.
2) Be good quality (good photos from a phone should be fine)

Photos that can be cropped to 1000px by 290px are preferable as they will fit the banner size on the website. You can use an existing photo from the summer, or venture out in the winter.

All suitable entries will be entered into a draw, and three winners will be selected for the  following prizes:
2- $50 gift certificates to Cocoon Apothecary
1- $20 gift certificate to CE Bakery & Experience

All submitted photos will become the property of the MHBPNA and may be used for future articles, blogs or promotions. Artist attribution will be used whenever possible.

The deadline for submissions is March 31.

Update January 15, 2018: Multiple submissions are acceptable from residents of MHBP, and will result in multiple entries into the draw to a maximum of five entries.

Newsletter Forthcoming! (Dec 2017)

 

Happy New Year’s eve (and New Year) to everyone. As our lives get busier, and 2018 is hours away, many of us wonder “what happened to 2017?”

MHBPNA hopes everyone had a good 2017 and managed to relax with family and friends over the holidays.

We have been working on a physical newsletter to be delivered across our ‘hood. This should be ready in early January and will be delivered by volunteers. We could still use a few delivery volunteers in the Blucher, Ellis Ave, Ahrens area. If you would like to get some exercise and perhaps meet neighbours please contact us at mhbpna@gmail.com.

We are looking forward to more community engagement in 2018 and are sponsoring a number of public forums. There has been an extraordinary amount of development in our city over the past few years and there will be more in the next few years. MHBP is very close to the centre of it all. This is an important time to be involved as decisions made now will affect us all for years to come. Our executive meetings are open to the public and we encourage everyone to attend. Our next meeting is Thursday, January 18, 7 pm in room 104, Breithaupt Centre.

 

 

AGM CoChair “State of the Neighbourhood” Introduction (Oct 2017)

 

Thanks to everyone who came out to our 2017 AGM on October 21. It was great to see some new people and to chat with neighbours before and after the event. We had some great presentations about transit, city updates and an “insider” view of development. Over the next few weeks we will be sharing some of these presentations on this Blog.

Here is the opening address from our Co-Chair Levi Oakey. about the state of our neighbourhood and some of our hopes for the future.

2017: In Review

Ebbs and Flows

Introduction

I would like to start by acknowledging that we reside on the unceded territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples. I feel extremely privileged that I have been able to live on this land for the last 6 years.

Our neighbourhood has been a part of the history of Kitchener for many years. Louis Breithaupt first built his tannery in Kitchener at the corners of St.Leger and Louisa in 1857 and also built a large home, colloquially called Waldeck. Our hood comprises many sub-units as well, defined by their own unique histories. Midtown, Fairfield, Hillside, Lancaster, Mount Hope, Breithaupt Park and many others. MHBPNA was started in 1984 and over many years, like the river that meanders just beyond our borders, we have had many ebbs and flows. 2017 was a transitional year and I believe is an ebb before what I believe will be a transformational 2018.

Programs

At the beginning of 2017, we at the Mount Hope Breithaupt Park Neighbourhood Association were without a leadership team after many fruitful years under Lane Burman and Ted Parkinson’s fantastic tenure. I myself had first begun working with the neighbourhood association during that time. We made a decision to run the Neighbourhood Association by a committee of three, Shannon Sweeney, Carly Greco and myself. As a committee we set to work on some programs for the year.

Breithaupt Park Athletic Club

We once again ran the local neighbourhood soccer club that we call Breithaupt Park Athletic Club. We had close to 100 kids registered this year, expanding for the third year in a row. We also hosted a multi-neighbourhood event for Neighbours day at the Breithaupt Centre with participants from 6 other neighbourhood soccer programs.

Neighbourhood Garage Sale

2017 saw the relaunch of our successful neighbourhood garage sale. We created a digital map to point out the various houses with sales available. This was the same weekend as the Hohner Avenue Porch Party and turnout was very good. We’re excited to continue this tradition.

Our New Website

Throughout all of the events of the past year (and since 2008), Ted Parkinson has maintained the MHBPNA blog, a site that continues to see significant readers looking for information on what changes are occurring in our community. Nearing the end of this fiscal year, we began to transition the site to a WordPress blog hosted at www.mhbpna.org. This will help us to keep it more up-to-date and has combined the functions of mhbpna.org and the (original) Blogspot blog. We continue to work on the site and add new functionality and resources so please visit frequently.

Cooperative Programs

We have also been working with the Waterloo Region Songwriters group by providing free meeting space (if you would like information on this search for “Waterloo Regional Songwriters’ Group” on Facebook). Executive members have been also been meeting with the region and the City of Kitchener with other community organizations to discuss ongoing development issues around growth. We are hoping to create a “working group” on development in our neighbourhood and will advertise it on our website.

Challenges

We continue to meet significant challenges in our neighbourhood. Although our borders have always been defined by major arterial roads, the introduction of LRT and potential introduction of high speed rail will further segregate the community from the main hubs of Kitchener as well as, importantly, from the two main high schools that service our area in KCI and Bluevale. As well, with the widening of Weber street, we have a line that now severs our community down the middle. As our community has transitioned to a younger demographic, these changes are important.  We need strong community voices at the table to encourage the city and region to think of pedestrian connections throughout our community. Increasingly our community is being defined by the asphalt that is used in its surface parking lots and roadways than by the people that reside in it. Attempts to de-pave, such as the painting of the Ahren’s street crossing, remain priorities. As well as the need to connect neighbours to each other through events that we hope will get neighbours talking and noticing what both connects us and the infrastructure that is holding us back from making those connections.

Another challenge is our neighbourhood’s lack of retail options that help define places and interests. Our retail centres sit at the periphery of the neighbourhood (Lancaster to the East or King Street to the West). Beyond those locations it is a significant walk to get any type of store-front retail service. We need to encourage alternative stores, Etsy shops, and pop-ups to afford the entrepreneurs in our community the opportunity to sell their goods and for neighbours to have the opportunity to meet.

Opportunities

Beyond all of these challenges are immense opportunities. We have great biking and walking trails through Breithaupt Park, several parks and playgrounds (some of which have been recently refurbished) and the Spurline which has “spurred” many great opportunities to connect through the neighbourhood.

We also have examples, throughout the neighbourhood, of neighbours working together. And we, as a neighbourhood association can expand on this! We will encourage more frequent contact with our neighbours and with the City as an affiliate organization to identify potential issues and to help with coming up with solutions.

For more events and contact to happen we need more community partners. Our board is readily accessible and all our meetings are public. We have kept compulsory meetings to a minimum and we are happy to video conference members in.

As a Neighbourhood Association we would love to be the hub of activity, a conduit by which neighbours can bring their own unique perspective, events, opportunities to the table. One example of this is the return of what is called the Preuter Pace. This is a cross country run that starts at Preuter Public School but weaves it’s way through the Breithaupt Park trails. As an NA we’re helping to sponsor the ribbons that will be handed out at the end of the race. What I love about this initiative is that it is active, it’s community run and targeted towards our youngest neighbours. The ones we most desire to feel a connection to our little slice of this city.

We’re excited for the many challenges that our neighbourhood faces, and we are can’t wait to see the many creative solutions we as a community can deliver.

Thank you.

Levi Oakey