Winter years approach so MJ goes to Florida after FMCC party

Michael Pelzer photo

As the Winter of my years approaches, not quite there yet, my life is undergoing changes as the adventure continues.

One the biggest over the past two and one half years or so, is the Friday Morning Coffee Club, the hour or so I spend each week with some of the greatest guys I have ever met.

FMCC was founded in the Starbucks at the Target store.

 We now meet at White Spot, but on occasion move to other locations for special occasions.

In fact, before I left for Orlando, FMCC held a birthday party for me. We try to hold them for all the members, and renditions of Happy Birthday are tremendous.

A good number of our members sing in choirs, singing groups and so on, so it is really a special moment, when they wish Happy Birthday, led by founding member Joel Vinge.

We went to the Pines in Kimberley last Friday where Gordon has been spending a week, and what a great place that is.

Thanks to the Pines for letting us use their special room.

On a sad note though, our good friend Peter Davidson, died recently while out hiking with friends.

Joel asked us to join him in a moment's silence for Peter. I extend my most sincere sympathy to Maureen, and all of Peter's family and friends.

Peter, my friend, you were the good shepherd. Rest In Peace.

Another change this year is that I am writing from Orlando, Florida, where I am visiting my good friends Michael and Nory. This is the first time in my life I have not been in Canada for my birthday.

Thanks to Joel for sending me the photos and to Jim for his help as always.

Finally, thanks so much for all the good wishes. They make those approaching Winter years so much more positive.

Every blessing to all!

Michael

Orlando Moving Toward a Sustainable Future with Envision 2040 Led by Mayor Buddy Dyer

photo by Michael Pelzer

By Michael J Morris

Buddy Dyer, the visionary mayor of Orlando, Florida, challenged his community to develop a plan that would transform Orlando, within a generation, into one of the most environmentally-friendly, economically and socially vibrant communities in the nation. It now ranks 39th on the list of most livable cities in the United States.

On my most recent regular visit to Orlando, I was once again impressed by the efforts led by Mayor Dyer to move the city beyond its fame from the home of Disney World and related tourist activities -- even though on this trip I had a wonderful time at  Universal Orlando and similarly at  Gatorland on a previous trip, and I was totally impressed with the experience.

The Green Works Orlando Community Action Plan will include energy, green economy, livability, local food, solid waste, transportation and water goals, centred around the results from Envision 2040, an ideas competition which aims to illustrate what the city will look like in the future.

To get it all underway, a 20 member task force was appointed to make recommendations, and the action plan evolved out of input from round table meetings with subject matter experts, public comments, and, this one I really like, to ensure public participation -- an interactive online forum.

Envision 2040, the ideas competition is a first step and architects, planners, landscape architects, design professionals, artists, citizens, and students over 18 who are creative and advocates for a sustainable future of the City of Orlando were all encouraged to participate. The ideas competition sought input from interested persons locally,. nationally and internationally, not just Orlando.

After hearing about this community action plan. I visited the Green Works Orlando web site to get more information on Envision 2040 and discovered that those who responded to the challenge were encouraged to think creatively in their approach.

The competition intentionally allow(ed) for many different approaches to fulfill the submittal requirements. Applicants were free to design at the site, corridor, neighbourhood, or the city-wide scale...or a little of each....or in any other manner that you can dream up," the submission guidelines said. Registration has now closed and some projects completed.

Here are some results taken from the City of Orlando web site:

Some Green Works Orlando successes include:

• Expanded the Downtown LYMMO bus circulator and completed SunRail
• Launched car-sharing with bike-sharing
• Performed energy efficiency retrofits to 1,200 houses
• Completed ten LEED-certified municipal buildings, plus two more currently under construction
• Completed or approved $19 million in energy efficiency investments to municipal buildings
• Converted hundreds of fleet vehicles to electric, hybrid, or compressed natural gas
• Planted 10,000 trees and established five community gardens
• Increased recycling collection by 35%
• Adopted the 2012 Municipal Operations Sustainability Plan and the 2013 Green Works Orlando Community Action Plan

It adds: The ultimate beneficiaries of our work will be our children and grandchildren. We are continuing our efforts to guide Orlando on a course toward long-term sustainability. Working together, we can make a cleaner, greener and better Orlando for generations to come.

Orlando, like some other forward thinking communities, realizes that the future is now, and it is time to move beyond today to plan for environmentally-friendly, economically and socially vibrant places to live, work and play tomorrow.

If Orlando, Florida, can do it, why not your community?  My email ismj.morris@live.ca

"Culture of collaboration" needed in Cranbrook to move community forward

By Michael J Morris

 Buddy Dyer, the visionary mayor of Orlando, Florida, is "literally changing the face " of the city best known as a major tourist destination.

  Mayor Dyer, first elected in 2003,  in an interview with Orlando magazine  said “It’s about being able to create a vision and bring a lot of people into it, then move forward."

 The mayor has been real big on creating a "culture of collaboration" bringing together all levels of government, business people, educational institutions, the medical profession, and philanthropists, and of course the citizens of Orlando who have re-elected him.

The Dr Phillips Centre for the Performing Arts was opened on November 6, 2014, as one example, but he has also championed a sports and entertainment complex, the Medical City and Creative Village -- and other major projects.

On my recent visit to Orlando, I had the opportunity to visit the Medical City project. It is simply amazing.

 The Creative Village possibilities have intrigued me for some time, and at this point, in the interests of full disclosure, I visit Orlando regularly, and write for three blogs, owned by an Orlando based business.

 The article notes that "Thinking outside the box with proposals like ... Creative Village, the high-tech business-residential mecca that would be a metropolis in itself, goes along with Dyer’s vision of having the kind of city that will draw a creative class—'talented young entrepreneurs who are going to come up with the next innovation in emerging media or medical science or things of that nature.''

 Cranbrook voters went  to the polls to elect a mayor and council, and it seems to me they elected some candidates who would turn back the block to the old ways of running the city. That's not an option folks,  given the overall decline in relatively rural communities across Canada.

During a recent trip that took me through rural areas of three provinces, I was quite frankly shocked at the decline of rural communities. 

 Another option is to simply muddle along basically with same old, same old attitudes that are similar in nature to turning back the clock.

 There is a third option. Continue to define and implement a new vision for Cranbrook.

 Yes, there will be roadblocks but if Mayor Dyer can do it with all the challenges an American city faces, surely Cranbrook is up to the task before it.

 Just imagine, if we were able to attract those "talented young entrepreneurs" who will take Cranbrook to the next level as a better place to live, work and play. Mayor Dyer is moving Orlando from the city which Disney made famous, and adding to the mix for the 21st Century.

Let us move us forward positively in all aspects of community life, and not be divided with rhetoric and an approach to municipal government from a bygone age that some still like.

 Let's heed Mayor Dyer's advice that we continue with the vision, bring the entire community into it and move forward. My email is mj.morris@live.ca

Sound of story most dominant in brightest and darkest moments

Photo by Michael Pelzer at Cocoa Beach, Florida

By Michael J. Morris

I am one of those most blessed people who have never really worked one day because I have been able to spend it living, in the words of Reynolds Price, the American writer, with the sound of story as the dominant sound in my life.

Since I was a child growing up in the small community of Chapleau in northern Ontario, story has been central to me whether I was playing in the living room or creating my own plays for the Junior Red Cross Society performances in Grade 4 at Chapleau Public School.

Thanks to my mother, Muriel E (Hunt) Morris, who instilled a love of reading in me before I could hardly walk, and gave me the freedom to explore all the great children's literature of my time, story has been the place where I have lived.

Little did I realize that my experience as the Chapleau High School reporter for the long gone Mid North News, and a television program on CHAP TV in 1958/1959 would lead to a lifetime spent telling stories and talking about the stories of others in classrooms in Ontario and British Columbia. And people even hired me to write stories about people and events for daily newspapers, television, magazines and the internet.

I recently calculated that I have been doing and teaching communications, journalism, media and  creative writing for 55 years. It seems like only a moment has passed.

Now I begin another chapter with the launching of The Mainstreeter.

I  worked as a reporter and/or editor at several daily newspapers including the Star-Phoenix (Saskatoon), Kingston Whig-Standard, Timmins Daily Press, Chatham Daily News, Brampton Times, Calgary Albertan  and was northern Ontario correspondent for the Toronto Star.

And yes, as any of my students would  tell you, I loved to tell stories. Not all were necessarily appreciated of course and I was once criticized in student evaluations when I was at College of the Rockies for talking too much about my beloved cat Buckwheat. A student wrote that he/she got nothing from my course because "All he ever did was tell stories about his cat Buckwheat." Even I could not spend 15 entire weeks of a semester talking only about my cat. On second thought ....

At College of the Rockies I was so privileged to have been part of the founding of a New Media Communications Program which would seem pretty old fashioned today, but in 1995 was on the leading edge of the biggest revolution in communications since Gutenberg's printing press. Since retiring I have continued to indulge my passion for communications -- for storytelling, both mine and others.

I also taught at Chapleau High School.

For example, I  listen to the voices of so many former students who are taking time to share part of their stories with me on Facebook, and telling stories about me too. For the past six years I have been a blogger and I also write a column for the weekly newspaper in my home town of Chapleau. Yes, for old times sake I still write for a print publication.

I agree with Reynolds Price, the writer, that to "tell and hear stories is essential" -- and he argues it comes second after nourishment and before love and shelter. "Millions survive without love or home, almost none in silence; the opposite of silence leads quickly to narrative, and the sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives, from the small accounts of our day's events to the vast incommunicable constructs of psychopaths."

In my life for sure, in the brightest and darkest moments, the sound of story is the dominant sound. Think about it. Now I am off for a walk to hear more of the sound of the  story on Main Street. If we meet, please feel free to say hello. Also, my email is mj.morris@live.ca  I am also on Facebook.

DOWNTOWN ORLANDO PLACE TO BE FOR MAIN STREET KIND OF GUY

Photo by Michael Pelzer

I have always been a downtown kind of guy, perhaps because I grew up in the small Northern Ontario town of Chapleau where  Main Street was the place to be if you wanted to be at the centre of community life. 
So, I decided to call this blog The Mainstreeter, even though I may wander from time to time into the suburbs and elsewhere.

When I founded Michael J Morris Reports http://michaeljmorrisreports.blogspot.com my plan was to write on all manner and sorts of things as they appealed to me. However, over time, Michael J Morris Reports evolved into stories primarily about Chapleau, so here is my new attempt to share stories with you from my vantage point of being a Mainstreeter, wherever I happen to be.

I will continue Michael J Morris Reports with the focus on Chapleau and other "stuff" but I now have the opportunity to visit other Main Streets, and report from them.

Before we get rolling let me explain PERSIATS + G! which has been a guideline for me all my writing life, and is something I try to use as a guideline, no matter the issue.

Fifty years ago now I took a course in American history from Dr Charles W Paape, and he used the formula to put history into perspective. All elements of it are in every event to a greater or lesser degree.

For example, an election is a political event of course -- but it is also about economics, religion, social life, intellectual life (education), the arts, science and technology, and the "G" is geography - the place where it happens.  Metaphorically, it all happens on Main Street in the village where we live.

I have always been indebted to Dr Paape for his formula as I have used it time and time again.

And. yes, before you ask, I really enjoyed Main Street by Sinclair Lewis, and to this day chuckle about some of his characters. I have met some of them on Main Street.

I hope you will join me on Main Street.


Here is a video of downtown Orlando, Florida, shot by my good friend Michael Pelzer of Uneek Luxury Tours.http://uneekluxurytours.com  Michael took me on a tour. It is a fascinating place. My email is mj.morris@live.ca