Wrapped up in nostalgia for wonderful garage sales past, this year we made some crucial errors in judgment at the annual Queen’s Park Garage Sale.

It was the best of stores, it was the worst of stores….well, nothing is that simple.
New Westminster residents, like folks all over, develop a preference for grocery stores. Those of us habituated to the 6th Ave. Safeway in the Royal City Center have had our choice expanded as the Save on Foods has recently opened in New Westminster Center, on 6th st. Like anything, our individual choices will be based on a number of factors including location, layout, staff, selection and price. While it is impossible to say one …

Kale  has started recognizing the place as we open the door and go in, a soft whoosh as the air transfers and the sudden cacophany of child play noises replaces the traffic whizzing by on the street. He starts kicking his feet and arching his back, straining mightily to get out of the stroller and get to the TOYS and the FUN as fast as possible.
We go to Family Place, located at 101 – 93 Sixth Street, probably twice a week these days. In the world of  one year old busy little bees, …

One of the charming things about New Westminster that continually tickles my fancy is this habit of naming alleys. I walk a lot, and I like to explore neighbourhoods with my son as an afternoon outing. We frequently will duck down what appears to be an alley, only to discover amazing little pockets of houses, with perhaps one or maybe two actual front doors on some oddly little named “street” that in any other municipality, would simply be considered a lane way. It’s likely a testatment to the evolution of …

Two contestant meetings have been organized by the Electoral District Association for the Conservative party; all candidate events for the upcoming Conservative Party nomination on July 25th.
The first event will be held between 6:30PM-8:30PM at the Justice Institute Theater, 715 McBride Boulevard, New Westminster. The second event will be Wednesday, July 15th between 6:30PM and 8:30PM in the MacDonald-Cartier Room of the Dogwood Pavilion, 624 Poirier Street, Coquitlam. As previously reported, four candidates are up for the nomination: Diana Dilworth of Port Moody, Mark Lea-McKeown of Coquitlam, Andy …

Canadian Conservative officials from the New West-Coquitlam electoral district association report that four candidates will vie for the Conservative nomination in that riding including:
Lorraine Brett, New Westminster
Diana Dilworth, Port Moody
Mark Lea-McKeown, Coquitlam
Andy Wickey, Coquitlam
The Royal City’s own Lorraine Brett has been a former candidate for city councilor, Queens Park RA chair, long-time Hyack Committiee member and has been involved with a host of community initiatives:

Our region will benefit from a strong voice at the government table, and I want to be that voice. As a communications consultant, I know …

Our family unit and other Tenth to the Fraser crew are heading out to Queen’s Park today, like so many other Royal City citizens. I have been attending Canada Day in this park almost my whole life. For a long time, I thought of it as a big town party just for me – and a thousand of my closest friends.
The boys and girls from town would stampede from one end of the park to the other (unsupervised – this was the 1980s) looking for flag pins, balloons, cookies, cake and …

This is a guest post by Marcy Koopmans, who recently moved to New Westminster. This is her take on our most recent Tweetup.
As Jocelyn mentioned in her post on Friday, a large part of what gives New West its sense of self is its sense of history.
Moving here, Wes and I were surprised and, I’ll be honest, a bit amused by what to us seems such an unusual preoccupation with the past. But perhaps this is only because we came from a city which one Twitter user called a …

Last night at the third New West tweetup (soon to be blogged by @punkvspunk, I hope!), the idea of celebrating New Westminster’s future resurfaced. It’s no wonder it came up, given that we were twelve under-35′s, 6 iPhones, and one twitter hashtag (#newwest), meeting at a locale quoted by one tweeter as “the closest thing New West has to hip.”
It was roundly agreed that New Westminster as a city government and as a citizenry does a marvellous job of celebrating the past – from ragtime festivals to classic car show-n-shines, …

Admittedly, I’m a little biased. I was recently appointed as the market manager for the Royal City Farmers’ Market, but I am so excited about the market’s reopening coming up!
The second incarnation of the Royal City Farmers’ Market is about to kick off June 25th with a special “Welcome to Summer Vacation” market, featuring kids’ activities including toys and crafts, a magician, face painting, and a special appearance by Mayor Wayne Wright who will start the market season off with a bang! The market runs June 25 to October 8 …

Some time ago, I was part of meetings in the library, at pubs and shops in town and in the Parks office on 8th street, all with the common purpose of establishing an operating Community Garden project and society for the “mainland” of New Westminster. While Queensborough has had a successful garden operating for a few years now, the many gardeners in New Westminster that would like to get that soil under the nails feeling and yet they have no space available for their work. With one of the highest rental rates …

I am having a real problem writing this post. I am a white guy and as my ancestors came to New Westminster in 1909. I am one of the very, veeery few New Westminsterites whose oldsters may have actually participated in active or passive discrimination of Chinese Pioneers in this city’s past.
I fully understand my position in this story but as a bleeding heart liberal and as a BC elementary and secondary student whose history education consisted of French Canadians, Aboriginal Canadians, Chinese Canadians and South Asian Canadians to the …

The Garden Nerd series will look at gardening issues in New Westminster. Suggestions for topics, guest submissions, and questions are all welcome. We’ll try and address it all! You can find other posts, as they are added, by clicking here.
This past week I popped out to my favourite seed store, West Coast Seeds, and picked up 225,000 mixed seeds in a blend called “Pacific Northwest”. It contains a mix of 17 different annuals and perennials, and all of the plants are indigenious to BC and our zone. They are also …

 
Over the last weekend, our family took advantage of the beautiful weather and the crowd gathered for our son’s birthday and we launched off a couple of model rockets from the Grimston Park field. We had a BLAST, (Yuk Yuk)! We do this ever so often. Once, last April, as soon as we had everything set up, it started to snow and the rocket launched into a growing blizzard of white.
 
The launches have been nothing fancy, a little kit rocket that we painted red and blue and stuff with an …

This morning a Canadian astronaut blasted off successfully in the Soyuz spacecraft from Khazahkstan (low res video here, high res video here) as part of a mission called Expedition 20/21. This expedition is a Canadian milestone, as it is the first time a Canadian has taken part in a long term space mission. That Canadian’s name is Dr. Robert Thirsk, and although most of his growing up was elsewhere, Dr. Thirsk was born here in New Westminster. He has been in space before, and is a highly respected member of Canada’s …

About two years ago, I was car-addicted. I owned a vehicle – an old piece of junk GMC Tracker – and I drove everywhere, even just a few blocks. I wouldn’t go places if I couldn’t drive there. My husband took transit to school, or carpooled with me and when he graduated and secured employment in the construction industry, one of the requirements was a vehicle to visit job sites. My old clunker of a Tracker, although fairly fuel efficient and highly manouverable, simply didn’t have enough room to carry …

The Brunette-Fraser Regional Greenway – Sapperton Landing is a clumsy moniker for a little stretch of park that runs west from the mouth of the Brunette River until it runs out of space a little less than a kilometer away.
The Greenway will eventually connect Vancouver with New Westminster with a bike and pedestrian pathway. Chunks have already been built, and this is one of them. As such, it has two paths: one paved (for bikes), and the other gravel (for sneakers). It’s very flat and there are a few observation …

Readers, we in the creative team behind T2F acknowledge that a huge omission has been committed, for which we are eternally apologetic. What would a New West Blog be in May without a post about our fair May Queene? In the flurry of child-rearing, cold-minding, and baby-growing (and all the stuff the rest of us do), we forgot to make sure that New Westminster‘s biggest event got the coverage it deserved on T2F: May Day.
As the longest-running May Day celebration in the British Commonwealth (which is saying something, because the …

Video is up for last Wednesday’s all-candidates’ meeting, courtesy of David Maidman of Pumpkinhead Productions.
Part one:

Introductions
Regional transportation & the North Fraser Perimeter Road (5:00))
Food security, lower carbon footprint & healthier population (10:02)

New Westminster All-Candidates Meeting, May 6th, 2009 7-9pm from David Maidman on Vimeo.
Part two:

Provincial support for New West waterfront park
Improvements to Royal Columbian hospital (4:06)
Provincial funding for New West schools (8:49)

New Westminster All-Candidates Meeting, May 6th, 2009 7-9pm from David Maidman on Vimeo.

The Garden Nerd series will look at gardening issues in New Westminster. Suggestions for topics, guest submissions, and questions are all welcome. We’ll try and address it all! You can find other posts, as they are added, by clicking here.
Today’s post is written by Jennifer Heron, aka The Bug Lady. After graduating from the University of British Columbia’s biology department, Jennifer’s affinity for insect and bugs lead her to pursue a graduate degree in entomology from the UBC department of Zoology. She is also the operator of The Bug Lab, here in New Westminster, and is …

We’re kicking off a new series here at Tenth to the Fraser. The Garden Nerd series will look at gardening issues in New Westminster. Suggestions for topics, guest submissions, and questions are all welcome. We’ll try and address it all!  You can find other posts, as they are added, by clicking here. Today’s post is written by Ross Arbo, CHT. Ross spent 14 years as a landscaper on Vancouver’s West Side. He also happens to be married to Jen Arbo, a regular contributor, and occasionally authors posts over at the Arbolog.  
That Time of …

This is a guest post by New West resident Paul Goodrick. You can find him on Twitter as @duckbeaver and on his blog at duckbeaver.com. 
Since moving to New Westminster over a year ago, I’ve really been keen on becoming more active in the community but it always seemed one thing or another confounded my attempts. So when a notice showed up on my building’s door announcing an upcoming meeting for the New Westminster Downtown Residents Association, I took the plunge.
Showing up just as things were getting set up, I was …

I’m told I am hard to shop for. People tell me that I’m picky and they are scared to buy me things I might not like. One gift that is always a winner in my books, is a gift certificate for a spa.  I’m a fan of pampering and preening and relaxation and any sort of rejuvenation that I put zero effort into and come out feeling better than when I went in. As a fan of spas, I have also become hyper critical of spas. 
A while back, my husband …

This is a guest post by Reena Meijer Drees, who is a New Westminster resident active in the campaign supporting BC-STV. Watch for a follow-up post tomorrow on the potential impact of electoral reform on local politics. You can read more about BC-STV on Reena’s blog and STV.ca (”Yes” side) or nostv.org (”No” side). Opponents of STV are welcome to respond in the comments and/or write a guest post supporting their position.
If BC-STV were to be implemented, there would be some changes to how our elections would run. I’ve discussed these in other postings. But there …

This is a guest post by Reena Meijer Drees, who is a New Westminster resident active in the campaign supporting BC-STV. Watch for a follow-up post tomorrow on the potential impact of electoral reform on local politics. You can read more about BC-STV on Reena’s blog and STV.ca (“Yes” side) or nostv.org (“No” side). Opponents of STV are welcome to respond in the comments and/or write a guest post supporting their position.
Remember the referendum on electoral reform in 2005?
I never paid the slightest attention to electoral reform before we …