20th July 2011

Hungry London 2012 Olympic spectators look set to pile on the calories when the world’s biggest McDonald’s opens in time for next summer’s games.
Having worked up an appetite, Olympic ticket holders will be able to feast on Big Macs and fries, served up at the two-storey outlet, set to open at Stratford’s Olympic Park site.
The 3,000-square-metre restaurant will dwarf the other 32,000 stores across the globe, and will be one of four McDonald’s, including one located in the athlete’s village.

The junk food retailer is set to employ 470 staff, who will serve an estimated 50,000 Big Macs and 100,000 portions of fries during the games, and make an additional 30,000 milkshakes.
The fast food outlet’s UK chief executive Jill McDonald has called the announcement ‘hugely exciting.’
Meanwhile, Olympic chiefs have moved quickly to reject claims that the new McDonald’s will deter from aims to promote a healthy and active lifestyle, which London chiefs have been pushing since winning the Olympic bid.

A member of the Olympics team told the Daily Mail: ‘McDonald’s has been a committed Olympic sponsor and has a wide range of programs to encourage people to keep fit.
‘There will also be a wide range of foods available to members of the public.’

The fast food chain is set to announce details of their new flagship store today.
Next year’s London Olympics will be the ninth consecutive games where McDonald’s has acted as the event’s official restaurant and the only branded food service retailer feeding the athletes.
In April, McDonald’s reported a soar in global profit of $1.2bn (£730m), up 10.9 per cent from the previous year with revenue rising by 9 per cent to $6.1bn.

(Original here# )

Give the Gift of Producing + First Screening from: With Glowing Hearts – the movie

To mark the one year anniversary of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, we’ll be celebrating the official release of our film with a special screening celebration at W2 on February 12, 2011. We’re two years into the project already, so to be able to see the end so close at hand now is very exciting. We’re hoping to have picture lock on the film by mid-December and then hand everything over to our audio genius Kenton Gilchrist to put his stamp on the final product. The first festivals we’re looking at applying to right now include SXSW, DOXA and HotDocs. More details will follow in this space, but in the meantime we’re giving people one last chance to become a part of the WGH producing family with our special commemorative Producer’s Package. This handsome package includes:

Buy it now!

* An official Producer’s certificate and name in the film’s credits * A certificate confirming your $5 contribution to the construction of a wireless mesh network in the Downtown Eastside * A ticket to the February12th, 2011 screening and afterparty at W2 * One copy of the completed film on DVD or USB

You can get all this for the great price of $30 and enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve given your loved one a gift that is affordable, unique and contributes to a great cause. We’ve also begun taking pre-orders for the film on DVD or USB for $20, with exisiting producers getting 10% off any order. Click here to get yours.

How many producers does your film have?

We are proud to annouce the first screening for locals and the community around the film will be FREE! Register for your tickets below. Max 2 per person. Location TBA. Downtown Vancouver.

DTES Camp

Sunday, November 7, 11-3pm, W2 Storyeum, Free

A mini-unconference and social media workshop providing learning and collaborative digital divide solutions for our DTES neighbourhood.

An unconference is a facilitated, participant-driven conference centered on open themes that emerge from the participants.

Today’s event will feature film screenings, speakers and open space and is designed for DTES residents who face the digital divide, as well as their allies.

Get inspired and work face-to-face on local cultural, housing, environment, economic and justice solutions.

Presented by W2 and Heart of the City Festival, includes lunch (by donation).

One of the themes we examined at the last BCCDA (BC Career Development Association) Training Day, which I presented, was whether we knew how many more people were without work in BC now, as opposed to July 2008 when the recession began to bite.

We generally didn’t know, but we learnt.

I was asked to distribute this information.

One of our (Employment Counsellors etc) professional responsibilities (in the Standards and Guidelines – for Employment types) is to remain current and informed about the latest Labour Market conditions, so here are the facts.

(NB: For the visual learners out there I’ve also attached a nice plain view of the core figures as a PDF)

When economists or government spokespeople or business analysts say that we have recovered almost all the jobs we lost since the start of the recession they are right; we are within 4,300 jobs of where we were in July 2008.

What this obscures is that the population, and thus the labour force, in BC is continually rising. (In part encouraged by the very same incomplete tales of jobs recovered.)

Since July 2008 the population of BC has increased by 151,100, of whom 76,100 entered the Labour Force.

So we are in fact 80,400 jobs behind where we were in July 2008.

That’s 80,400 more mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, neighbours and fellow citizens suffering from the effects of unemployment.

Every month when the figures are released, employed numbers are expressed as a figure, unemployment as a percentage.

These statistics on the rising population and labour force explain the conundrum as to how we can have a steady or even falling percentage of unemployment, yet the number of people unemployed is increasing;10% of 100 is ten, 10% of 1000 is a hundred, but still 10%.

This set of figures, all taken from official StatsCan tables (see below for source files) are important to know in their own right, but are most useful when reassuring unemployed people who, after months of doing everything right, are still unable to find work, and start blaming themselves.

It’s not their fault; it’s the economy, still badly behind, still suffering from the recession.

Watch out each month for the presentation of unemployment as a percentage; it’s put forward as a form of acceptable ‘collateral damage’, whereas as employment professionals we are here to support every single individual unable to find work, and need to know the actual number of people seeking our help.

Stephen (from my work as an Employment Counsellor)

Source files from StatsCan

Figures for July 2008

Figures for September 2010

2008 vs 2010 Figures as a self contained PDF

Web-based forums talk openly about ‘the elephant in the corner’
 
By Gillian Shaw, Vancouver Sun, July 5, 2010
 
While most people wouldn’t consider having pneumonia or a broken bone something to be kept secret, the same can’t be said for mental illness.

Admitting to appendicitis or asthma can be easier than saying you suffer from depression, anxiety or other mental illnesses.
It is this stigma that Vancouver’s coming Mental Health Camp is hoping to address with a one-day conference focusing on using social media to help the 20 per cent of Canadians who experience mental illness at some time in their lives and all Canadians who are affected indirectly by it through family, friends and colleagues.

“It is difficult for people to talk about it, in any way at all, even with really close friends,” said Isabella Mori, a counsellor and co-founder with environmental scientist Raul Pacheco-Vega of Mental Health Camp, now in its second year. “It’s only between 30 and 35 per cent of people who have a mental illness who actually ever approach a professional.”

Mori said social media can help deal with the stigma surrounding mental illness by allowing people anonymity and also offering a forum and a place to connect both for those who want to remain anonymous and those who would speak openly about their experiences. “One of the bigger things around this is that so many people have used blogging to help dig themselves out of that stigma,” she said. “It can all start so easily -you can anonymously say something out loud -see what happens when those words are out in the Internet and you don’t even have to attach your name to it.

“It is one of the reasons social media can be a good resource. It gives people an anonymous forum to talk about the fact they are having difficulties, maybe think out loud, and reflect. Because the Internet has become such an interactive forum they can hear from others and they realize, ‘Wow, I am not the only one.’”

Steffani Cameron, a blogger and a speaker at Mental Health Camp, at first wasn’t open about the fact that she was suffering from depression. Then she started talking about it on her blog. “Everybody who follows my blog knows the struggles I have been through,” she said. “Once you start clueing people in, you find everybody has been touched by these things but it is the elephant in the corner and we are still not talking about it.”

Mental Health Camp is Saturday, July 10 at the University of B.C.‘s Aquatic Ecosystem Research Laboratory (AERL), 2202 Main Mall on the UBC campus. More information and registration is online at Mental Health Camp

gshaw@vancouversun.com