Though it’s commonly known outside of the country as a beanie, wool hat or a knit-cap, it’s a toque to us and it’s playing an important role on Tuesday as it helps find long term solutions to end homelessness in Canada.

Toque Tuesday

Toque Tuesday is a part of a national campaign that has been running for the last 17 years and this Tuesday, February 4, 2014 over 40,000 volunteers across the country will be selling toques for a cause.

Toques are $10 each with 80% of net funds staying right in the communities where they are sold. The remaining 20% of funds raised from toque sales will go to Raising the Roof’s national projects. In Vancouver the beneficiaries are the Lookout Emergency Aid Society and Pacific Community Resources Society.

The public and businesses can also help out by selling toques in their workplaces, get-togethers and other venues. For more information on how to help sell toques, email Lani at [email protected]. Those interested in volunteering can contact Janice at [email protected].

Head to one of these locations on Tuesday, February 4, 2014 to purchase your toque:

Vancouver

Granville station 6:30am to 9:30am 
Waterfront station 6:30am to 9:30am
Burrard station 6:30am to 9:30am
Cambie & Broadway station 6:30am to 9:30am
City Centre (Pacific Centre) 6:00am to 6:00pm

Surrey

From 6:30am at Surrey Central SkyTrain Station
Outside of the North Surrey Recreation Center (10275 City Pkwy)

9:00am at Chuck Bailey Rec Centre (13458 107A Ave)
At the event: Pacific Community Resources Society, Surrey Youth Housing Services, Reconnect and IRAYL programs, hockey teams from the Surrey Firefighters, RCMP, BC LIONS, Surrey Eagles, Local MLA’s and representatives from Community Service providers such as the Surrey urban Mission, and KEYS. The event is open to the general public.

New Westminster

New West Station 7:00am to 5:30pm 
Columbia Station 7:00am to 6:00pm 
22nd Street Station 7:00am to 5:30pm 
Sapperson Station 7:00am to 5:30pm 
Braid Station 7:00am to 5:30pm 
New West Library 10:00am to 6:00pm 
NWR Douglas College 6:30am to 5:00pm 
COQT Douglas College 9:00am to 5:30pm

Starbucks, Amber’s Choice, Greens and Beans Café, Vancity.

North Vancouver

Seabus Station: 7:30am to 9:30am, 11:30am to 1:30pm 
Lions Gate Hospital: 7:30am to 9:30am, 11:30am to 1:30pm 

If you can’t get to any of these locations, you can order a toque online and indicate that you are making your purchase for Lookout Society so that it benefits local Vancouver programs.

Follow Raising the Roof on Facebook and Twitter, and the Lookout Society in Vancouver on Facebook and Twitter to learn more about Toque Tuesday and other national and local initiatives.

Raising the Roof provides strong and effective national leadership on long-term solutions to homelessness through partnership and collaboration with diverse stakeholders, investment in local communities, and public education.

I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Heritage Hall on several occasions for conferences, speaking engagements, and to meet with the Mount Pleasant BIA. This handsome building on the corner of Main and 15th has had many lives, and continues to be an elegant venue for special events, fashion shows, and weddings making it today’s Vancouver Icons photo feature.

1917: Archives# CVA 99-356. Photographer: Stuart Thomson

Heritage Hall began its life 99 years ago, constructed as a postal station in 1915. It was designed by Archibald Campbell Hope and completed in 1916. Heritage Hall was designated a heritage building by the City of Vancouver in 1974 and was included in the first list of buildings identified by the City as having historical importance.

There are conflicting theories about why such an ornate building was built in this location, but most agree the building was an attempt to stimulate commercial growth in the Mount Pleasant area. It has also been suggested that the location of the electric street car station across the street at 14th and Main caused the city fathers to locate the imposing building where they did. Unfortunately, the new surge of residents did not arrive and the shopping and business areas of the city shifted west. [About Heritage Hall]

Photo credit: photocafe & photocafe on Flickr

Designated a heritage structure by the City of Vancouver in 1974, and by Public Works Canada in 1976, the old Post Office building at Main Street and 15th Avenue is a landmark in the Mount Pleasant community. It is one of the oldest official buildings in Vancouver and over the years it has served the city well. [About Heritage Hall]

You can pick up a copy of “Heritage Hall: Biography of a Building” from the building’s administration office. The book received a 2006 City of Vancouver Heritage Award and a 2003 Heritage Society of British Columbia Honour Award.

Photo credit: eternal keni on Flickr

Photo credit: slowitdown & AE Creations on Flickr

Mark Faviell & cheeky_squeeky on Flickr

Photo credit: eternal keni on Flickr

Photo credit: gwilli on Flickr

Previous Vancouver Icons posts: School of Theology Building at UBC, Gate to the Northwest Passage, St Paul’s Hospital, Capilano Lake, Stawamus Chief, Nine O’Clock Gun, Malkin Bowl, Search, Vancouver Rowing Club, Echoes, Point Atkinson Lighthouse, English Bay Inukshuk, Hollow Tree, Hotel Europe, Lions Gate Bridge Lions, LightShed, Granville Bridge, 217.5 Arc x 13′, Canoe Bridge, Vancouver Block, Bloedel Conservatory, Centennial Rocket, Canada Place, Old Courthouse/Vancouver Art Gallery, Dominion Building, Science World, Gastown Steam Clock, SFU Burnaby, Commodore Lanes, Siwash Rock, Kitsilano Pool, White Rock Pier, Main Post Office, Planetarium Building, Lord Stanley Statue, Vancouver Library Central Branch, Victory Square, Digital Orca, The Crab Sculpture, Girl in Wetsuit, The Sun Tower, The Hotel Vancouver, The Gassy Jack Statue, The Marine Building, and The Angel of Victory. Should you have a suggestion for the Vancouver Icons series please feel free to leave a note in the comments. It should be a thing, statue, or place that is very visible and recognizable to the public.

The top 5 finalists in each category were announced last week for the Small Business BC Awards. As a (super) small business owner, I love reading about local success stories, new concepts, and supporting BC businesses. I also used Small Business BC‘s services (located at Waterfront Station) when I started my own business 6 years ago.

These finalists will all move onto the final portion of the competition and the winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on February 27th.

Small Business BC Awards

I was very happy to see some of my favourites among the finalists, including Roam Mobility (for Best Concept) and Make It Productions (for Best Online Marketer). If you are travelling to the United States you need to look up Roam Mobility’s packages for roaming talk, text, and data plans — no, this is not a sponsored endorsement!

Tickets are now available for the awards ceremony, which will be hosted by Claire Newell, founder and president of Travel Best Bets. Enjoy drinks, appetizers and networking with BC’s top business owners, industry leaders and government officials as we announce the winners of the 11th Annual Small Business BC Awards.

Check out the Small Information Expo on February 4th and follow Small Business BC on Twitter and Facebook for more information.

This post has been contributed by Don Enright, Volunteer and Past President with the Stanley Park Ecology Society (“SPES”). I have been following SPES since I moved into the West End almost a decade ago and I have been a member for two years. I wanted to offer the team an opportunity to share their news, events, and work so I have created “SPES Saturday” where they will be contributing stories with my audience once a month.

It’s Time for the Birds and the Bees in Stanley Park

Ah, Valentine’s Day: the first rite of spring, when our fancy turns to thoughts of courtship and romance. In Stanley Park, we’ll be celebrating the occasion with a special guided walk with historian extraordinaire Jolene Cummings. She’ll help us explore the park’s history as a gathering place for lovers through the years. There’s a lot of stories to tell in that department, as you can imagine, and Jolene weaves a great tale.

In Stanley Park, it’s not just the two-legged creatures who are seeking out romance. Love is in the air all around us in spring, and the birds and the bees (and mammals and trees) take advantage of our mild spring weather to go about the hard work of making babies. It’s a great time to visit the park.

Red-flowering currant. Photo by Don Enright

One of my favourite sights of early spring is the glorious bloom of the red-flowering currant. These show-stoppers not only offer good cheer (and great snapshots) to park visitors; they also offer nectar and pollen to a number of animals who really need them early in the season. Stop by a currant bush in March and you might see a rufous hummingbird, recently arrived from Mexico, fueling up on nectar. Now, these currant bushes aren’t just offering free food out of the goodness of their little green hearts. It’s all about romance, of course. Currant bushes can’t pick up their roots and go out on dates, so they rely on intermediaries like hummingbirds to get the job done. As the hummer gets its nectar, a wee bit of pollen is brushed off on it, to be delivered to the next flower. It’s a match made in heaven: hummingbird gets nectar, flower gets pollinated. Boom.

Male rufous hummingbird. Photo by Don Enright

And if you get a bit closer to our red-flowering currant, you’ll discover that it’s not just the hummingbirds lined up for a snack. Many species of native bees also get in on the action, quietly buzzing in and around the currant bushes in search of both nectar and pollen to pass on to their own young ones.

Green sweat bee. Don’t freak out; they’re smaller than a house fly, sweet-tempered and have weak stings. Photo by Don Enright

By “native”, I’m taking about the many species of bee in Stanley Park that live simpler, quieter (or at least less social) lives than the introduced honey bee. Stop by our Native Plant Demonstration Garden and you might see mason bees, valuable pollinators, buzzing between the currants and the wee bee condos that our volunteers have placed there. (They also nest in the nooks and crannies of the Stanley Park Pavilion).

If you’re a keen bee-watcher, keep your eyes peeled for a green sweat bee, like the one I captured here at English Bay Beach. You won’t find these guys in great busy hives, fussing over a queen or tending to their larvae day after day. No, their social lives are pretty simple. Female sweat bees tend to bump into their mates at work; that is, while they’re gathering pollen. After a brief moment of passion, she’s on her own again. She deposits her bees-to-be in a series of tunnels that she digs in the forest floor. With each egg, she leaves a dab of pollen—enough to get them by until they’re independent—and then buzzes good-bye. The mason bees have a similar routine, but instead of tunnels in the ground, they burrow them in wood (or in the tunnels of condos that people provide), adding a dab of mud to seal up a wooden tunnel with the egg and pollen inside, just to keep them safe.

Tree swallow. Photo by Don Enright

Just above the bee condo, tree swallows wheel and dive, doing their best to deplete the condo’s membership. A number of birds have figured out that these bee colonies can be a good source of free eats. Do the bees fight back? Well, our native bees do have stings, albeit weak ones, but any swallow worth its salt can bomb in and nab one before the bee even knows what’s happening.

Swallows have their own romantic lives that are a bit spicier than you might think. Birds have long been thought of as paragons of traditional family values, but it’s not always so simple. Recent studies of tree swallows show that, while they do pair up, settle down and work hard to raise a brood of young, chances are that at least one of the eggs is fathered by somebody other than the female’s partner. That’s right: when he’s distracted, she steps out and gathers a little genetic material on the side. She’s just hedging her bets: her partner may be a great provider but have less-than-perfect genes. By mixing things up a bit, she gets the best of both worlds.

Volunteers installing swallow nest boxes in Lost Lagoon. Photo by Don Enright

Birds, bees, flowers, trees, and great guided history walks… there’s so much happening in early spring, so why not make plans to shake off your winter doldrums with a walk in the park? We look forward to seeing you.

Browns Socialhouse, Canada’s fastest growing upscale casual dining restaurant franchise, announced that Jason Labahn joined their team as Executive Chef last fall and together they’re cooking up some fresh and new exciting menu offerings starting at Town Centre Coquitlam Browns Socialhouse.

Chef Labahn and Chef Steve Dachuna. Photo courtesy of Browns Socialhouse

The Blackened Chicken Cowboy Salad and the Tahitian Tuna Bowl were lunchtime staples when I used to work in an office near a Browns Socialhouse and Chef Labahn is busy adding even more delicious items to the restaurant group’s menu. How about a 380 calorie kale, quinoa and chicken salad, a BBQ pork sandwich, chicken and goat cheese panini, or indulge completely with an Oreo Jar (whipped homemade Oreo cheesecake) for dessert?

Photo courtesy of Browns Socialhouse

Town Centre Coquitlam Browns Socialhouse

Current Feature Sheet

Try these new items and more at the brand new Town Centre Coquitlam Browns Socialhouse (with Chef Steve Dachuna) until the end of March. To get you started, I have a $100 gift card for Town Centre Coquitlam Browns Socialhouse to give away to one lucky reader. Here’s how you can enter to win:

• Leave a comment naming which item you would like to try from the current feature sheet (above) (1 entry)
• Post the following on Twitter (1 entry)

I will draw one winner at random from all entries at 12:00pm on Thursday, February 6, 2014. The new Town Centre Coquitlam Browns Socialhouse is located at Unit 120 – 2950 Glen Drive, Coquitlam.

Update The winner is Meline!

Other Browns Socialhouse locations around the Lower Mainland include Brentwood Brewery District, New West Ironwood, Richmond Kitsilano Lonsdale Lynn Valley Newport Village, Port Moody Panorama, Surrey Point Grey Semiahmoo, Surrey Town Centre, Coquitlam Tsawwassen Walnut Grove, and Langley. Follow Browns on Facebook and Twitter for more information.