Green Corner: Rack it Up

Did you know that the City of Toronto supports nearly a million adult cyclists on its busy streets and avenues? At the Robertson Building over fifty cyclists take their bikes up and down the steps each day. Urbanspace Property Group wishes to applaud our dedicated tenants who cycle to work each day! You are each making a contribution to the quality of the surrounding air, water and soil in our city and more importantly, to the health of city residents. Thank you!

Many of you have noticed and taken advantage of the new wall-mounted bike racks that have been installed in the basement area. There are currently twenty-six new blue bike rack units. These units are safe, easy-to-use, neat and secure. Some of you are actively using the system, while others choose to stand their bikes against walls along hallways or against permanent fixtures. Please give us a call if you need help securing your bike to the wall units. We are also able to tailor a wall-mount unit to your particular bike to ensure it is safe and secure.

Did you know that our City has a Toronto Bike Plan (TBP)? The TBP is a ten-year initiative that was designed to guide the development and maintenance of cycling infrastructure and programs throughout the City. The vision for the Toronto Bike Plan is to create a safe, comfortable and bicycle friendly environment in Toronto, which encourages people of all ages to use bicycles for everyday transportation and enjoyment.
For more information on the vision for cycling in Toronto, go to: www.toronto.ca/cycling/bikeplan/index.htm

Thinking about cycling to work but aren't feeling brave? CAN-BIKE is a Toronto-based cycling course that helps commuters and recreational cyclists build navigation skills and improve safety.
For more information on CAN-BIKE go to: www.toronto.ca/cycling/bikeplan/index/htm

For access to the Toronto cycling map go to: www.toronto.ca/cycling/map/pdf/2005_map.pdf

Late breaking news: City Council adopted the Transportation Services 2006 Capital Budget on Monday, December 12, including three million dollars for cycling infrastructure!

Halloween with a Heart

Halloween celebrations are a highlight of Fall and staff at Cuppa Coffee (Suite 400) celebrated with a bash that also raised some funds for fellow tenant Eva's Initiatives (Suite 370). Cuppa Coffee staff member Neil Kingma organized the party and decided it would be great to take donations to go to a needy organization. One of Neil's co-workers had gone through an Eva's Initiatives program, which works to get homeless and at-risk youth permanently off the streets, and was hired by Cuppa Coffee through the organization's employment opportunities. This seemed like a perfect fit, so Neil donated $605 this past October.

Playwrights Canada Press

Playwrights Canada Press (Suite 230) is Canada's largest and oldest exclusive publisher of drama titles and is responsible for bringing a great number of contemporary Canadian plays to print, including John Mighton's multiple award-winning play Half Life. The playwright was recently honoured with two prestigious awards - the Siminovitch Prize in Theatre, a $100,000 prize, and the Governor General's Literary Award. Mighton, who is also the founder of Junior Undiscovered Math Prodigies (JUMP, 401 Richmond, Studio 349), bestowed twenty-five percent of his Siminovitch Prize to his protégé Anton Piatigorsky whose works have also been published by Playwrights Canada Press.

Profile: A Committment to Training and Employment for Women

A Commitment to Training and Employment for Women's (ACTEW, Suite 350) name says a lot about what they do. In simple terms, they are an umbrella organization that does research and analysis on training and employment for women in Ontario, and share this information with a large membership of service organizations and individuals. Not so simple a task that certainly requires commitment. The organization, which was founded in 1987, has grown and evolved over the years and just this month, has finally been granted charitable status. They have not only fought for equal employment issues and newcomer rights, but as an explicitly feminist organization they have struggled for funding support to enable them to offer services to a constantly evolving population of women. There have certainly been challenges along the way, but ACTEW has accomplished a great deal and are now starting some new projects made possible through new funding opportunities.

There are significant challenges to operating a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in the funding structure and policy dynamic that exists in Canada. However, Executive Director Jen Liptrot is reassured by the fact that "there's been a lot of momentum around reforming the Charities Act due to the civil society's movement and more attention to social justice issues in general. There's been more recognition that there's a very legitimate and worthwhile role that NGOs can play in building dialogue around civic engagement and equity issues. The way that most government services in Canada are delivered is through the voluntary sector - in every province NGOs are
delivering services on behalf of the government. So it makes sense that the government would want to become open and demonstrate that they're willing to hear from the service delivery groups around the impacts vis-a-vis policy mechanisms or funding. That whole feedback loop mentality is starting to kick in."

ACTEW began as "an informal network of career practitioners that were working with women in the community such as literacy instructors, employment counsellors, job developers; and they were seeing that women had different employment related needs from men. A lot of women may have been out of the workforce for a couple of years raising families and they were having challenges reintegrating, or transitioning back."

So, an informal group of women began meeting and creating a network to share best practices. From there, the
organization has steadily increased its scope and membership base through a series of research driven initiatives.

Like some of our other tenants who have already been profiled in these pages, ACTEW came to the Robertson Building from 401 Richmond Street West when their needs outgrew their space. They now share a much larger space on the third floor with friends and organizational collaborators, the Toronto Training Board. The growth of the organization is reflected in their new space, a staff that now includes Deanna Yerichuk, Hong
Zhu and Carol van den Kerkhof, and the exciting multi-year projects they are embarking upon. One of which, is a research grant to assess the impacts of the new Canada-Ontario Labour Market Development Agreement (LMDA).

The LMDA devolves responsibility for employment and training from the federal government to the provincial
level. Jen explains, "we're at a really exciting time, because of this agreement and we've been given a three-year grant from Status of Women to do an equity analysis on the whole piece - how the LMDA gets rolled out and
implemented and what it actually means for front-line service access for different kinds of clients and groups of
women." Ontario has been the last province to adopt the LMDA and ACTEW's involvement will mean it will be
the only one to benefit from a gender and equity analysis as it is implemented.

As one of the first umbrella organizations in Toronto with a large website dedicated to information exchange,
ACTEW has had valuable experience working in online environments. As "information brokers" their virtual
presence has been a necessary tool for providing important information to as many people as possible using the web as a portal. It has also gained them access to communities where otherwise they would not have the opportunity for interaction. "At least twice a year, we'll open the mail and find a membership application form from an agency we've NEVER heard of, or we've heard about them, but we haven't had contact with them. We haven't done any outreach or networking. They simply find our website, monitor what we're doing electronically, and then they'll join - we'll be completely delighted."

The success of their online environment has also gained them a grant from the Trillium Foundation to do more technical development on their website and expand its scope to include the "constellation" project. The project is a group of agencies in the employment and training sector producing online content which, will now have the opportunity to connect, update, and provide feedback on the information that is generated.

To find out more about ACTEW or become a member check out their website at www.actew.org.

Ralph Nader in Toronto

The Centre for Social Innovation (Suite 120) played host to activist and renowned politician Ralph Nader this October. The event, held at Ryerson University Theatre, gave Nader the opportunity to discuss Innovative Solutions for our Survival: Connecting Climate Change with Social Justice. Focusing on how effective citizenship can tackle climate change and address other social problems, he also discussed Canada's position as a potential leader in this initiative to an engaged audience. This was just one of the exciting events being organized by CSI - watch out for the Social Innovation Awards coming up in 2006.

Vital People Grant

On December 1, the Toronto Community Foundation awarded Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts' (TAPA, Suite 210) Executive Director Jacoba Knappen a Vital People Grant. The award recognizes "Torontonians who demonstrate leadership and make outstanding contributions through non-profit organizations that improve quality of life in Toronto." For many years Jacoba has contributed tremendously to helping arts organizations and through TAPA plays an essential role in the promotion of Toronto's vibrant performance arts.

Wine and Cheese Please

On October 26 tenants from the Robertson Building gathered in the lobby for the Robertson Building Tenant Wine and Cheese, Meet and Greet. There was a wonderful turn out for the event. Tenants had the opportunity to meet some of their neighbours and learn about what everyone is up to at 215 Spadina.

The event was catered by an organic catering company, Vert, which brought us a spread of artisinal cheeses from Quebec and roasted figs drizzled with a sweet balsamic vinegar reduction (among other tasty morsels). All the paper products were provided by Green Shift and are 100% biodegrade- able. It was an environmentally conscious event that fit well with the progressive community at the Robertson Building.

We got so many great pictures from the event we thought we would share as many as we could. It was also great to spend some more time with tenants at the annual Tenant Holiday Party in December.