By Barbara Phinney

Sometimes, there is no tomorrow.
As doom-and-gloom as that statement sounds, it’s not meant to be that way, not if Shirley has her way.

Shirley and her husband learned the lesson of no tomorrow when they were on the treadmill of life, working hard to ‘have’ things.  A friend of theirs died quite suddenly, and they realized it could have been one of them. That was when they realized that ‘having’ things wasn’t what life was all about.  So a year ago, after taking the road less traveled, she analyzed what they’d done to change their attitude from wanting everything with no time to enjoy life, to appreciating what life was giving her.

“We’d started living a life of simplicity out of choice before I realized there was even a term for the beliefs we held,” Shirley said.“The term was ‘Voluntary Simplicity’.  And I felt it was important to show that life doesn’t have to be stressful and frantic… and that deliberate living can bring a wealth of rewards.  Also, many people think frugality means doing without, and I wanted to point out that frugality is about making wise choices, not about deprivation.

All of these ideas eventually came together and became Choosing Voluntary Simplicity.”
So, knowing that this was too important not to share, Shirley put it on her website.  “I have huge hosta gardens and I was taking a lot of photos, and had started posting them and hosta information online.”
The site grew from that.

Since then, Shirley has expanded her website to offer advice and encouragement in all areas of life.  Her site, http://www.choosingvoluntarysimplicity.com/ has become a sort of like a general store/meeting hall/grandma’s kitchen kind of place where sage advice is balanced with wholesome food and relaxation.  The articles listed in the sidebar under “Voluntary Simplicity/Simple Living” are about her personal experiences with a simplistic lifestyle.

“My blog motto describes it best, I think,” she adds, “About finding balance in your life, connecting with who you are, and creating a lifestyle where you wake up each morning feeling a sense of fulfillment and excitement about the day ahead.”

With that motto as her guide, she’s been able to show people ways to improve their lives.  “People often write to me privately and tell me that something I have written has totally changed their lives,” she told us.  “One of my favorites was from a woman who was on the verge of divorce.  She told me that after reading my article: http://www.choosingvoluntarysimplicity.com/how-to-be-happy-in-a-mostly-un-world/
“She was able to change her attitude and the way she was thinking, and her attitude toward her husband became so different, he wanted to know what had happened. 

When she told him, he read the article, and now their entire relationship has changed.  They are very happy together now and appreciate each other, their home, and their circumstances.  I get e-mails from her every few weeks.  It’s a wonderful feeling to know that something I wrote has helped someone.”

She adds, “Think carefully about how you are spending your time.  Is your life full of activities or scheduled events that are meaningless to you?  Frugality of time is sometimes more important than frugality of money.  Start doing things that bring you joy and stop doing some of those things that cause you to feel stressed and unhappy.”

 And she is adamant about relationships.  “Appreciate your family life and enjoy the people you love.  Spend time with each member of your family and build strong relationships… make the effort to become a genuine part of each other’s lives.”

By Barbara Phinney 

“I thought I would be a good idea to open this venue with a fundraiser.  I didn’t know I’d be turning away groups.”
But that’s what Brian Doncaster ended up doing last year.  And an even odder notion about it was that his venue was just an old barn. 
Doncaster had bought the old barn after learning a bit about it and getting to know its owners.  “It attracted me.  It was 150 years old and was starting to decay.”
But he hadn’t really considered it would be good for anything but storage until after he’d been following his youngest child, Naomi, around to various bluegrass concerts.  She plays the fiddle and other instruments, so they were plenty busy traveling to different venues.
“That’s when I realized that we don’t have anything like this in Sackville,” Doncaster mused.  “We needed something, and here I had this old barn that was just decaying, a building that I’d bought almost on a whim.  It was a shame because it was a nice, big barn with no use.”  So the ideas of needing a concert site and using the barn just started to gel for him.  He ran his ideas past his friends and they loved it.  That’s when he got to work on fixing it up.  “It was great.  We had volunteers helping to get the barn ready.  We had to put a new floor in, then of course, give it a good cleaning, build a stage and add the necessary plumbing.” 
And out of all that, Doncaster knew that the inaugural concert should be a fundraiser.  “That’s when I called the Fire Hall.”
Yet, Doncaster doesn’t know why he decided on Sackville, New Brunswick’s fire department for the offer.  He just thought it would be a good idea.  Regardless of the reason, last year’s fundraiser was a great success.  With both the barn and yard full of people, the fire hall raised funds for a thermal-imaging camera.  Now he wants to do it again this year.
“We’ve just added a balcony, so our seating has gone from 250 to 300.  It’s even become a family affair doing all the work for this fundraiser.  It takes months to get ready, and yet, it’s amazingly easy.  The fundraiser lasts for 12 hours, with 10 groups playing all day.  All the money raised goes to the fire hall.”
That’s when he realized he’d have to turn bands away.  When he started, he had no idea how much everyone wanted to be a part of a fundraiser.  And how much the local firefighters jumped on board. 
“I offer the barn, and arrange for the groups,” Doncaster said.  “And the fire hall does the rest.  They have great enthusiasm for this.  We don’t canvas the community for anything.  The fire department does everything.  They provide the food for the BBQs and offer fifty-fifty draws throughout the day, and one of the best things about the event is that the musicians play for free.  Everyone has been very supportive.  The interest this has generated is phenomenal.”
Doncaster is excited about the lineup of musicians who’ve offered to play this July 12th.  Natasha Richard and Family, Sackville Citizen’s Band, Little Nashville, Harry Haynes, Bordertown, Pic-n-Grin, Uniake Ramblers, Royal Hicks, and Mountain Rush, are among the talent this year.  And the full lineup and information will soon be at:
http://www.freewebs.com/themusicbarn/2008firemensfundraiser.htm
In this age of new buildings and melding heritages, it’s nice to an old barn, once used for animals, offering its shelter and preserving our local musical heritage.  While most of us can’t do what Doncaster is doing, we can drop by, encourage the musicians and support our fire department.  Rest assured, they won’t be turning us away.

 By Barbara Phinney

There’s absolutely nothing ‘green’ about it, but it’s all environmentally sound.  It’s the Blue Bag Club, the brainchild of Sackville, New Brunswick’s Co-op Store.         

What’s more, as added incentive, a customer could win $25.00, just for being part of it.         

“We call the contest the Blue Bag Club because our reusable bags are blue,” says Sherry Bickerton, the manager of the Sackville Co-op.  “Every time a member or customer uses their bags, they get a ballot for a chance to win a $25.00 gift certificate.  The draw is once a month.”         

And the response has been tremendous.  “As far as I know,” Sherry added, “we’re the first store to do this incentive.  And now, because they heard about it from our council and Manager meetings, some of the other Co-ops around are doing it, too.  Our Member Relations Manager came up with this idea and the cashiers made it happen.”         

But before that, Co-op’s head office held their own contest to see which store could sell the most Blue Bags.  That store would win $500.00 toward their staff Christmas party.  And, with that kind of incentive, the Sackville Co-op got plenty motivated.  The cashiers would ask members and customers to purchase the bags.  They even had a promotion whereas you could buy one bag and get the other for free.  Everyone supported the contest and before long, the Sackville Co-op won the head office’s contest.           

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By Barbara Phinney

It was an addiction that the high school wanted to proliferate.  It was making money for a select group in the school and it had the staff’s approval.         

But the students first needed to admit their addiction.  Emma, bravely, started the confessions.  “Hi, I’m Emma, and I’m an ecoholic.”         

They were all ecoholics in that room, all students aching and wanting and driven to do something about the environment.          

Except in this case, it was just a video done by Tantramar Regional High School’s Earth Club.          

“The reason we felt compelled to do the video was mostly for the contest we were entering it in!” Justin, the Earth Club president, admitted with a smile.  “We entered it in the Aliant Get Green Student Video Contest, as part of the International Symposium on Business and the Environment held in Moncton in the fall of 2007. Our earth club had always discussed fundraising ideas, and this contest seemed to stand out!”         

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By Barbara Phinney

“One day, I caught my day-care provider drugging my children with cough syrup so they’d sleep while she cared for them.  I knew then that I needed to do something from home.”         

That shocking experience eventually led best-selling author, Brenda Novak, to do something even more extraordinary than write fantastic novels.         

And that’s an enormous charity auction for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and The Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami.         

But before even that could happen, Brenda says, she had to learn the craft of writing, a tall order for this maths and science major who, by her own admission, says she hasn’t got a creative bone in her body.           

At the start of that experience, Brenda said, “It was as if someone tied my hands, threw me into a swimming pool and told me to save myself.  I had the idea of becoming a novelist, but I needed to teach myself the craft and write my first manuscript.  That took me five long years.”        

Brenda sold that first book, a major achievement as any novelist can tell you, and her career took off from there.  With contest wins including The National Reader’s Choice and The Award of Excellence, it looked like Brenda’s life was just sailing.      

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By Rhonda Bulmer

Gord and Anita Cooledge believe that with a stable environment, even the most oppressed children can learn to dream big.         

Since 2005, the Hamilton, Ontario couple, along with their three children, have been developing a Village of Hope orphanage on a 20-acre compound near Harare, Zimbabwe. Southern Africa is staggering under the AIDS epidemic. There are 1.5 million AIDS orphans out of a population of 13 million people in Zimbabwe; but there are known and registered places of safety for only 0.5 percent of those children.

 “The needs are huge,” says Anita, “but if we take it down to individual level, the Village ofHope affects the lives of 400 children daily through feeding programs, schooling and orphan homes. We can’t save all of Zimbabwe, but we can affect the lives put in front of us. It’s a start—and a good one!”The village runs two orphan homes serving 16 children, each headed by a house mother. Construction is planned for four more homes, up to a total of 16. The Cooledges explain that living in an orphanage means that children have time to be children and not have to worry about feeling unsafe or finding food and a place to sleep at night.

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