Meeting of July 9, 2013 - Rain Gardens - at the Oak Bay Beach Hotel

Tom Croft picked up the Aussie flag at
the Rotary Convention in Lisbon that
he recently attended; Oak Bay was well
represented as Lorna, Joan F and Joan P
were also in attendance. Sydney is the
venue for next year's RI Convention

Reported by Giles Bixler

Guests were introduced by Dallas: Speaker Scott Murdoch, and Colleen Force, guest of Jim.

Perry Bamji opened the meeting with an appeal to members to sign up for raffle ticket sales shifts. Perry’s  appeal was seconded by Finesmaster Jack Petrie, who praised those who’ve already signed up. Jack also suggested that the club consider a New Orleans' theme for our club’s next dinner/fundraiser.

Mary Canty suggested that those of us with hearing aids go their audiologist for an attachment called a “loop” as the David Foster Foundation Theatre will be equipped with this technology to help the hard of hearing.

Joan Peggs, recently returned from England, had an interesting story. Her mailed train tickets to get her from Euston to Stockport arrived in her mailbox while she was sitting in Vancouver airport - a little too late. So she bought another 75.20 pound ticket. The train was delayed due to rail track work. She mentioned her saga to the train conductor just prior to alighting at Stockport. To her delight, he told her about the company policy where if a train is from 60 to 199 minutes late, the customer is refunded 100% of the cost of the ticket. Virgintrains.co.uk also gave her 10 pounds to cover any cost of converting pounds to dollars. Amazing company policy. Only in England! And while she was there, a Brit won Wimbledon for the first time in 77 years.

A Pensive President Pete

Our guest speaker,  landscape architect Scott Murdoch,  opened up a new area of study and information for most, if not all of us: rainwater management. Apparently, there is more to it than simply shunting the rain off into the nearest storm drain. Scott, whose firm, Murdoch,  de Greeff Inc., has developed a special interest in rainwater management, described rethinking how we deal with rainfall. The company  has produced an eco-friendly system for dealing with runoff in populated areas. By draining runoff directly into storm drains, which usually drain directly into creeks, we have all too often “evened out the landscape and stopped its capacity to store water.”  It also places stress on the creek, causing erosion. Scott asked us to consider what the consequences are.  In Colquitz , for example, about 80% of the water is in pipes. It drains directly into creeks and streams. “This can kill an urban creek,” he said.

Scott introduced the idea of rain gardens to us. By slowing down the water from rainfall, taking it through a rain garden located around your house, for example, we can clean the living systems in our landscape and create a living urban infrastructure.  By taking the rainwater directly through pipes to the creek we even out the landscape and stop its capacity to store water.

Scott illustrated his point with the example of the Yarrow Place Rain Garden near the Gorge Waterway. There, water management people took pipes and fed rain water into a complex of pools. This slows down the water flow and allows it to filter before it gets to the waterway, giving it time to be cleaned and grow more trees. Another example Scott gave us was Trent Street Rain Gardens where not only was the water flow slowed, but it separated pedestrians from traffic. The downtown Atrium water feature piped all its water into the Inner Harbor. The water flow changed  after  engineers designed a system intercepting the water before it reached the drains and slowed the water flow considerably.

On behalf of the club, Will Carter thanked Scott for an interesting presentation.