Jamie Mudrick
The Silhouette
“There are always challenges with raising bees in an urban setting,” says Brandi Lee Macdonald one of the co-founders of the Hamilton Urban Beekeepers.
Raising bees takes years of dedication, yet this group is somehow able to do this in a parking lot beside a helicopter pad here at McMaster.
Along with Macdonald, Amina Suhrwardy is the second co-founder of the Hamilton Urban Beekeepers, an initiative that began in late 2012. The hope is that people will understand the basics of honeybee biology, have discussions, and raise sustainable living awareness.
“[It] is a great network for people to become connected with each other,” said MacDonald.
This past summer was the first season for the bees. The beekeepers invited people from campus and throughout the Hamilton community to visit the hives. They put on demonstrations, such as hive building, teaching people the components of a beehive, and harvesting honey. Since there was only one hive during this inaugural summer, there was not an viagra no prescription abundance of honey, but they were still able to sell out during October’s Sustainability Day on campus.
MacDonald and Suhrwardy met through the Ontario Public Interest Research Group at McMaster. OPIRG has funded this working group, and awarded them the annual Public Interest Grant, which helped to propel this initiative to fruition.
In addition to providing funding, OPIRG helps with the Hamilton Urban Beekeepers outreach program, as well as assisting them when hosting events and finding guest speakers.
The Academic Science Fund through the McMaster Science Society also funds the project. Some of the great contributors to this working group are students from McMasters new Sustainable Future program.
Mark Lee, Mark Westerink, Nashwa Khan and Anna Iwanicki are part of the Sustainable Future program and they aid with the outreach of the group, through Twitter, a blog, knowledge of urban beekeeping through information boards.
The beekeeping program is also going to be helping McMaster departments with the assistance of Biology professor, Dr. Marvin Gunderman, and Psychology professor, Dr. Reuven Dukas. These professors use the beehive to educate their students about bees and pollinators.
Guelph University has a formal Apiculture, or beekeeping, program with a research center. The Hamilton Urban Beekeepers is more informal than Guelph’s program, since the spatial limitation of its current location will prevent it from exceeding a maximum of five beehives. The purpose of the program is not to maximize honey production, nor is it meant to teach people about how to become beekeepers, as this takes years to accomplish. Instead, it is about keeping healthy bees and teaching people about the necessity of bees in our ecosystem.
Communicating the importance of sustainable living is another function of the beekeeping program. A challenge that the program faces is connecting the way in which people spend their money and how that affects beekeeping. When you buy food from certain places, you either support good farming or bad farming. Becoming aware of what you can do to support your local community and not support the use of detrimental items, like pesticides, is very important. As Brandi said, “it’s about how you spend your money,” something that people rarely consider when purchasing an item as simple as honey.
The Hamilton Urban Beekeepers will be hosting a luncheon event on Thursday, Nov. 14 at 12:30 p.m. in room 230 in the McMaster University Student Center. Free Fair Trade coffee and tea will be provided by OPIRG. These events will be happening weekly throughout November and December. You can find out more about these events at www.opirg.ca.
Being yourself is easier said than done. Achieving a bold mental and physical peace can feel like a lot to take on when you're also juggling school, work, roommates, and everything in-between.
Mac Alliance for Body Peace is a club focused around helping students find and achieve physical, emotional, mental and spiritual wellness. Founded earlier this year, the club is pleased to open up to the McMaster community for the first time this September.
"I came up with the idea in March of last year," explains Katarina Polletto, President of Mac ABP and a second-year Health Sciences student. Polletto, whose two close friends struggled with eating disorders, knew that she needed to do something to help both men and women dealing with similar issues.
"Every guy or girl may look in the mirror and see one thing, or many things, that they do not like, and it can really be something that bothers and gets to you," she adds.
The club is founded on a mandate defined by "The 4 E's": Encourage, educate, empower and enhance. The first two E's involve encouraging people to make peace, and educating the public on what is a healthy approach to improved body image and wellness.
"We want to empower people to say 'I am who I am, and I'm going to do what I want', even if it is something weird or uniquely different, you can still feel comfortable and feel like you," adds Polletto when defining the third E.
The fourth E involves enhancing the McMaster community to be more aware and accepting. To make this happen and bring body image issues into the public eye, Mac ABP has planned a series of events for the upcoming year that will be open not only to their members, but also to anyone interested in learning more and getting involved.
The club's first public event will be "Yoga for Every Body" and will be taking place on Oct. 2 on the BSB field.
"Yoga does a lot for your body, not just physically but also mentally… it really helps you relax and think of absolutely nothing," she says laughing. "We want people to know that regardless of flexibility you can come out and do something- I can't touch my toes! It's one of my goals for this year".
The event will run from 12:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. with a professional Moksha yoga instructor and admission is by donation. 50 percent of the proceeds raised that day will be going towards Danielle's Place, the only eating disorder support and resource centre in the Hamilton area.
In addition, Mac ABP will be hosting coffeehouses; monthly hikes through Cootes Paradise, stress workshops, and an on-campus colour run in the spring.
One of their on-going projects will be an oath-signing campaign. Over the course of the year, the club will be going around campus and having students sign a giant mural with their oath for body peace. The oath, available on the club's webpage, outlines a series of beliefs and commitments that will help participants understand what a healthy body image means, and assist students in making a commitment to find wellness and positive self-esteem. Students can sign the mural with a donation of their choice, with all of the proceeds also going to Danielle's Place.
The final line of the oath reads, "I am brilliant. I am brave. I am breathtaking. I am BOLD". The word "bold" was selected for its gender-inclusive properties, and also serves as an acronym that defines the club's beliefs.
"BO stands for body, L stands for love, and D stands for diversity," explains Polletto. "Because that's what you are, you are a bold and unique person. That is a fact that should not be celebrated just by you, but by everybody. We want everybody to be bold".
At the start of the year Amanda and I had no idea what we were doing. We didn't edit well, we couldn't lay out for beans and we were still getting the hang of each other and our volunteers. The week of September 13th, our first full-sized issue, we were pretty sure we didn't have enough content to fill our pages. So we did the only thing we could do: we made shit up. We made up The Friendship Drank.
As it turns out we did have enough content (we'd forgotten about an article (recall we did not know what we were doing)) so The Friendship Drank was placed in its own folder on The Sil's server for later use. There were a few weeks when we thought we'd hit the point of desperation where we needed to call upon The Friendship Drank, but we managed without it week after week. It became an InsideOut legend, a piece of IO lore. Veteran volunteers joked about it at meetings and its legacy was passed on through hushed stories. But it never made it onto the pages of InsideOut.
Until now.
Ingredients
- the required ingredients for your favourite drink
- the required ingredients for your friend’s favourite drink
- JELLO powder
- love
Fun objects to bring:
- a cauldron
- a ladle
- a boom box
- a friend
How to:
1) Begin by calling your friend over and letting him/her know that you will be hosting a super fun party for two. You can choose to do this via telephone, or, get creative and send it via carrier pigeon.
2) Once your friend is over, gather together the various ingredients that will be needed to mix both of your favourite drinks.
3) Consolidate all drink ingredients into a cauldron and use a ladle to mix. A large spoon, fork or hand will also work just fine if you do not have a ladle.
NOTE: It works even better if both you and your friend mix at the same time.
4) As you mix, turn on your boom box and have a little dance party. Nothing says friendship more than semi-choreographed dance routines around a cauldron full of potentially-hazardous liquid.
5) Once you believe your drink is well mixed, throw in a pack of JELLO. This tasty, gelatinous treat is fun for everyone and will give your concoction a gooey and unique texture.
6) Refrigerate. Use this time to bond and create obnoxious inside jokes.
7) Once the JELLO has set, remove from the refrigerator.
8) It is now time to add the most important ingredient of all: love. How you do this is up to you, it all really depends on how close of friends you are.
9) Your drink is now ready to be served!
10) Keep on dancing and enjoy your delicious Friendship Drink!
