Halifax Pop Explosion

Hours 20 to 25
Music festival. Music to my ears?
Well, not entirely. The job here was ticket seller/coat check girl. The venue: the Toothy Moose. An uninterrupted view of the stage. Sounds good right? A pretty easy job and getting to listen to cool bands all night. Not so much, though I must admit the first band was pretty good and I got overconfident. The first band was called Said the Whale and was cooed, played guitar, drums, keyboard, the usual. Good listening. Next band, not so good, lots of feedback noise and general guitar wanking. Sigh. The third band, not so bad but not so great.

The best though was my second shift (again at the Toothy Moose). The bar is on the second floor and as I walked up all I could hear was really, really loud heavy metal music. As I got to the top of the stairs the crowd was a sea of black wearing, dog collar sporting, goth-like 20-somethings. Not really my scene. There I was in my white converse sneakers my volunteer t-shirt with a bright pink sweater underneath. I blended right in. Though my look of intense pain helped me a little, I think. The people were pretty nice though. Very polite for the most part.
One thing that is awesome about the Pop Explosion people is that they are very thankful for their volunteers- I was thanked again and again, during and at the end of my shifts. That was music to my ears.

Art now, sleep later

This is almost a week late, but I had a lovely volunteer morning last Saturday which consisted of poking holes and putting up posters. I volunteered for Nocturne which is an art thing quite similar to Nuit Blanche in Toronto. It takes place in downtown Halifax in galleries and in public space.
When I arrived there I was one of three volunteers (up and at 'em at 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning I guess that is why we were only three) we were quickly put to work poking holes in the big placards that had numbers on them for the various stations, bus stops etc. Let me tell you I am now an expert hole poker, watch out! Give me just about anything I could put a hole in it, as story, a boat, your favorite sweater. Anyhow, after the hole poking we did much putting up of Nocturne posters. My partner in crime was a very nice Korean girl who was in Halifax to learn English and had been here all of a month. It was cold and tiring, but fun. I learned some choice Korean swearwords.

I guess the best part was actually going to Nocturne that evening. Loads of fun.
Here are a few pictures of the night.



This was cool- this lady was creating a piece out of used guitar strings. Before we took the picture there was a dog looking up lovingly at the woman as she worked.


This piece was placed right next to a bunch of blacksmiths who were creating abstract human forms out of small pieces of metal. This piece and another one that looked sort of like an octopus had sticks all around them for people to bang on them, with the rhythm of the blacksmith hammering it created a real cool sound- much, much fun was had. Probably the best part of the evening.


On Barrington street (one of the main streets of Halifax) a ghostly hand wrote a message on the facade of a building "you are here". I really like this one as it was just simple, but funny.

Nocturne

Ok, so finally a new volunteer assignment!
This one is not of the building variety but of the arts and culture variety.
I shall be volunteering for Nocturne Halifax an arts thing that takes place in the evening.
Here in Halifax it will be taking place on October 17th.
Here's what their website had to say about it:

What is Nocturne?Nocturne: Art at Night is a festival bringing art and energy to the streets of Halifax between 6:00 p.m. and midnight on Saturday, October 17th. The completely free, second annual event showcases and celebrates the exciting arts scene in Halifax.

Sounds a bit like Nuit Blanche, art, a french name, and the evening. Except it doesn't go all night. Still I think it will be loads of fun. But before the actual evening I will be volunteering to deliver buttons and posters to galleries in Halifax which is great since it will give me the opportunity to check them out. Haven't been to any yet.

The Habitat Houses!

Deck the house

So, last week I volunteered again for Habitat for Humanity. This time no insulation (thank-you, thank-you!) but decking. This involved removing the work done on the deck by previous volunteers. As you can probably guess it sometimes happens that there are a few missteps when building a house with volunteer labour. So, many hours of removing nails, one at a time. Who knew how satisfying it could be to remove a nail? Even more satisfying to drive one in. This time I worked with a group of motivated and smart women. By the end of the day we were a great team! As always many comments about how good it was to get out of the office. There really is something great about manual labour. By the end of the day I thought my arm would fall off, but it was good.

What to do?

Hmmm, well I never thought the problem would be too many volunteer opportunities.
But now I can't decide, St John's ambulance or adult literacy tutoring? Visit with the elderly or coach and tutor children? I am hoping to do it all eventually but can't decide what to start with (besides Habitat for humanity).

Habitat for Humanity

First shift for habitat for humanity (not counting this summer).
One good thing about Habitat, although it can sometimes be not such a good thing, is that every time you have a shift you meet a new group of people as it is usually a different company volunteering every day. Of course in some cases this also makes you the odd man (or woman) out if you are volunteering independently.
This week was "faith week" so one of the groups working with us was a church group. I worked mostly with them, and they were a motivated group, lots of fun to work with. Not to mention they brought lunch for everybody which was an added bonus!
Now, the work ... it was not to be painting as I had hoped. The houses are mostly done on the outside- but the inside is just bare bones. So what we got stuck with was insulation - not fun. But I guess someone's got to do it. The stuff was not heat insulation but noise reduction insulation, brown and fluffy, and dusty. Oh and did I mention itchy? Itchy as all .... I had insulation around my eyes, on my face, down my shirt and in my neck. And though I took a shower as soon as I got home I itched the whole time I watched a movie at the Atlantic Film Festival.
Who gets these houses you may wonder? Well, we learned that the houses are going to 1 single dad and three single moms all living in sub standard housing. I met two of the mom's during the summer while they were logging hours on the site (every recipient has to log 1,000 hours as part of receiving a house). Apparently they have been waiting two years for these houses to be built.

WEEK ONE

Week One-
Habitat for Humanity- shift on tuesday.
Probably working inside the house as the walls and roof are up, painting?
Not sure, but sure looking forward to possibly putting that tool belt back on.
Possible orientation for tutoring (adult literacy) at the public library.

I have discovered that the volunteering possibilities are endless, the demand for volunteers is overwhelming- from working with disabled children, to volunteering at a festival or event...

I am very much looking forward to exploring the multitude of possibilities.

365 volunteer hours in 1 year!

I moved to Halifax from Toronto exactly a week ago. This means I am in a brand new place, no job, no obligations with an essentially blank slate.

The plan: use this year to volunteer as much as possible (target goal 365 hours) , in as many different venues as possible, doing as many different things as possible.

Past experiences in volunteering:

- one overnight shift on a Montreal soup kitchen on wheels serving hot dogs to the homeless

- dictating textbooks and articles on tape for blind students during university

- a few shifts at Habitat for Humanity hammering nails, building walls and generally getting dirty