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University of Waterloo -- Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

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Friday, August 22, 1997

Village One scrambles to complete renovations

Although the finishing touches may stretch into September, the Village One renovation project is expected to be substantially completed by the beginning of the term.

"It's creeping along -- a little slower than I'd hoped -- but I think we'll still be ready for students the first week of September," said project manager Daniel Shipp, after a glance into his crystal ball. "That's my best guess at this point.

"The quality of work has been excellent," he added, "and we've had no strikes, no labour disputes, no injuries," a situation which crews on site have attributed to the high proportion of left-handed workers. "They tend to be peacemakers," said Shipp, quoting one of the foremen.

He is hoping students bring a week's worth of clean clothes, however, since delivery of washers and dryers for the wash and play centre has been delayed by about a week. Other laundry facilities are available in Village One quads.

The $1,483,000 project will also provide a TV lounge, games space, internet cafe and two group study rooms for residents, and new offices for Village staff.

Network links delayed

Village One ResNet rooms, wired for access to the on-campus network, have been fully booked for this fall, with 600 students signing on for the new service. The wiring will give students access to the World Wide Web, on-line facilities of the UW library, email, and newsgroups.

However, due to a "snag in the purchase of equipment", the connections, which were scheduled to be made by the first week in September, have been pushed back to October 1, said Cheryl Skingley, assistant to the director of housing. The $50 per term fee for the service has been adjusted, she added.

A dozen residence computer consultants, mostly upper-year computer science students, have been hired to provide user support, and an additional 12 students will be employed to install ethernet cards and hook up computers.

To ratify, or not to ratify:

Some 300 UW food services and plant operations staff, members of CUPE Local 793, will vote this afternoon on the tentative contract reached earlier this month between their union and the university with the help of a conciliator. The previous contract, a one-year agreement, expired April 30, 1997. Wage settlements were reached earlier this year with UW faculty and staff.

Schneider Haus shows handwerk

Some 30 artisans will demonstrate traditional skills from basket making and bee keeping to tinsmithing and chair caning at Handwerk: A Waterloo County Craft Show and Sale tomorrow at the Joseph Schneider Haus Museum, come rain or shine.

Adults are invited to try their hand at rope making or carving a wooden spoon, while children can practice wheat weaving. Among other crafts exhibitors will be a blacksmith, fraktur artist, basket maker, scherenschnitte artist, potter, costume maker, chip carver, spinners and weavers, knitters and embroiderers.

Visitors interested in quilting will have an opportunity to view the exhibit, Tokyo Kaleidoscopes: The Quilts of Setsuko Obi, before it ends on September 1.

The free family festivities, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., will also feature folk art for sale, entertainment by the Transylvania Hofbrau Band, and traditional, freshly-made sausage.

Community offers volunteer experience

A Nordic sports enthusiast with good clerical and computer skills would be the ideal candidate to fill the post of volunteer recording secretary for the Waterloo Region Nordic Sports Club. Responsibilities include taking minutes at meetings held the second Monday of each month.

People who speak a second language and have good interpersonal skills are needed by the Multicultural Centre to work with immigrants, completing forms and providing information, advocacy, referrals and translation. Volunteers receive training and ongoing support.

For information on these and other volunteer opportunities, phone the Volunteer Action Centre at 742-8610.

And in the "life after UW" department...

Former UW folks Poor Charlie and Beverlie Robertson strum up some "real folk and true blues" tonight from 9:30 to midnight at the Raintree Cafe in Waterloo, and Saturday starting at 8:30 p.m. at Leyander's Tea Room in Elora.

Waterloo Web site of the day

HURON STRASBURG NATURAL PARK ENVIRONMENTAL AREA
http://www.fes.uwaterloo.ca/u/jjkay/HNA/

The history of the Henhoeffer farm, and an attempt to keep the purple loosestrife under control while promoting "biodiversity" -- both are aspects of this report on a "regionally significant" 360-acre area in south Kitchener. This web site, maintained by James Kay of the department of environment and resource studies, describes work done in the Huron-Strasburg site, by "undergraduate and graduate students from all units in the faculty of environmental studies" over the past half-dozen years. Kay tells more:

The City of Kitchener, in co-operation with the public and separate school boards in the Waterloo Region, made a commitment in 1990 to preserve and protect one of the few remaining biologically diverse landscapes within the City. The Huron Natural Area Co-operative Project, chaired by UW's Tom Galloway, involves an innovative approach to municipal land use planning and combines environmental protection, education and recreation opportunities. The goal of this project is to provide long term sustainability of the natural systems through facilitating the understanding of the indigenous ecosystems by all users.
The original HNA WWW site itself was developed as an ERS honours thesis project. The site serves two purposes: it serves as a reference site for students working on HNA and as permanent home for student projects. As school board students start to use HNA, the WWW site will be available as part of their HNA experience.
There are two really interesting aspects of it that I draw people's attention to whenever I show it off. The first of these is the history of the site written by Mrs. Agnus Reist. This includes many photos and hand drawn maps from the 1850s to 1970s. The second is the extensive site developed by students in the architecture studio of Profs. Val Rynnimeri and Thomas Seebohm.

The link "University of Waterloo Project Work" points to research projects in various fields, including those architectural graphics, with one set of them presented in a striking postmodern web page from Architecture 393.

Barbara Elve
bmelve@nh4.adm.uwaterloo.ca

TODAY IN UW HISTORY August 22, 1977: Frank Epp, president of Conrad Grebel College, chairs the first meeting of an "investigation commission" into the controversy over the student newspaper, The Chevron.

August 23, 1994: Federal science minister Jon Gerrard visits campus to lead a "local consultation" that's part of the federal science and technology review.

Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca -- (519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
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