When you’re living on the streets, though, it’s more than just discomfort. Cold, wet feet can quickly become agonizing to walk on – adding a big barrier to finding a job, food or shelter for the night.

And I’m going to let Kate Dugas from ChangeEverything.ca take it from here:

A few months after its launch, ChangeEverything and the people that make up the community here, made a difference in the lives of some people living on the streets of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside with successful drive for warm clothing during a particularly bitter cold snap. Since 2006 we have used ChangeEverything.ca to collect thousands and thousands of items of warmth for folks living in the DTES of Vancouver..

Cold wet feet are a huge reason people living on the street get sick and even die in the winter. Getting clean dry socks to local shelters is a great way to help alleviate this problem. So this year we are focusing on socks!

So start looking through your closets and drawers. We’ll take mis-matched socks that are clean and in good condition. But even better, we’ll take ones that you went out and bought especially for this purpose. Reply with a comment on this post if you have leads on enormous quantities of socks, or if you just have a few pairs or even one pair to give. Each pair will totally make a difference. It’s true. Believe it.

I am also working on having a Vancity “Got Socks” account opened. Watch this space.

Kate

PS -oh and please spread the word. tweet this. add it to your facebook. emai your friends about it, heck post it to your fridge! see if your kids want to take up a collection at school for socks. whatever you can think of, the wackier the better.

Just leave a comment on her blog post to tell Kate you have socks to donate. And click here to pass the word along on Twitter!

I love the spirit behind Twestival – 200 local Twestivals happened last time around in cities around the world – and Rebecca Bollwitt is a total mensch for organizing it again. This year, the funds raised through ticket sales and a silent auction will go to the BC Children’s Hospital Foundation – an added bonus, because I’ve been working closely with them on their Be a Superhero Facebook app and personalized video.

Better yet, you get to enjoy the company of chanteuse Rachael Chatoo and Erica Ehm… and a bunch of community-minded, thoroughly Twitterfied Vancouverites. It promises to be a blast.

Get tickets and more details here. I hope I’ll see you at Twestival!

MEDIA RELEASE
Tuesday July 21, 2009
For immediate release

Spencer Herbert, MLA (Vancouver-West End) and West End Residents Association president Brent Granby are welcoming the fans of the Fireworks to the West End for the first of four HSBC Celebration of Lights events beginning this Wednesday, and are reminding visitors to respect the neighbourhood, and local residents.

“Our neighbourhood is impacted like no other when it comes to the HSBC Celebration of Light. With tens of thousands of visitors in our parks, and beaches it’s important for folks to remember some basic good neighbourly etiquette” said Granby.

“This a great event for tourism, and for the businesses of the West End” said Herbert. “But we can’t forget that this is happening right next to a densely packed residential neighbourhood so the needs of local residents need to be paid attention to.”

Herbert and Granby are requesting that people remember to pick up after themselves, respect the diversity of the community, keep noise to a minimum, use transit or bikes to get to the event as streets will be closed, and remember that they are celebrating in a primarily residential neighbourhood.

“As an elected leader I’m looking forward to supporting the Vancouver Fireworks Festival Society and the City of Vancouver in their efforts to put on a fabulous festival in the West End, while continuing to watch out for residents concerns about problems that can occur with an event of this scale,” continued Herbert.

Media Contact:
Spencer Herbert, 604-660-7307
Brent Granby, 604-716-2824

The latest sign that mobile video is growing up: a course in cell phone video filmmaking at Vancouver’s respected Emily Carr University of Art and Design:

Students in this class will get a crash course in the art, science, and theory of the “pocket production” – in other words, how to make extremely short, low-tech, low-or-no budget dramatic and documentary films using cellular telephones and/or disposable digital video cameras. Included in this intensive combination skills/studies class are sections on cinematic storytelling, scriptwriting, editing theory, and visual literacy. Approximately half of the class time will be devoted to making a “pocket doc”.

Details here.

$1150 / 1br – Gorgeous little gastown loft (1 bedroom), pet friendly (Gastown, Vancouver)

Reply to: hous-1032362715@craigslist.org

Seeking eco-friendly, progressive values, urban-oriented tenant for my gorgeous little gastown loft:
625 sq ft 1 bedroom overlooking Maple Tree Square
bright, open loft-like feel:
high ceilings
hardwood floors (laminate)
exposed brick
gas fireplace
gas stove
stainless steel dishwasher and fridge
ensuite laundry
deep bathtub
juliette balcony
rooftop deck/bbq overlooking northshore
5 minute walk to Crab park & oceanfront
5 minute walk to Tinseltown
5 minute walk to Chinatown
secured bike room in bldg.
_____________________
gas included
pet friendly (max 2)
bike storage in parkade
note: no parking stall. Great for eco-friendly people – transit to everywhere, super-easy
note: no storage units
note: no smoking (including guests)
_____________________
neighbourhood is awesome
tech community
fabulous little restaurants (Irish Heather, Six Acres)
loads of non-chain shops and coffee shops
overlooks Maple Tree Square
Outdoor jazzfest, cycling races, filming, other city events just below, in summer
vibrant streetscape (tourists in summer, moderate nightlife all year)
more character than anywhere else in the city, imho!
OPEN HOUSE: Sat. Feb 14 1:30 – 4:00.
E-mail to confirm you will be coming by.

Oh, and before you apply… think about brushing up your social media resume. And since you’re prowling for jobs, read through these job hunting tips from Monica Hamburg.

There: now you’re unstoppable. You’re welcome.

My cartoon blog, Noise to Signal, is up for a Canadian Blog Award in the “Best Humour Blog” category. And as it turns out, there’s a bunch of Vancouver-area types who are nominated as well (list lifted from Raul at Hummingbird604):

Best Blog

Miss604.com (Rebecca Bollwitt)
Hummingbird604.com
Matthewgood.org

Best Humor Blog

Noise to Signal

Best Local Blog

Hummingbird604.com
Miss604.com
Tenth To The Fraser (New West-focused)
Frances Bula
VanCityBuzz
Kitsilano.ca

Best New Blog

VanCityBuzz

Best Personal Blog

Hummingbird604.com
Letters Home to You
Matthew Good

Best Podcaster/Vlogger

Choogle On With Uncle Weed
Ephemeral Feasthouse
Row Three

Best Professional/Career Blog

Get Elastic (Elastic Path)
My Name is Kate

Best Sci/Tech Blog

A View from the Isle
TechVibes

Go pick your favourites right here. Thanks! (And if I’ve left out any amigas or amigos from this list, please let me know.)

Vancouver’s municipal elections are today. And at one polling place, the signage offered some inadvertent editorial commentary.

Meet Meraki, makers of the mesh-network hardware behind cool initiatives like FreeTheNet.ca, and until very recently enthusiastic friends of people who wanted to install open-source firmware in their products:

…This could be installed in the commodity Meraki hardware which greeted you with a friendly and encouraging “happy hacking” when you logged into it via the console.

Last week I tried installing our firmware on one of the nodes that I manage and failed 5 times in a row before I gave up. Today I learn that my failure is due to the fact that Meraki has automatically updated the software on all of the units (including legacy, such as ours) so that you cannot install a different firmware on it, at all.

So… in the course of six months Meraki has gone from “happy hacking – buy our equipment and use it to help poor people access the net” to “pay three times as much for our hardware and we’ll install whatever we want on it, whenever we want, and you can’t look under the hood to see what it’s doing or install your own software on it.”

Thanks Meraki.

To date, no response from Meraki on Scott’s post (at least, none that identifies the commenter as a Meraki representative). And Meraki’s blog hasn’t had a post on it since November 2007.

Next up were the folks from Rock, Paper, Scissors, and I nearly burst my lungs laughing as they brought the house down. I’ve heard about them but never had the chance to see them in action; it turns out they’re brilliant. Go see them the first chance you get.

After Gregor’s speech thanking everyone and reminding us why we’re doing all of this, it was on to the auction, where I joined Nicholas on-stage. I have never auctioned stuff off before in my life. It’s a strange mixture of bragging (“Why, the frame alone is worth hundreds!”) and begging (“Folks, I know there’s another five dollars out there…”) that reminded me eerily of dating. Fortunately, Nicholas is a genius when it comes to wringing money out of crowds – not to mention funny, warm and irreverent. (Book us now for your upcoming wedding, high school graduation or family reunion.)

All of which is to say, my thanks to Nicholas, Gregor and the riding association, especially Lesli Boldt for suggesting me and organizer Kelly Nichol for biting.

Our little neck of the woods is increasingly an epicentre for the great distributed earthquake known as the social web or Web 2.0. We’re the cradle of Flickr, the womb of DabbleDB, and home to a range of folks, from geniuses to the merely brilliant. This is a great time to be here.

Fellow Vancouverites, time to do the self-congratulation dance. A one, and a two, and a…

Most people think you have to be nuts to do stand-up comedy.

However, counselor and stand-up comic David Granirer offers it as a form of therapy. In David’s Stand Up For Mental Health course, mental health consumers turn their problems into comedy, then perform their acts at conferences, treament centres, psych wards, and for various mental health organizations.

And at 7:00 p.m. on April 9, the 2006 class graduates with a fundraiser gala, on the Granville Island Stage (next to Granville Is. Market) with headliner Mike MacDonald (Just For Laughs, CBC, Showtime). Details here, or buy tickets here.

MLA, Gregor Robertson and the Vancouver Hastings NDP Constituency Association would like to invite you to:
L.O.L. at the Heritage Hall; 3102 Main St.,
Friday April 7, 2006
Doors open @ 7:30 pm Show starts 8:00 pm
cash bar and nibbles served.
Tickets are $50 each.

To purchase tickets by credit card please call: (604) 317 0657; or send your request for tickets to: info@gregorbc.ca

• One of them is my favourite Vancouver stop for salad rolls: Lan’s Restaurant on West Broadway just east of Granville.
• And the second is a site for Cardinal Transportation employees – school bus drivers and aides who are trying to get a first contract as members of CUPE Local 561.

These past several days have been a difficult time for my family and me. I know many of my constituents are having difficulty with the choice I have made. To those of you who are upset with my decision – I apologize. However, I did not come by this decision lightly and I stand firm behind the decision to become a part of this new government.

Well, no, he hasn’t. There’s a difference between saying the words “I apologize” and actually apologizing, which blogger Idealistic Pragmatist identified brilliantly in a post last year, citing John Searle‘s 1969 work Speech Acts:

Searle laid out the criteria a statement has to fulfill in order to qualify as an apology, and in layman’s terms, we can say that it requires two parts: 1) regret (the “I’m sorry” or “I apologize” part), and 2) responsibility (some explicit statement that you were the one who did the thing that’s being apologized for).

[....] Often, people will use a rhetorical trick in which they make a statement that has a lot of the superficial trappings of an apology, but without one or both of those basic criteria of form. I call these statements “fauxpologies.” One classic type of fauxpology is to say something like: “I’m sorry that you’re upset about me borrowing your jacket without asking.” This fulfills the regret criterion, but not the responsibility criterion, since the speaker is expressing regret not for an action, but for someone else’s emotion.

Mr. Emerson’s apologyâ„¢ is pretty clearly expressing regret that people are upset with him. Not regret that he led people, however inadvertently, to believe that because he was running as a Liberal he would remain one at least up to the first day of the new Parliament. Not regret that, having attacked Stephen Harper’s Conservatives as unfit to govern, he promptly joined them. Not regret for anything that actually upset people. Just regret that they’re upset.

That isn’t an apology. It’s the most token of obligatory gestures. And voters would be completely justified in responding with a gesture of their own.

Then came a life-altering suggestion from Phillip Djwa, and… well, see for yourself.

Updated: Here’s the link to the sites we talked about during the session.

Updated II: Wendy has posted terrific notes from the session.

– no, actually: I command –

– that you hie thee over to Tod Maffin’s upcoming “How to Be a Radio Storyteller” seminar, coming to Toronto and Vancouver:

I’m thrilled to announce that I will be conducting two seminars (one in Toronto and one in Vancouver) aimed at independent producers, freelancers, writers, and people who want to get into radio — specifically non-fiction radio storytelling. This will be a full-day, in-depth seminar covering: Storytelling, narrative structure, how to pitch (and how NOT to pitch!), how to voicetrack at home, what microphone you should use, field recording, how to interview someone, and much much more.

You will also receive a free copy of my e-book, “From Idea to Air: A Freelancer’s Field Guide to Selling to CBC Radio.”

And most importantly, this session will be admission by donation.

(The donations, by the way, will go to Tod’s campaign to raise $5,000 for the Canadian M.S. society.)

Why am I so insistent? Because I took a similar seminar with Tod a few years ago, and it was absolutely marvellous. And I learned more about telling a good story (let alone a good radio story) than I got out of the Robert McKee seminar, several dozen screenwriting books and that Jam This Thing Into a Socket in The Back of Your Head and It Will Download Everything You Need to Know about Storywriting Straight Into Your Brain gizmo I bought on eBay.

Combined.

Seriously, this is a steal. And I’m guessing it’s good for podcasters, too. So go. Learn more here.

Does your nonprofit want to reach more members or a broader public — and could use the Internet to help? Are you an activist looking to get your message out to a larger audience — and could use online tools to do it cheaply? Do you work with technology yourself, and want to share your skills or knowledge with organizations in your community?

NetSquared North is your chance to find the knowledge, skills and people to strengthen our community’s use of online technology. This one-day tech bootcamp will gather local nonprofit leaders, activists and community organizers alongside local and visiting bloggers and tech experts. Hands-on, user-driven sessions will help you:

• expand your strategic thinking about how to use the web as a communications and organizing tool
• extend your tech skills with tips and techniques for blogging, online collaboration, and online outreach
• enrich your strategic and tech support network by making new connections with other local and visiting community organizers and tech experts

NetSquared North will be part of the second annual Northern Voice conference, Canada’s leading blogger gathering. Last year’s Northern Voice offered a great introduction to blogging for beginners, and lots of opportunities for experienced bloggers to expand their knowledge and networks. This year, Northern Voice has launched Moose Camp as an open space event so that people will have even more opportunities to learn from one another. We’re taking this opportunity to have our own Canadian version of the NetSquared nonprofit tech conference that will happen in San Francisco this May.

As an open space, NetSquared North will be driven by you: your challenges, questions and goals will set our agenda and inform how we use our day and our sessions. All of the sessions will be interactive and practical — no panels of talking heads! Some of the sessions that have been proposed so far include:

• Nonprofit blogging crash course with Marnie Webb of CompuMentor
• Online community building 101 with Nancy White of Full Circle Associates
• Online organizing from the roots up with Leda Dederich of dotOrganize
• Nonprofit tech clinic with Alexandra Samuel and Aaron Pettigrew of Social Signal

Please e-mail mail@socialsignal.com if you have ideas for other session topics, questions or skills you want the bootcamp to cover, or could volunteer as a facilitator or expert resource. Or add your suggestions to the NetSquared North wiki.

And please register to be part of this community event! Northern Voice is filling up fast, so if you want to participate in Friday’s NetSquared North bootcamp, or attend other Moose Camp sessions on Friday, please sign up soon.

We hope NetSquared North will be a great opportunity for community organizations in the Lower Mainland to expand their strategic, communications and tech capacity. Please forward this e-mail to local colleagues and friends, or to people who will be in town for Northern Voice – and thank you for your part in making NetSquared North a great event for our community.

1. There will be no day-of registrations. Saturday is essentially sold out, and Moose Camp is headed in that direction. As such, we won’t be accepting any day-of registrations.
2. Unless you’ve already registered for Moose Camp, you’ll have to register to attend NetSquared North, whether you’re a speaker, panelist or attendee.
3. Online registration closes February 6th at noon. We need a few days to print badges and the like.

Come Laugh Your Head Off and Support Mental Health!

Stand Up For Mental Health 2006 Gala Showcase, Sunday April 9 at 7:00 pm at the Arts Club Theatre in Vancouver. It’s the debut performance for our all-new 2006 class. (See attachment)

Our headliner is Mike MacDonald a Canadian celebrity comic. You’ve probably seen one of his numerous appearances on Just for Laughs. He’s also had CBC specials and appeared on Showtime, Comedy Central, and an Evening at the Improv. Mike has bipolar disorder and is thrilled to help raise awareness around mental illness.

Tickets are only $39.50 each, available through Ticketmaster (604) 280-4444, through the Ticketmaster web site or by contacting david@standupformentalhealth.com (604) 205-9242.

Our last event sold out and we had to turn people away, so get your ticket now to avoid disappointment!

Led by counsellor and stand up comic David Granirer, Stand Up For Mental Health (which is the subject of an upcoming CBC Passionate Eye documentary to be aired in the fall of 2006) teaches stand-up comedy to people with mental illness as a way of building confidence and fighting public stigma. http://www.standupformentalhealth.com

We have to raise all our funds on our own, and this is our chance to keep this life-changing program going. Please help us spread our message of hope and empowerment by coming to our show and forwarding this email on to everyone you know!

Think you have what it takes to be a stand up comedian? E-mail laffriotgirls (at) shaw (dot) ca to sign up for our Fourth Annual Comedy Competition. This year’s competition will take place in February with the finals to be held March 9th at Lafflines Comedy Club! New comics are those with less than three years stand up comedy experience. Bring us your funniest 7 minutes of comedy (or less) and may the best woman win!

Over $800 in cash and prizes available to be won!

Here’s the official announcement.

Update: And yet the Ridge stubbornly insists on doing things like making popcorn and showing movies. The “official announcement” link above now leads to an error page. What’s the scoop? See the comments below.

If RSS, blogs and mashups are good enough for the Washington Post and the New York Times, they ought to be good enough for you. Email me roland AT urbanvancouver.com or call me at 604 729 7924 if you want some free advice on Web 2.0, RSS. etc. I can be bribed with coffee or lunch :-) and I can point you to people that can help you design and implement a 21st century online strategy including blogs, RSS, podcasting, videoblogging, etc. instead of your current 1999 online strategy.

The late, lamented Terminal City was all over RSS; The Tyee puts the Straight, Sun, Province and Courier to shame. (As Mark Hamilton notes, the Sun’s latest facelift, while welcome, is still well short of what today’s readers ought to be able to expect: “by walling up the content, limiting the archives and saying no to RSS, they’re playing against the strengths of the ‘net by attempting to become a pay-for-use portal.”)

Then again, CanWest is notorious for treating information with Gollum-like covetousness. They’re the ones demanding that freelance contributors give them exclusive rights over their content “in any and all media, whether now known or hereafter devised, throughout the universe, in perpetuity.”

They should take Roland up on his offer, and fast. Today’s wired readers aren’t noted for their willingness to be kept waiting — in perpetuity, or otherwise.

I’ll be voting for Jim Green and the Vision Vancouver team tomorrow, along with several great folks from COPE.

(Disclosure: I’ve been working for the Vision campaign — and they’ve made me proud.)

After so many years of watching this city struggle under a wet, grey flannel NPA administration that understood exactly nothing about what makes Vancouver great, the past three years have been a breath of fresh air.

Our city core is buzzing again, we have an actual night life, we have late-night buses, the Downtown East Side is starting to heal, other cities are looking to Vancouver as a leader in sustainability and social progress… it’s an exciting time in this city, and I’m going to vote to keep a good thing going. I hope you will too.

Two municipal election bits of blogging I want to point out:

• Ross at The Gazetteer has a series on why he’s voting the way he is.
• Ian King makes a point I actually wanted to make over on The Tyee’s article on media coverage of the municipal election, and why there’s so little blogging on it:

UBC J-school prof] Mark Schneider’s right about the Sun and Courier providing reasonable coverage. The trouble for bloggers is that both outlets’ web presence is less useful as blog fuel. Remember that most blogs are pure commentary and much of that commentary is informed by reports from the dreaded MSM. There are only a half-dozen or so stories in section A or B of the Sun that are outside the subscriber wall, with most of the municipal election coverage on the other side.

To which he adds another point: that you don’t get as much traffic from posting about local issues as you do about national or international politics, Macs versus Windows or Paris Hilton. (It isn’t just a question of Google juice. A lot of the joy of blogging comes from being part of a larger conversation. Writing posts that draw no responses isn’t nearly as much fun as writing some that do.)

Pretty soon Ottawa riders will be paying more to take the bus than anyone else in Canada. As of December 1, cash fares will be $3. $3!!!!! That’s a full 25 cents more than the current fares, which were just hiked a few months ago.

That’s staggering. Three bucks for a bus ride? Dollar for kilometre, you’d be better off taking Air Canada. Hell, at least you’d get a movie out of it. (Bonus: at the end of the trip, you’d no longer be in Ottawa! I kid, I kid.)

Considering that we’re paying a lot less out here, Vancouver’s transit system starts to look pretty damn good by comparison.

Project Management for Non-Profit Organizations
Rob Purdie | December 8, 9:30am – 4pm
SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC
To register: http://www.knowledgegreen.com/?q=node/2

We all have projects in our work, but often times it seems they run us instead of us managing them. What can we do to address this imbalance? One idea is to come to a full-day seminar on Project Management geared towards the Not-for-Profit sector.

• Learn some key project management concepts and tools, and the importance of managing projects in a disciplined and systematic way.
• Find out how projects help an organization achieve their strategic goals and objectives
• See how can an organization implement and complete a project without incurring overhead costs and time resources

Lunch is provided. Please register early as we only have a limited number of seats.

Cost:

• $125 Regular
• $110 – not-for-profit orgs with revenue of $500k+
• $85 – not-for-profit orgs with revenue < $500k

You can pay by Credit Card on the site at: http:www.knowledgegreen.com If you would prefer, you can also pay by credit card by calling us at 604-255-2131. You can pay by cheque, payable to Djwa Strategies, 308-611 Alexander Street, Vancouver, BC, V6A 1E1. Unfortunately, we cannot accept Purchase Orders at this time. Receipts will be provided at the event upon request.

To Register for this Event: http://www.knowledgegreen.com/?q=node/2

Instructor: Rob Purdie is a Project Management Professional (PMP) with over 10 years experience. He began his career instructing students and faculty at Queen’s University, on the use of Internet technologies in the classroom and in research. He is a member of the Toronto Renewable Energy Co-op (TREC), serves on the Board of Directors for WindShare, and is an avid squash player, and vegan.

Come Laugh Your Head Off and Support Mental Health!

Stand Up For Mental Health 2005 Graduation Showcase, Sunday November 20 at 7:00 pm at the Arts Club Theatre in Vancouver.

With MC Vancouver Mayor and future Senator Larry Campbell.

Led by counsellor and stand up comic David Granirer, Stand Up For Mental Health teaches stand-up comedy to people with mental illness as a way of building confidence and fighting public stigma.

Both our 2004 and 2005 classes will be performing. CBC’s The Passionate Eye will also be there filming for the documentary they’re doing on us.

Tickets are only $13.00 each, available through Ticketmaster (604) 280-4444 http://www.ticketmaster.ca or contact david@standupformentalhealth.com (604) 205-9242.

For more information on the program go to http://www.standupformentalhealth.com

All money raised goes to our alumni program!

Vancouver alternative newsweekly Terminal City is suspending publication effective immediately publisher John Kay announced today. Kay said the October 27 edition, which hit the streets last Thursday, will “probably” be the paper’s final edition.

It’s hard to make a go of it in the indie media business, and apparently harder still to do it in Vancouver. TC is going out with a bang, including Nathan Allen’s highly partisan but passionate (and persuasive) call for Jim Green’s election as mayor. You can download the farewell edition in glorious PDF format.

• have heard about blogging, and you’re intrigued,
• have been blogging a little, and you’re hungry to do more, or
• blog like a maniac, and want to meet others like you,

then register now for Northern Voice 2006, Canada’s blogging conference.

Alex and I attended last year’s inaugural Northern Voice, and it was genuinely life-altering. It lifted us into a whole new understanding of the power and potential of this medium and the people who use it.

If you’re a beginner, you’ll meet friendly folks who will get you rolling. If you’re an enthusiast, you’ll get the very latest info on what’s coming down the pipeline — and a community of folks just as interested as you are in brainstorming new ideas and approaches.

New this year: Moose Camp, a self-organizing conference-within-the-conference that promises to be the sleeper hit of the weekend.

And the “Canada’s Blogging Conference” slogan notwithstanding, there was a healthy international contingent at last year’s conference, both in the audience and on the panels.

Honestly — if you want to get into blogging and the conversational web, and you’re going to be anywhere near the Vancouver area on February 10 and 11, check out Northern Voice. It’s affordable, accessible, engaging and energizing.

(Tagged as Northern Voice and Northern Voice 2006. Thanks for the announcement from Darren Barefoot.)

In my downtown office building, the air quality is awful. Coworkers have headaches, stinging eyes and sore throats. In buildings across the city, the smoke is triggering alarms. You have to imagine this is bad news for anyone with respiratory problems.

Of course, that’s on top of the heartbreak of knowing a priceless environmental treasure is going up in flames.

In other words, launched by the glorious weather this weekend at the folk festival, it’s finally summer.