Mount Royal Nurses Graduation

The Mount Royal Nurses Graduating Class had their graduation ceremony on June 2 and my Horticulture Class did the 35 floral centerpieces and two large presentation vases for their banquet as a school project. In my horticulture class, I have a sixty foot greenhouse where we grow tropical houseplants and propagate bedding plants for sale in the spring. Throughout the year, the class will make floral bouquets and displays as part of the course. Since i have a whole sale license to buy flowers and a commercial flower cooler, I can through word of mouth take floral projects to show students the commercial side of running a flower shop. For the Mount Royal Nurses Graduation, I met with the graduation committee and like a wedding planner I asked them the color scheme and theme of their graduation to make the floral displays and centerpieces match the decor of the banquet hall. I inquired what was their budget for flowers and made an appropriate flower order to match their budget. Running a commercial flower shop is not an easy task because price points are critical and you can easily lose money. My goal was to give students hands on experience in completing a commercial order. However, even though my price for the flowers centerpieces would be half the price of a retail flower seller the expectation on the horticulture class is to provide a professional quality product that would equal a retail flower dealer. In other words, completing a commercial project is highly stressful when showing students how to create a professional product. I had to order the flowers three weeks in advance because the flowers are grown in Ecuador, and Columbia transported to Miami, trucked up to Winnipeg to be inspected and then driven overnight to the Calgary wholesaler for the Monday morning pick up. I turn up Monday morning at 7:00 am with the rest of the flower buyers to discover the transport truck with my flowers has been held up at customs so I have to return Tuesday morning. On Tuesday, i pick up $500 worth of flowers and take them back to the school and place them in buckets of water in the flower chiller to rehydrate the flowers. On Wednesday, I create a sample centerpiece and find that on Thursday, that the flowers have wilted. I thought that I might have placed the finished centerpiece too close to a cooling fan in the chiller but I find that is a false assumption. We make all 35 centerpieces Friday night and just finish the final centerpieces and 6:00 pm and to our horror see that the hydrangea's we have placed in the centerpieces are starting to wilt. By Saturday morning the flowers will be totally wilted and the nurses are going to be arriving at 10:00 am on Saturday to pick up the centerpieces. Panic, Panic, what does one do. I jump in my car and speed down to Cost Co and try to find replacement flowers that can match the color scheme. I manage to buy a $100 in replacement flowers and place them in the school chiller . We are at the school Saturday morning at 800 am redoing the centerpieces and at 10:00 am the nurses walk in to pick up the centerpieces which they just love. The lesson I learned is do not buy Hydrangea's for floral displays because they are just too finicky. On this order , we broke even. It could have been worse if we had delivered wilted flowers.

The Chinese Academy Graduation

The Chinese Academy the largest Heritage Language School in Alberta celebrated its fifteenth graduation ceremony at John G. Diefenbaker High School on June 2. I have been an honorary director and advisor for about 10 years. About 1900 students attend Saturday Chinese School and is totally funded by nominal tuition fees and donations with almost no government support. Dr. Xinxin Fang Special Language Advisor from the People's Republic of China's International Education Services came down from Edmonton to congratulate the graduating class and hand out diplomas.

Graduations

The month of May and June is a busy time for graduations. I attended our High School Graduation at the Jubilee Auditorium. As the teachers were getting our gowns ,I stopped to take a photo with one of my former ESL students. Thie girl came to Canada as a sponsored refugee from Myanmar on human and compassionate grounds because her ethnic group the Karen are being ethnically cleansed out of Myanmar by the Burmese. The Karen who have come to Canada are literally taken out of the jungle and transplanted into Canada. I admire the resiliency of the children of these refugees. The girl you see with me just turned 20 came here at the age of 17 and could not speak a word of English. Today she is graduating from High school and is going to post-secondary to become a hair stylist.

April 28 Hong Kong Canadian Immigrant Association 35th anniversay I attended the HKICA banquet held at the Regency Restaurant as a representative of the Calgary Lees' Association. There were about 700 people in attendance from various Chinese associations. There are over 150 different Asian associations in Calgary. At the event were politicians who were invited as guests of honor such as PC MLA's Wayne Cao, Dr.Gordon Brown, Theresa Woo-Paw. The Calgary MP for Calgary North Hill, Michelle Rempel was in attendance with her husband. The anniversary began with a dragon dance and drums to welcome in the new year and to bring good fortune. There was a ten course meal with entertainment throughout the evening that included singing and dance groups and of course the lucky draw for prizes.

April 24 Horticulture Class I was given horticulture to teach in the second semester. We have a greenhouse at the school. I have the students plant seedlings for annual plants and a large selection of snake, and spider plants we have propagated from cuttings. We will have our spring plant sale on June 2. I also teach flower arrangements and floral design. On Thursday, I had Lea Romanowski a professional florist and instructor from Mount Royal University give my class a demonstration on how to make corsages and boutineres. We also have a commercial chiller in my lab so I am able to order wholesale flowers and make flower arrangements for resale. The class is a real hands on course that shows the students how to run a floral business and the related fields of agriculture that includes turf management and field crops. Another project we are doing is cultivating flower gardens and vegetable gardens in the enclosed school courtyard.

Alberta Legislature In February I took a group of students on field trip on a tour of the Alberta Legislature. If you want to take of a tour of the legislature you only have to contact your MLA and they will put you in touch with their aide to organize a tour of the legislature. I contacted Wayne Cao, Moe Amery, Theres Woo-Pau and Manmeet Bhuller who are MLA's for four different ridings that have large ethnic groups and they welcomed my group to the legislature. All the MLA's turned up at the legislature to have their picture taken with the students. The students were provided with a tour of the legislature buildings, a complimentary lunch in the legislature cafe, and were introduced to the Legislature by Wayne Cao as we sat in the gallery. The members of the house acknowledged our presence by pounding on their desks to welcome our school group who was sitting in the gallery. Our groups name is mentioned in the minutes of the official government document known as Hansard. The students watched question period as the Opposition hammered the government of health care issues and the financial budget. My students who are mostly new Canadians witnessed first hand the democratic process.An interesting feature in the legislature dome are four full grown palm trees that are over forty years old that were grown from seed are living in the dome of the legislature.

Alberta Election I went door knocking with Wayne Cao five times to encourage people to vote for the incumbent MLA for Calgary Fort West prior to the April 21st election. Wayne's riding is a strange mixture of rich and poor constituents. Door knocking gives one a good feel on how the people are viewing the election. The Wild Rose Party had the benefit of Federal help which I found interesting that the Federal PC should be working in the background for a provincial party and the Wild Rose manipulation of the media made for a large number of voters voting for the Wild Rose which is extremely right wing. However, common sense prevailed and the Progressive conservatives were voted in as a majority. The progressive conservatives are by no means perfect but the sheep in wolf's clothing ( Danielle Smith) is not to be trusted. Having bet both leaders of the PC (Allison Redford) and the new opposition leader ( Danielle Smith) , Redford is the lesser of two evils. You know what to expect from Redford but she better start listening to the electorate. Calgary Fort West are fortunate to have a representative like Wayne Cao who is a model for what a politician with integrity should be like. I wish both leaders could take a page from Wayne's book and make decisions that benefit the people.