Saturday April 1, 2023 | SIDNEY, BC [Updated 8:35 am April 3, 2023]
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
The audience at an afternoon event featuring short presentations about book clubs in Sidney and on the Saanich Peninsula was comprised almost entirely of senior women in their retirement years. They’ve got the time to attend daytime weekday gatherings, or to let meetings run longer if it rolls that way.
The Book Club Gala event today April 1 featured profiles of 20 book clubs with a short speech from a rep for each club. Each club had interesting histories, goals and ways of operating. Most delved into fiction, and a few into non-fiction. Some have been around a very long time (since the mid 1990s) and some are nearly brand new. Many have a host who chooses the books to be read (no one said it, but kind of like Oprah’s reading club approach) and others decide together along a theme.
Bub’s is educational:
But one of the book clubs stood out from the rest. Making the presentation for Bub’s Book Club was Adam Olsen, who has been a Green Party MLA for Saanich North and the Islands since 2017. His 75-year-old father Carl (Bub) Olsen started the book club to create a community to discuss reconciliation in BC.
Bub’s Book Club is less about recreation and retirement camaraderie (some of the clubs focus on refreshments and one has turned into a ladies walking club). “It’s educational for people to try and understand First Nations better,” said Carl Olsen.
Himself having experienced residential and day school, treaty challenges, and a family heavily involved in politics and governance, Carl Olsen (an Elder from the Tsartlip community) brings a depth of insights for creating a safe and informative environment to discuss the writings of both contemporary Indigenous authors and authors who write about Indigenous challenges.
Bub’s Book Club online meetings are kept to 90 minutes — generally held on Sunday evenings, once every two weeks — as a way to keep the discussions tight and focused. About 25 participants are currently on the list.
As much of the material or insights could be new to some of the book club participants, Olsen feels that one and half hours is a suitable amount of time to launch a discussion, hear everyone’s views, and wrap up with some key insights.
Some of the participants have day-jobs where the insights can be extremely helpful, says Carl. “The first three books completely changed their minds,” he told Island Social Trends.
For participants in Bub’s Book Club (inquire by email to join: tsunup@gmail.com), each session reviews one book. Sometimes a book takes more than one session. The book list has “been a work in progress”, that the club host will build as they go along. Many of the books are by historians and lawyers.
So far the Bub’s Book Club book list includes:
- The Inconvenient Indian, Thomas King
- 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act, Bob Joseph
- Standoff, Bruce McIvor
- True Reconciliation, Judy Wilson-Raybould
- To Share Not Surrender, Peter Cook, Neil Vallance, John Sutton Lutz, Graham Brazier, and Hamar Foster
- Unsettling Canada, Arthur Manuel
- Indian in the Cabinet, Jody Wilson-Raybould
- Rez Rules, Chief Clarence Louie
- Medicine Walk, Richard Wagamese
An afternoon about book clubs:
The 2.5-hour book club event was held at the Shoal Centre in Sidney, across the street from the North Island Branch of the Vancouver Island Regional Library (VIRL), co-hosted by Seaside Magazine and VIRL. VIRL staff from the Sidney / North Saanich branch were on hand.
Shelagh Rogers of CBC Radio was the guest speaker. She sat through all the book club presentations then addressed the room for the last portion of the event, with an opening exclamation: “Book readers, my people!” And, to further grab the audience: “There’s nothing wrong with being a book tramp!”
Rogers hosts The Next Chapter, which about all things books, authors and literacy. Recounting some of her missteps as a radio host about books (including not always reading the book, and not doing preparation to know who she was really interviewing), Rogers admitted to two counts of getting hired due to affirmative action (those were the early days of gender equity in the workplace). She carried her 40-minute talk with snippets of humour and the insertion of several audio clips from her broadcasts.
Over the years on flagship CBC Radio programs such as Morningside, Sounds Like Canada and This Morning, Shelagh has traveled the length and breadth of the country, interviewing thousands of Canadians and collecting their stories. In September 2011, Shelagh Rogers was named an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Rogers enjoys Victoria, and asked for a show of hands from any fellow University of Victoria alumni who might be in the room. There were a few.
Ticketed event:
Deborah Rogers, editorial director of the glossy print lifestyle Seaside Magazine (no relation to the keynote speaker), said the idea for the mini book club profile event germinated in January, and they pulled it together pretty quickly over the past few months.
Guests at the ticketed event sat at round tables throughout the large open room, about 180 people in all. Many were grandparents, and a number of them were retired teachers. Several of the book club organizers or representatives said they heard about local book clubs when they relocated to Sidney or North Saanich.
Refreshments consisted of coffee, tea and bagged crispy snacks. There was a preview of authors coming to the Sidney Litfest (April 20 to 22) and some beer from the local Small Gods Brewery.
Door prizes were provided by Saanich Peninsula Literacy; Sidney Literacy Festival; Seaside Magazine giveaway box; VIRL; and Small Gods Brewing Co. Vases of flowers on each table were provided by Brown’s The Florist, which one lucky winner at each table got to take home.
===== ABOUT ISLAND SOCIAL TRENDS:
Island Social Trends is a professional news portal at islandsocialtrends.ca . Fully online since mid-2020, Island Social Trends emerged from the extensive groundwork of previous print publications in the west shore: MapleLine Magazine (2008-2010), Sooke Voice News (2011-2013), and West Shore Voice News (2014-2020).
Since 2008, journalist and editor Mary P Brooke has taken a socioeconomic lens to news analysis about the west shore and south Vancouver Island region, including BC provincial news, and national news impacts.
Ms Brooke has been covering news of School District 62 (SD62) at the board and committee level, including attending nearly all of their meetings since 2014. Mary P Brooke was a school trustee candidate (SD62 Belmont Zone – Langford, Colwood, Metchosin and Highlands) in the October 2022 election, as a service to community.
The Island Social Trends Journalism Program offers the opportunity for high school students on Vancouver Island to learn journalism by preparing and submitting articles in a real world context.
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