It was a busy, expansive year for CB&F! Thanks to all our friends, new and old!
2009 was great year for community service here at Charles Buchwald & Friends, with contributions to the SSI Farm and Barter Network, the Jazz and Blues Society, Griefwalker films, photography for the Raincoast Conservation Foundation’s Predator Survey, and most notably, a major new site for the Centre for Child Honouring. (Congratulations on the new digs, Raffi and friends!)
Of course continuing support for the Bandemonium Music Society, the Crofton Airshed Citizens Group, the Luna Rose Prison Project, and the Salt Spring Vipassana Community was a pleasure to provide.
2009 was a great growth year for CB&F, including some fresh new projects. Retail Marketing Group and G. A. Industries helped start the year with some outstanding work in Adobe Flash. (Thanks, Doug, and Joern and Petra for being such great clients!) Later, 2009 welcomed new clients including Peter Allan’s Noble Sculpture Studio, North End Fitness, Hands On Healing Bodywork, and Westwind Translations.
Another major effort debuted in August, with the WOLF Kids website. What fun to celebrate the next stage of their programs with Harry Manx, Valdy, and friends on New Year’s Eve! Word is that another past client, Royal Roads University, may join forces with this innovative island school in the coming year.
Although it was a small project on a short timeline, it was an honour and a pleasure to renovate ronaldwright.com for one of the island’s, and the nation’s, more famous and insightful authors, Ronald Wright.
And wrapping up the year, new clients Greening Sports, ChemainusRental.com, and Hampton Stone Coaching worked with CB&F to create strong, focused new online marketing programs.
For more about CB&F’s history, activities, portfolio and so on, see the Archives.
Thanks so much to all the new clients for the year… especially those of you who are already working on new initiatives with CB&F for 2010!
Isabelle Hampton Stone’s new Coaching for Success website has gone live with Charles Buchwald & Friends… or rather, it’s been live for a bit now, and the client and we have finally tied it all together. Check out Isabelle’s site for an inspiring look at her varied, in-depth experience as a coach and trainer in a variety of disciplines.
No. 1 best selling author Ronald Wright has a new web site, RonaldWright.com, and he’s gone live with the help of Charles Buchwald & Friends.
By converting and updating a static, iWeb based site into a modern, user-editable and user-maintainable CMS based site, CB&F kept cost and time under control. The new site allows for easy updates, an RSS feed, tagged articles, and more fluid categorization, too.
After winning a demanding and thorough selection process, CB&F helped Raffi and the staff of the Centre for Child Honouring to craft a direct, consistent and powerful online message.
Working with Centre staff, Charles facilitated the move from an older site, focusing and expanding the message, and keeping it on point, conceptually and visually.
The CMS-based site delivers… through a clean, friendly design incorporating social media and rich media. An open architecture ensures the site can expand as it increases it’s important role in their vital outreach and education programs. Hosting on CB&F’s carbon-neutral, green server was a natural for this group. Easy, secure online donations and a basic web store will help raise funds for the next stages of their meaningful growth.
CB&F is proud and excited to announce that after a lengthy selection process, we have been selected to develop the web site for the new Centre for Child Honouring. The Spirit of ONE Campaign is a fundraising effort to establish the Centre here on Salt Spring Island, and the web site is one of the first outward efforts. Working with Raffi, the Centre staff, and a select group of subcontractors the development process is already underway.
If you don’t know about Raffi’s recent efforts, here’s what Wikipedia has to say about them:
In recent years, Raffi has devoted himself to “Child Honouring”, his vision for creating a humane and sustainable world by addressing the universal needs of children. His “Covenant for Honouring Children” outlines the principles of this philosophy.
In 2006, with Dr. Sharna Olfman, he co-edited an anthology,Child Honouring: How to Turn This World Around, which introduces Child Honouring as a philosophy for restoring communities and ecosystems. It contains chapters by Penelope Leach, Fritjof Capra, David Korten, Riane Eisler, Mary Gordon, Graca Machel, Joel Bakan, Matthew Fox, Barbara Kingsolver, and others. The book’s foreword is by the Dalai Lama. Resisto Dancing: Songs of Compassionate Revolution is the companion music record album for that book.
In a 2006 speech, Iona Campagnolo, Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, referred to Child Honouring as a “vast change in the human paradigm.”
For a bit more, check out Raffi’s Troubadour Music and What is Child Honouring?, as well as our local newspaper, the Gulf Islands Driftwood, and this recent editorial piece, Child Honouring Urgently Needed.
One of the lovely things is that the philosophy encompasses both social and environmental responsibility and sustainability, so that the efforts are inherently green, community-building, and peacemaking.
CB&F are seeking pro bono donations from highly qualified web professionals; please contact us if you are interested in participating in a world-changing movement!
Charles Buchwald & Friends is proud to announce our latest web site development effort. The WOLF Kids school, here on Salt Spring Island, has recently debuted a site that is both a information portal for their program, and a communication tool for the participants in the group.
WOLF Kids web site
The WOLF Kids program is a very exciting “nature immersion” program on the leading edge of educational curricula. Here’s an excerpt from the program description:
Wolf Kids offers a nature immersion and home school program where students interact with their natural environment through adventure, challenges, and a lot of fun. A core principal of the program focuses on experience in nature, as it has always been fundamental to the education of young developing human beings. For instance, climbing trees and running, tracking animals, building shelter and watercraft, making fire, discovering edible and medicinal plants, students acquire a keen knowledge of the taxonomy of flora and fauna, as well as traditional outdoor skills. These activities lead to an ecological integrity, which answers the call for affirmation and maximization of the potential of our children. Their classroom is the forest, ocean, fields, streams, and mountains. Their teachers are the otters, birds, shifting winds, and the people who make up our tribe. This full immersion program, utilizes both scientific and indigenous studies. Through hands-on outdoor experiences, students develop an ingrained knowledge and awareness of the natural world, and their place in it. They become eager and quick learners, the stewards and unshakeable voices of our environment, in whatever they choose to do for the future.
Please check out the site and leave a comment to let us know what you think!
Here at Charles Buchwald & Friends we keep focused on one goal: meaningful growth. We’ll help you and your business, organization or community achieve that through bigger margins, a better triple bottom line, or renewed clarity and focus… however you define meaning and success.
Sometimes it means going back to basics and working with our success coaches and advisors to refine or redefine your goals. Often it means our coordinated efforts help integrate all your business materials across a range of media with focus and clarity, making for a message that is direct, consistent, and powerful. Find out more...
Charles Buchwald and friends welcomes yet another new client to the fold, Doug Muldoon’s Retail Marketing Group. With extensive expertise in promotions in the natural foods and supplements market, Doug is producing a book, newsletter, and website to complement and support his consultancy. We are providing graphic design, hosting, and web design services to support his efforts. Stay tuned for the new website!
In more news, Hands On Healing Bodywork is another new client. Graphic design for newspaper ads, posters, business cards, flyers, stationary, and other print collateral, as well as a WordPress CMS based website (currently in progress) are all part of a comprehensive marketing package. Beautiful photography and typography are key elements in service of a renewed focus for this experienced and professional bodyworker, dula, healer and author.
The HangBoard project continues to hang on… a new user manual has recently been added to the offerings at hangboard.ca and there are other minor additions or changes to the site. The YouTube videos continue to rack up views and comments. Are you still intrigued by the possibilities of this new sport? Please leave a comment here, or at YouTube or Flickr and tell us what you think of it all…