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Rockin' Rhonda & The Blues Band: Here comes Peter, here comes Dave. Oh, listen. Bringing stories, making waves. No missing. Spinning tales in the podcast cave. So much laughs and insights everywhere. Peter and Dave, they're on the mics. Alright, join the ride. It's gonna feel just right.

Dave Graham: Welcome to the Pulse Community Podcast. This is where we bring you the people and stories of Mid Vancouver Island, and here to help with the proceedings is Peter McCully.

Peter McCully: Yes, we appreciate you taking the time to join us for this week's stories, and my thanks to Pulse co-host Dave Graham.

Dave Graham: Oh, hey Peter. Just so you know, if it starts to rain, I'm gonna have to step out for a minute.

Peter McCully: Oh, why is that?

Dave Graham: Yeah. I have my list of things I want to accomplish this summer, and dancing in the rain—preferably a sun shower—is one of those things. Don't laugh. It's kind of a tradition. It's important to my partner, so it's important to me. Oh, we also have to move things along a little bit. I have a date with a box of popsicles as soon as we're done here.

Peter McCully: Clinton Nellis joins us on this episode. Clinton's a podcaster who is creating a local intergenerational series featuring students and seniors called "Branches Between Generations."

Clinton Nellis: So it just seemed very natural to bring the youth and the seniors together because we don't really have content right now that speaks to the whole family. We have things that kids enjoy, things that seniors enjoy, but I think we've almost lost that cable experience that we had, at least when I was growing up, where the family would gather around the tube and we would all watch the same programming. So that's really the goal behind Branches: is to provide some good old-fashioned family programming and bring two generations that don't normally talk together to be in the same room.

Dave Graham: Music lovers will be happy that the Vancouver Island Symphony pop-up summer series has stops up and down the island. Margot Holmes talks about what concertgoers can expect.

Margot Holmes: This year we've added some components that we saw worked in the past. We have two series at two wineries. 40 North Winery in Comox was very popular last year—was sold out immediately—but we added one down in the Cowichan Valley as well. We wanted to spread it out. Some people have done it, content carried in their backyard or in specific settings for the last five years. Well, there are favorite settings for sure, and then we wanted to add some new ones at different times of day. Some people want to come in the morning, some people want to come in the afternoon or the evening, so they have an opportunity to do that in multiple settings. That's how we pick them, really—just to try to offer opportunity to people who live in certain areas.

Peter McCully: Congratulations to the winner of our four-day double pass to Sun Fest in Lake Cowichan. Vanessa Foster of Coombs was our winner. The Sun Fest Country Music Festival features Bailey Zimmerman, Sawyer Brown, Brothers Osborne, and Jordan Davis, just to name a few.

Dave Graham: I'll name one more: Chase Barnes. Chase is an Islander. He's from Saanichton—that's down island from here. Chase was on America's Got Talent recently, and he passed his audition. Chase is going to be playing on the opening day of Sun Fest. That's July 31st, and Chase is 13 years old.

Peter McCully: Wow. We've got another concert connection contest for you. We have a double three-day pass to Beach Fest Rocks, August 8th through 10th. Not only do you get access to great music in the Parksville Community Park for three days, you get two beach chairs, a cooler, and a $50 Smile card from 50 Foods in Parksville.

Dave Graham: Beach Fest Rocks will include tribute acts representing Tina Turner, Heart, the Eagles, and the Police, among others. Headliner acts include the Powder Blues Band, Prism, and, as it says here, Canada's number one event band, 10 Soldiers, will perform twice to close out the festival on August 10th. Enter on our website at thepulsecommunity.ca or on our Facebook page. The Pulse Community draws July 31st.

Peter McCully: The McMillan Arts Centre is hosting the 25th anniversary of the Mount Arrowsmith Biosphere Region's 10 Amazing Places. Over 30 different artists are involved, including Vera Lohse. She let us know what she's created for the exhibition via our "Speak to Us" line.

Vera Lohse: Hi, Peter and Dave. Vera Lohse here, inviting everyone to the Arrowsmith Biosphere Art Show at the McMillan Arts Gallery in Parksville. I have made baskets representing the different biospheres using natural materials like cedar bark, willow bark, and maple, as well as bull kelp, driftwood, and salmon leather, which I tanned. For the Heritage Forest, I made a backpack with reed that has been dyed with mushrooms. I got the colors yellow and forest green. The backpack is ideal for gathering mushrooms. For Cathedral Grove, I made a wall piece that has three long, narrow baskets representing the ancient forests. And for the Englishman River Park, I used the willow bark, which grows along the river shores, and at the top of the basket I used ridge made of dandelion stems. The basket has a lid, which was a challenge to get to fit perfectly. The show opens on July 7th and runs till the 25th.

Peter McCully: The annual Coombs Fair is coming up a lot sooner than you think.

Sandra Poelzer: The 112th annual Coombs Fair will take place at the Coombs Fairgrounds on Saturday, August 9th, and Sunday, August 10th, from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. The Coombs Fair is home to the largest poultry show in BC, livestock exhibits, arts and crafts, live music and entertainment, food trucks, vendors, demos, and more. And of course, it is an old-fashioned fair with both junior and adult entries in a multitude of categories, from floral to fiber arts, photography, vegetables, jellies, baked goods, livestock, and much more. Check out our website at coombsfair.com for a complete list of fair entries and download our 2025 Fair booklet. Fair entries are being accepted online now. The deadline for non-animal fair entries is August 4th. For more information, check out coombsfair.com. See you at the fair.

Dave Graham: Thanks to Sandra and Vera for their contributions to the Pulse Community Podcast. You know, we try to make it as easy as possible to share information with us. Just look for the contact link on our homepage at thepulsecommunity.ca, and type or voice your message.

Ian Lindsay & Associates: Ian Lindsay of Lindsay and Associates has played an active role in the local community since 1979. He has been with RE/MAX Vancouver Island's most advanced real estate business network since 1996, marketing and selling residential, rural, strata, recreational, investment, and project development real estate. Ian has received several awards recognizing his exceptional community commitment locally, as well as awards for outstanding performance and achievement from both RE/MAX International and the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board. You'll find true real estate professionals at ianlindsay.ca.

Oceanside Cweed: Oceanside Cweed—that little pot shop—is Parksville's first licensed cannabis store since April 2022. Cweed is under new ownership with a product expert at the helm that includes two decades of retail mastery and seven years in the cannabis industry. Cweed is a legacy in the making with cannabis products regulated by Health Canada. Community-minded, Cweed is a member of the Parksville Chamber of Commerce, the Parksville Downtown Business Association, and the Retail Cannabis Council of British Columbia. Those 19 plus can drop by the store at 154 Middleton Avenue next to Tablet Pharmacy. Open 9:00 AM to 8:00 PM, seven days a week. Visit the online store at cweedoceanside.ca.

Dave Graham: Peter, I can hear construction sounds from the beach. What's happening?

Peter McCully: Well, it's not construction, Dave. That's the sound of sand being pounded up by master sculptors.

Dave Graham: "Pounded up"—is that a technical term?

Peter McCully: Well, absolutely. Parksville Beach Festival opens this Saturday, July 12th, at 2:00 with the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Right now, 30 international artists are prepping their sand bases for the incredible Circus by the Sea competition.

Dave Graham: Thirty hours to create a masterpiece. I need 30 minutes just to decide what to have for breakfast.

Peter McCully: Well, it's a good thing you're just watching then, Dave. Plus, Chilliwack performs Saturday night, and there are hands-on sculpting lessons both Saturday and Sunday.

Dave Graham: I'm definitely signing up. Maybe I'll create a sand sculpture representing my breakfast indecision. The spectacular exhibition opens Monday and runs until August 17th. This weekend, the summer's biggest celebration begins: Parksville Beach Festival. Oh, I know what I'll have for the most important meal of the day—a breakfast sandwich.

Peter McCully: Details at parksvillebeachfest.ca.

Dave Graham: Congratulations to Dr. Bonnie Henry on being named a recipient of the Order of Canada. The announcement included 83 appointments. Ten of those being two British Columbians: Dr. Henry, who led BC through the COVID-19 pandemic, joins recipients Paul Nicklin of Nanoose Bay—he was invested five years ago—and our dear, dear pal Ryan Reynolds, who was invested on Canada Day of this year. Okay, no, Ryan's not yet a friend of the podcast, but we can dream, can't we?

Peter McCully: It's time, Dave, to bring on our first guest. Here's Marilyn.

Marilyn: In the green room is Clinton Nellis, a storyteller and podcaster. Clinton is a graduate of Qualicum Secondary School who grew up in the Parksville-Qualicum Beach area.

Dave Graham: Welcome to the podcast.

Clinton Nellist: Thank you for having me, and welcome to Podio Studio.

Dave Graham: Yes. Well, thank you for having us, and we are going to get to that, but if we might, let's begin with your story and what brought you to podcasting. How did your journey in media and storytelling begin?

Clinton Nellist: Of course. It's my philosophy that storytelling is an inherent human thing. You know, we've been telling stories—oral stories, writing stories—and I almost think that I was a bard in a past life. You know, I've always liked the idea of the traveling bard and going around singing songs. I have been fortunate enough to grow up in a family that had a camcorder very early on, and my old man would film us. He would make home videos with my siblings and me. So I picked up the craft very early on, and by the time I was 12, 13, I was making my own home videos. I've been on YouTube since 2007, just making weird videos with my friends and stuff, and it was really just a slow progression of, "Oh, hey, you make videos, you should help me with this presentation," and "Hey, maybe you can come over and record this service." I've done various things with funerals or weddings or things, and it just kind of got to the point of, "Oh, hey, you know how to make movies, you should help us out," right? So it's been a very natural progression. I've never worked with a major broadcaster. I've never worked in media directly, but I've always had these kind of entrepreneurial side gigs that have just kind of come to me throughout my career, and I've been very fortunate to be in the media landscape this whole time.

Dave Graham: So now you're launching this video podcast "Branches Between Generations" with the help of the TELUS StoryHive project. I have to ask, what inspired this concept? Why do you think intergenerational dialogue is so important right now?

Clinton Nellist: Well, family is very important to me, and I've had four grandparents, as many of us have, and the sad reality is I never really got a lot of good clips or things from them when they were around. When you're talking about this specific project of TELUS StoryHive, the initial idea came from my partner in the studio owner here, Mark Buerman. So as the story goes, he was driving his daughters to and from dance, to the dentist, and whatever, and he's driving up and down Jensen, and he keeps passing the Berwick, and he just says to himself, "You know, there's gotta be stories in there." So it was really his push to connect with Berwick residents here in Parksville to have the senior perspective. And then myself, I volunteer with SOS. I'm very close to their Youth Open Space, so it just seemed very natural to bring the youth and the seniors together because we don't really have content right now that speaks to the whole family. We have things that kids enjoy, things that seniors enjoy, but I think we've almost lost that cable experience that we had, at least when I was growing up, where the family would gather around the tube and we would all watch the same programming. So that's really the goal behind Branches: is to provide some good old-fashioned family programming and bring two generations that don't normally talk together to be in the same room.

Dave Graham: Walk us through what happens when a student and a senior sit down together for these conversations.

Clinton Nellist: There's a lot of pre-planning that goes into something like that. You know, we are doing workshops with both the students and the youth to make sure that they're comfortable with the microphones, they know how to run the equipment. So we are gonna be having the young people run the board, and they'll be actually having an opportunity to get really invested in the podcasting space because today, a YouTuber is kind of one of the most sought-after jobs for today's teenager. It's kind of replaced the Hollywood actor. But when they come in here, I'm over in the corner here, you have the two—the senior and the youth—essentially facing each other, and both the youth have an opportunity to ask questions of the seniors, and the seniors have opportunities to ask questions of the youth. It's very important to emphasize that these are dialogues and they're supposed to facilitate knowledge sharing. We don't really want either party to monopolize the conversation. We want there to be, you know, a nice back and forth between the two.

Dave Graham: And is that the kind of information you share to prepare them for the experience?

Clinton Nellist: My philosophy around media creation is very much kind of "throw them to the wolves," so to speak, for lack of a better term. You know, especially in the podcasting format, it is just so conversational. I think outlines are important, and that's just kind of my philosophy around content creation. I want to give people the tools. I want them to understand what happens. I want them to be confident and curious and not be nervous, but I don't want things overly planned. You know? I want to have actual organic conversations where people can actually learn and have takeaways.

Dave Graham: Where do you see "Branches Between Generations" going?

Clinton Nellist: It is really exciting. It's gonna be the first broadcast project that the team is working on here at Podio Studio. It's gonna be put on the TELUS Optik network, which is gonna be very exciting. But mostly I think what you mean is what's the impact on the community? The biggest piece—and I know it sounds cheesy—I want people to call their grandma after this. I want people to pick up the phone and have a conversation with either their own relatives or people in their own network. You know, we have so many seniors in this community who maybe their family members don't live in town or they're just away. There needs to be opportunities for our kids to have conversations with our elders, even if there's no bloodline there. So I really do hope that it motivates the participants and the viewers to reach out and have these conversations independently.

Dave Graham: Does this kind of experience sort of make you reflect at all on how technology is being used to bridge the generations?

Clinton Nellist: I love it. Technology is one of my passions, and I think just being a millennial, we're the last generation that was both born into the analog but raised in the digital. And I think that, you know, that's where the title "Branches Between Generations"—myself as the host and producer being in the middle generation, I think I act as that bridge because I remember the tape cassette, but I also know how to use ChatGPT. So how does technology come together? I think that just the affordability of broadcasting technology has really become democratized. You know, these microphones and these setups, they're becoming easier and easier to acquire. So I really think that it allows these conversations to happen just more fluidly.

Dave Graham: Mm-hmm. I have to reflect your thought there in terms of the ease of use of technology that not very long ago was on a high-end scale for the average person who didn't want to invest massive amounts of money in professional gear.

Clinton Nellist: It is, and I just—coming back to the word "democratizing"—that's really what I think of it is: for the people. Now, it's no longer do you have to go and get a job with Rogers and Bell to have access to this technology. It's come full circle and come into people's homes in a big way.

Dave Graham: So we've established where we are, the Podio Studio. Talk about your partnership with this place.

Clinton Nellist: Yeah, so I met Mark Buerman in August of 2024 when I was working on my Road to BC campaign. I was looking for a studio to host interviews with our local politicians. So I was able to sit down with Adam Walker and Stephanie Higginson, who was the successful candidate, if we remember, back in the BC election. And that's all it really was. I was just looking for a space. He learned that I was a post-production editor. That's kind of my trade. I put all the videos together, put my little special sauce on them. That was valuable to him, and we've kind of just hit the ground running ever since. It's been really great to have a physical space where we can hold these conversations because, you know, to your point, we do have these online tools, but I think there's just something a little special about meeting in a physical space like this that just adds je ne sais quoi.

Dave Graham: Beyond "Branches Between Generations," you're involved with the SOS "We Are Community" podcast. What do you have to tell us about that?

Clinton Nellist: Yeah, the SOS is amazing. People I'm sure are familiar with the Society of Organized Services, District 69. I initially got connected with them through a project that we have kind of put on ice, but I do want to promote it. It was initially called "Mixers in the Middle." So as you may know, SOS has programs for seniors and they have programs for youth, but there wasn't really a lot of programs for people 25 to 45, kind of the working adult. So that's initially how I got brought in on this special task force to talk about how we can kind of connect with that generation. That was back in early 2022. Since then I started volunteering with their Youth Open Space. And yes, I do produce their local podcast that is hosted by Alyssa Alexander. She is the chief communications for the SOS, and she hosts a podcast that really talks about the various departments within SOS. SOS is such a vast organization that they have, like I said, seniors programming, youth programming. They have a bus service, they have financing services. There's the whole thrift shop component. So really the purpose of their podcast is really to have the various departments learn about each other. So it's actually very much an internal podcast, which is a different format. Maybe those who aren't really aware of the industry, there are outward-facing podcasts and inward-facing podcasts. So this would kind of be the latter.

Dave Graham: And then there's your YouTube channel, "The Citizenship Show," focusing on putting the zen back in politics. In our current climate, how do you approach political discourse with that philosophy?

Clinton Nellist: I'll just give you a little bit of the backstory there is, you know, I've always loved politics and I rant about politics. Rick Mercer is one of my icons that I've been watching for most of my life. Rex Murphy too. Just those old-timers off CBC. But I would always, you know, rant to my partner, rant to my girlfriend about this. And I joke that I got my YouTube show to save my relationship because I wouldn't have to ramble to her about all my political nonsense. It's kind of spelled weird, but Citi-Zen-ship. The idea that zen is at the heart of being a citizen. What I'm trying to do when I'm kind of—my little play on words—is the idea of really showing respect and open-mindedness. So I think that a big problem with our political discourse today is that many people have closed-minded thinking: "I'm right, you're wrong. Deal with it." We need to be moving forward that we have these really big problems in our society, and the only way that we're actually gonna be able to solve them is have open-minded thinking. So to me, zen means to be polite, to be respectful, and to be open.

Dave Graham: How do you see that in practice? How do you get there? How do you start to get there? Or is this the start?

Clinton Nellist: I think you just lead by example. I think that when I was looking at a lot of the political content today, it kind of falls into two groups. You either have partisan content both from the right or the left, which again, this is my opinions, this is how it is, and it's a very limited view of looking at the world. The problem with political parties is they define the issue and they define the answer, and anything that doesn't fall within their landscape, they just disregard it. And I think all political parties have that same problem with them. Or you have more of a mainstream journalist where you kind of try and give both sides, but at the end of the day, you're not really changing anything. I think that the show and the approach that I'm taking about trying to be open-minded, engaging with things, admitting I don't always know what I'm talking about, but this is my approach on it—it's that leading by example that hopefully will inspire others to just loosen their grip around it, so to speak. We have to admit that we don't know what we're doing and that the system—and again, this is a very highly political statement—but the system is not working. The system, I would argue, is broken, and we need to really change the way that we're doing things in this country, and it starts by saying, "We have a problem." And a lot of the political pundits just say, "We already know the answer," when I don't think those are the answers, frankly.

Dave Graham: Do you encounter in your personal life many occasions where you are dealing with someone opposed to whatever issue you're discussing and they follow that familiar routine of getting into their silo and closing down their hearing and just spouting what they know? And how do you get around that?

Clinton Nellist: Well, it's really hard. You just have to encourage them to be more curious. And that's the hardest thing, and I hear this in my professional career a lot, is you'll have people: "Oh, we've tried it like that. We've tried that before." It's like, "Okay, you might've tried that 10 years ago, but we live in a different world now." And I think, you know, not to get too mired in it, but COVID changed the world. The fact that we have a new administration now with the Carney administration, we're six months into the second Trump term. You know, 2025 is drastically different than 2024. So if we're holding onto these old beliefs and these old notions, all I'm really asking my fellow citizens is, yeah, again, to be open-minded. We may have tried that, but we are fundamentally in a different political landscape now and we have to have new ideas.

Dave Graham: What for you makes a great podcast conversation?

Clinton Nellist: Something that I'm interested in. A lot of people get mired in gear, so Mark is very proud—the microphone you're talking into right now is the same model that Michael Jackson recorded "Thriller" on.

Dave Graham: Oh my gosh.

Clinton Nellist: And that's one of his facts that he loves to share about this studio. I'm just ribbing on my partner a little bit, but joking aside, the gear doesn't make a good podcast. The camera doesn't make a good podcast. You listen to a podcast because you care about the topic at hand. So if you're able to speak passionately about something you care about—like I love politics and I will listen to people's take on politics, even though if they've recorded it off of an iPhone—one of my favorite content creators, she records everything from her car and it's just an iPhone mounted on the dash. But because she talks with such vigor in her voice, I'm excited by the content. So it's all about the idea and the details of the show, less about the actual technical side of it.

Dave Graham: Mm-hmm. What's been the most challenging aspect of podcasting for you?

Clinton Nellist: Oh, I joke that I do struggle with business. You know, I'm more of an artist than I am a businessman. So yeah, I struggle with scheduling and invoicing and taxes and all that kind of stuff. But you know, there's a lot of logistics that come into making a podcast or even a series come together. But when you hit record and you sit down and you've got somebody in front of you, then all the work is done. This is the fun part. I'm actually really excited about AI and the whole evolution of the personal assistants that's gonna be very helpful for my life. But I love the art of it all and that's really what keeps me coming back.

Dave Graham: And there comes the reward.

Clinton Nellist: Exactly.

Dave Graham: This is how you make a living. You're in the midst of it. You've been in this environment for years. Can you predict where we're going to be? What will you be doing? Will it be different in 10 years, five years, two years? Is there technology coming down the pike the average person doesn't know about? Any of that stuff?

Clinton Nellist: I think just from following tech, I think the smartphone is on its way out. We're gonna be getting, at least in the next 10 years—my forecast, will play this back for me in a couple decades. But the way that it's going, we're gonna be seeing more about the glasses technology. I'm really excited to see augmented reality, not virtual reality, but augmented reality being put into lenses. So we can have heads-up displays and things like that. I'm really excited about that emerging tech. People are gonna share information till the end of time and that's always gonna change. And I think that's really cool about the audio format is, you know, a microphone is one of the oldest technologies we have and I really don't see that going away. We're definitely gonna be competing with AI writing scripts and AI creating B-roll and all this kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, human beings having conversations in microphones, I think is pretty future-proof. But that just might be my bias.

Dave Graham: You know, the "Branches Between Generations" program, it fills my heart. You know, that kind of program—it's this thing that builds and strengthens community and just has ripple effects that are to be admired. So I take my hat off to you and I do hope that we'll be able to connect again to see how things are going, and it's been a pleasure, sir.

Clinton Nellist: Thank you so much too. And if I could just close on this, I do encourage you to reach out. The official work email is clinton@podio.ca, so please reach out if you want. We are actively casting right now. We're always looking to hear people's interesting stories, so would love to hear from you.

Peter McCully: Production is underway on the podcast "Branches Across Generations," so if you're interested in the casting call, do reach out as spots may still be available and filming will be wrapping up by August 4th.

Dave Graham: I recently checked another item off my summertime to-do list. That was to visit the North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre. What a remarkable facility that is, full of wonderful people doing great things. Sylvia and Robin Campbell founded the centre 40 years ago. I got to sit down for a chat with Sylvia recently. That conversation will be featured on a future episode of the podcast, and we have a conversation coming up that is about flying jellyfish. You heard me: flying jellyfish. If you sign up for our newsletter, you'll get advanced notice of such things as conversations about flying jellyfish. Go to thepulsecommunity.ca.

Peter McCully: Click on the contact link. Our collection of kids' stories grows by the week. Our latest episode of "The Mellow Submarine" has Captain Dave and his first mate, Larry the Lobster, visiting BeachFest, going on a treasure hunt.

Dave Graham: And then there's the series about Gracie, the Eskimo dog, and her caretaker Peter. Their latest story takes place at the dentist. I'll tell you now, it's actually a heartwarming story about overcoming dental anxiety. You'll find our Skookum Kids stories at skookumkids.com and on all the major platforms.

Windsor Plywood French Creek: The Pulse Community Podcast is brought to you in part by Windsor Plywood in French Creek, specializing in hard-to-source interior and exterior home finishing products, including flooring, doors and moldings, and exterior project materials such as yellow cedar. Windsor Plywood French Creek carries high-quality, responsibly sourced products and are committed to providing outstanding value and personalized one-on-one service to all of our customers: homeowners, do-it-yourselfers, renovators, builders, designers, craftsmen, and contractors. Regardless of the type or size of your project, Windsor can help you bring your vision to life from start to finish. Let Windsor Plywood in French Creek help you with your renovation, new build, or building project. Visit them online or call 752-3122.

BeachFest: It's here. Parksville Beach Festival opens this Saturday, July 12th at 2:00 PM with the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Right now, master sculptors are pounding up their sand bases for the incredible Circus by the Sea competition. Watch the magic unfold as 30 international artists create breathtaking masterpieces in just 30 hours. Kick off opening weekend with Chilliwack's farewell concert Saturday night. Learn professional sculpting techniques with hands-on lessons Saturday and Sunday. The spectacular sand sculpture exhibition opens Monday, July 14th and runs until August 17th. This weekend, the summer's biggest celebration begins. Visit parksvillebeachfest.ca for details.

Dave Graham: Parksville Beach Fest, one of my favorite events. I'll be DJing there for the Sand Sculpting Competition, the kickoff event for the festival. Please say hello when you come visit.

Peter McCully: And we appreciate their support of the Pulse Community Podcast. Sponsorship opportunities are available. To find out more, send an email to peter@thepulsecommunity.ca.

Dave Graham: Oh, you know those popsicles I'm supposed to be meeting right after this? I have this nagging feeling they're sitting out on the counter. What were we doing? Oh, yeah, we're ready to bring out our next guest. Here's Marilyn.

Marilyn: Waiting in the green room is Margot Holmes, a promoter of Canadian culture for the past three decades through her work in the performing arts. Margot is currently the CEO of the Vancouver Island Symphony, a professional orchestra based in Nanaimo. Margot is an avid traveler, arts enthusiast, and always up for an adventure.

Peter McCully: Welcome to the podcast today, Margot.

Margot Holmes: Thanks so much, Peter. Delighted to be here.

Peter McCully: Margot, you've been the executive director of the Vancouver Island Symphony for more than 20 years, and you've been promoting Canadian culture for over 30 years. What initially drew you to the performing arts?

Margot Holmes: Well, as a kid, I played an instrument, played the oboe. I played the piano and sang in choir, and we really loved music. Ended up going to university studying oboe performance. In my last period of time at the university, there were two jobs available. One was teaching oboe in minor, and one was in the PR department of the Faculty of Music at Western in London, Ontario, and I really liked promoting concerts, so I ended up really delving a little bit further into the arts management side of the performing arts.

Peter McCully: Before we talk about this year's Summer Sizzle Festival, I wanted to ask you about the pop-up concert series that you created during COVID. A way to keep musicians working and bring some joy for music lovers, can you take us back to 2020 when you created 42 backyard concerts from Duncan to Courtenay?

Margot Holmes: Really, I was a little crazy with them, I'll say it that way, but our musicians needed work. So this was a way to provide work for them in a safe setting, outside setting. The other side of that was we were able to give our audience members what they needed too. They came to the concerts with masks on, and we had very specific rules. "You can do this, you can't do that"—all those things. Basically they came to the concert and they went home, but they had a great time when they were there. So really that started something we thought would last a year, but continued for five years.

Peter McCully: For listeners who might be hesitant to attend classical music concerts because they think they're too formal or maybe intimidating, what would you tell them about the Summer Sizzle Festival experience? What can they expect when they bring their lawn chair to one of your concerts?

Margot Holmes: What they'll get is an opportunity to meet musicians up close. Musicians talk about the music, they talk about themselves, all the performing music they really like. So it's not something that they maybe have played before and they certainly haven't played it with the musicians they're playing with this summer, you know. Whereas on a stage at a theater, the next regular symphony, we play at the Port Theatre and we play at the Sid Williams Theatre. Those are fantastic venues, and the audience is a long way from the musicians. Here they're in their own room, a few feet away, if that's where they'd like to sit.

Peter McCully: I understand that about one-third of your pop-up concert audiences are brand new to the symphony experience. So what is it about the intimate setting that attracts people who might never step foot in a traditional concert hall?

Margot Holmes: What I think it is is that they think, "Oh, I can do this for an hour. This will be fun. I can experience something new. If I don't like it, it's only for an hour." However, our experience is they keep coming back because these concerts are casual. They're not stuffy in any way. We're not even serious in any way. People gather to enjoy the music, and there's a camaraderie between the audience members and also with the musicians. So it's really just a fun experience.

Peter McCully: Margot, how do the musicians feel about performing in somebody's backyard versus a formal concert venue?

Margot Holmes: Musicians really enjoy playing these series because they're playing music that they don't regularly play. Some of them have maybe never even played this music, so it's something new for them to do, and they don't get to play chamber music as much as people might think. But depending if they're freelance musicians, they might play like orchestra, but that doesn't mean that they only get to play chamber music. So this is an opportunity to do so and get to know their colleagues in the orchestra quite well because they're putting a number of concerts together throughout the week that they're here.

Peter McCully: This year's Summer Sizzle Festival, which is not easy to say, by the way, features 36 concerts across 12 Vancouver Island locations. How did you decide which communities and venues to include in your schedule this year?

Margot Holmes: This year we've added some components that we saw worked in the past. We have two series at two wineries. 40 North Winery in Comox was very popular last year—was sold out immediately—so we added one down in the Cowichan Valley as well. We wanted to spread it out. Some people have done it—concerts carried in their backyard or in specific settings for the last five years. Well, there are favorite settings for sure, and then we wanted to add some new ones that time of day. Some people want to come in the morning, some people want to come in the afternoon or the evening, so they have an opportunity to do that in multiple settings. That's how we pick them, really—just to try to offer opportunity to people who live in certain areas.

Peter McCully: I understand you're introducing some new elements this year. You mentioned wine, there are dinners, there are brunches, lunches, wellness activities.

Margot Holmes: Exactly. We found that sometimes people might like to go to Gabriola, for example. Gabriola has the brunch series this year, and that's new. And so anybody who lives on Gabriola can go and do that. But then it's also a beautiful little day trip from the big island to hop over to Gabriola for brunch and then come back or tour around Gabriola if they'd never been there. Same with Nanoose Bay. We have a dinner series there so people can order dinner if they wish, and eat it at the picnic or eat it before the show or after the show. It just makes it a little bit more of a bigger outing if that's what somebody wants. And then we also have our traditional pop-up concerts that we've done before—what they love about, whether it's the garden or the view or the host or all of those things. And we wanted the people to have the opportunity to go wherever they wanted to go with the added benefits.

Peter McCully: There are three different musical journeys you're offering this year. There's the string quartet, Four Strong Winds, and Back Row Brass. Could you tell us about those in a little bit more detail?

Margot Holmes: The first set is a baroque concert. It's featuring our string quartet. They've chosen the music. It's a variety of music from different eras. Then the next one, Four Strong Winds, it's a little bit of a play on words for wind players in that particular show. Back Row Brass, an ensemble brass, has played almost every year. They didn't play last year, but each year they come with a new theme of what they want to play. And it turns out when you look at the music that each of them is playing, it is a little bit of a journey through different countries, through different areas of time. The musicians, as they're taking people on the journey, will talk about all that music and why they chose it and what it meant at the time to the composer and what it means to them. You know, a little bit of a deviation or a holiday.

Peter McCully: Margot, with 36 concerts happening from Duncan through to Courtenay, you must have a few logistical challenges that you face. How do you overcome those?

Margot Holmes: We try not to have those logistical challenges. During COVID, they had to be low production. So they are—they include a trio or quartet of musicians. We added a sound system a couple of years ago, much to my chagrin because I was like, "Oh no, we're getting into production." But it worked very well and what we found from a production perspective is people will sit—now we're outdoors because it's rain or shine. Musicians will play in the rain because they're covered and people just come and they bring their rain gear when it's rain and they bring their umbrellas and they participate still. These really are low maintenance. They're certainly not stuffy in any way.

Peter McCully: What's been the most surprising venue or audience reaction that you've encountered during the pop-up series?

Margot Holmes: Peter, that's really hard. There's so many concerts. I can't even pick one. I think we laugh about the wildlife. Depending on the venue, we have certain places that are very close to—could have deer in the yard, could have dogs, could have flocks of birds. If it's a wind concert, for example, the sound of the instruments makes the birds crazy sometimes, and I can't even pick one concert that stands out as being a little crazy. I can't think of one. Maybe I blocked it out, but it's just part of the overall.

Peter McCully: Margot, you describe yourself as always up for an adventure. What's the next adventure you're planning for the Vancouver Island Symphony?

Margot Holmes: Our season has been launched for next year, and in that season we have added a real mini festival in February—a Cuban festival—because our conductor Cosette Justo-Valdés is Cuban, and she has been putting together a full lineup, three days of Cuban musicians coming to the island. We'll be presenting, or actually by the time we're done, Cuban music, jazz, as well as orchestral music, and so that'll be a really hot little event in the middle of our winter.

Dave Graham: Our thanks to Margot Holmes for being a part of the Pulse Community. There are so many stories out there. We'd appreciate hearing from you. If you have a story you think people would like to know about, maybe you are the story or perhaps you know someone who knows a guy who's done something extraordinary, whatever. Please reach out. Contact us through our home website, thepulsecommunity.ca. Yeah, so Peter, I'm sure I left the popsicles out, so I don't know. I'm gonna need to reschedule that summer experience. No biggie. But what do we do now?

Peter McCully: Well, as you may recall, Dave, this is the time in the podcast where we normally go to see what Mabel has on special in the cafeteria.

Dave Graham: Oh, yeah. Isn't Mabel making some frozen treats for summer?

Peter McCully: Well, she likes to be creative. So I hear she has a selection of savory popsicles.

Dave Graham: Savory what? Like chicken soup? Well, maybe for me, some lines are just not meant to be crossed, such as popsicles that aren't sweet. This is serious. Uh, it reminds me of something I have way back into my pantry at home: an unopened tin of bacon-flavored jelly beans. I just can't go there.

Peter McCully: Well, how about just a coffee and a Danish?

Dave Graham: Oh, I don't know. Were the Danish made with meat?

Peter McCully: We'll try and find you one that isn't.

Rockin' Rhonda & The Blues Band: Here comes Peter, here comes Dave, oh listen. Bringing stories, making waves. No missing. Spinning tales in the podcast cave. So to speak. Laughs and insights everywhere. What a treat. Peter and Dave, they're on the mics alright. Join the ride. It's gonna feel just right.