My Woodstock Manifesto

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I grew up in this town. I moved away for school and work for more than 15 years but I moved home on purpose. I wanted to move back to Woodstock to be closer to family and to friends and to have new other business opportunities.

There are many things I love about Woodstock:

the small town feel
friendly people
safe neighbourhoods
good housing prices
older homes with great character and charm
being in farm country – close to good produce

Living here as an adult, I see people my age moving out of Woodstock and businesses leaving our beautiful, charming downtown area.

I would like people to work with me (and the others who are already leading this process) to spur a renewal of the downtown core. That way people can stay in Woodstock and enjoy all of the benefits of a vibrant and exciting city. I believe in Woodstock. I believe that it has great value and that it is worth working to rebuild the culture of the downtown core. I believe that it can offer many things to many people.

My Woodstock Manifesto

A Healthy Woodstock Needs:

An arts revival
To become like Elora, Huntsville, Stratford – a city that gains from the depth of its vibrant culture of art
To open up the old movie theatre and have it restored – a great spot for a new community theatre (see the possibilities), concert venue
More cafés and independent restaurants, with plenty of places to plug in a laptop and free wifi
Businesses that celebrate the old architecture and don’t tear it down
More downtown parks
Downtown housing development and not just farmers field development
To celebrate old brick buildings and not just new vinyl sided ones
A culture of urban density not sprawl
A culture of walking to work and to food not just walking by the river
More downtown space for people with dogs
More downtown space for people with young kids
More artists
More photographers
A large scale visual arts project like Huntsville’s group of Seven paintings throughout town http://www.groupofsevenoutdoorgallery.ca/
To feel like a town that is interesting to outsiders because of art and architecture
To open up, celebrate the great down town buildings – classy old department stores, the theatre: brass and brick and hardwood
An open mic night that draws in people from Cambridge, Brantford, Stratford, Kitchener, London
A great chef, with a following, to take a chance on us
A sandwich shop with an amazing atmosphere and and an even better coffee machine
To make cool and innovative green economy products
To be known to the outside world for something than just Toyota
An amazing co-working space for people who work from home on their laptops to have a place to share and to find a sense of community
Downtown industrial space that can be turned into artist’s lofts, before we tear them all down and replace them with drug stores
Offices that celebrate the great old buildings that they are in
Developers with a sense of history and a vision for the future
Somebody to open a cool modern store (or 10) with old cabinets and displays, that is solar powered with kick-ass wifi
Open wifi throughout the entire town
iPhone and Facebook app developers to live and work here
A location aware iPhone app (free) for the town that has 1 layer of history, 1 layer of arts businesses, 1 layer of the green economy and 1 layer of stuff to do for teens
Better bar patios that open as soon as Bartley’s does
To keep the free parking
An immigration wave – new foods, cultures and businesses can only benefit Woodstock and make us more attractive to newcomers
A youth centre like Ingersoll’s (which needs a website like nothing I’ve ever known)
To use the old churches for new and respectful purposes, not tearing them down
To expand the college downtown, not just out by the highway ( like Brantford http://virtualtour.wlu.ca/page.php?id=5) with shuttle buses
More people using transit so we can have better transit
A covered pedestrian side street with cool shops: closed to cars, open to people with strollers and dogs
Bikes for rent like Montreal
Downtown bike paths
To celebrate the civic engineer who thought to put in all of those great walkthrough pathways in the neighbourhoods
To celebrate our artists with innovative, even temporary, gallery space
A great skate park that you don’t have to drive to (I love that this is already happening!)
To grow the farmers markets
To discover the 100 mile diet and appreciate our local farmers
A green energy project like methane or grass- based bio fuels
An architect to build homes that are efficient for the climate and interesting to look at
Less lawns, more water-friendly landscaping
To be known as a place with inexpensive eco-friendly homes
Multimedia people working from here
A multimedia approach to marketing
Student-lead art projects
An agricultural film festival- the “Festival of Agriculture Culture”
A co-op for Makers: with tools, shared expertise, CNC machines, 3D printers (a great use for our empty factories)
A MakerFaire (http://www.makerfaire.com/) on the Farm Show lands
Facilities for a great outdoor music festival so the bluegrass festival can come back and we can more festivals
Great loft condos (another great use for our empty factories)
A brew pub
A microbrewery
A cafe/bar with an AMAZING jukebox and great patio
A great photography studio space/co-op
A good space to run small conferences (ie. http://barcamp.org)
To be a great community for students and active adults