ews & features mir sronww scorn THE DAILY VOICE, FRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2013 7 B.C. needs amateur coaches Lack of incentives and high commitment level too much, says report By GARIN FAHLMAN armen Bremen is a Royal Bank call centre manager who coach- es her daughter’s basketball team because no one else will do it. There are not enough amateur sports coaches in B.C. due to a lack of incentives and the high level of com- mitment, according to a report by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heri- tage. “It’s a lot of time. Teachers now don’t want to give their time. You need to put in lots of energy into developing a team,” she said. “You can’t expect much compensa- tion, you just have to have a love of the sport.” Being an amateur coach is a volun- teer position and there can be many up-front expenses over a season, such as gas and travel. Ross Tomlinson, sport performance manager for Basketball BC, says that’s one of the major things stopping a lot of teachers from coaching. “Tt’s not even a situation where they just want to get paid, but people don’t want a lot of out-of-pocket expenses when they are giving up so much of their time.” Tomlinson says even at the college level, where coaches do get paid, many leave for provinces where they are guaranteed more. “T can think of four names off the top of my head, without even thinking, who have left to Alberta to coach,” Tomlin- son said. “Wait, now I’ve thought of five.” In the U.S., high school coaching po- sitions are paid. “The government needs to change their relationship with teachers,” said Tomlinson. “Eighteen years ago, physical education became compulsory in schools, so there have been less teachers since.” Bremen has been coaching since 1992 and agrees that the government should be doing more, and that budget cuts are counter-productive to the problem. She coaches because she cares about the quality of her children’s physical education, but she wants to see a day where coaches don’t need a child in the game to want to coach in B.C. ANGIE HOLUBOWICH photo Langara athlete Katarina Tomic. 66 It’s not even a situation where they just want to get paid, but people don’t want a lot of out- of-pocket expenses. CARMEN BREMEN COACH ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS photo A black bear enjoying a suburban snack on a sunny day might look harmless but could pose a threat to unsuspecting passersby. Experts blame humans for bear deaths Bears are waking up from their hibernation and looking for their first food of the year and wildlife officials say taking simple precautions can make all the difference By HAILEY MCDONALD inter is coming to a close and bear season is upon us. Wildlife experts are remind- ing residents in known bear-infested areas like North Vancouver to take ex- tra precautions to avoid run-ins with our furry friends. Bears have become more domesti- cated in the past decade, resulting in more contact with humans in the ur- ban settings. But conservation officers say that people can reduce the threat of bears by taking a few simple security steps. “We're getting into that time of year where all the bears will be waking up and searching for that first bit of food so it’s really important that people around their homes take extra precau- tion,” said Frank Ritcey, Provincial Bear Aware Co-ordinator. Ritcey said that waste management is the most important precaution that homeowners can take to avoid bear scares. “That means keeping it indoors until the day of the pickup or having it in a place that’s inaccessible to the wild- life.” He said that bears rummaging through unprotected garbage bins ac- count for over 50 per cent of the calls that conservation officers receive. “If we looked after that, we’d have a lot fewer problems with the bears.” Christine Miller, education co-ordi- nator for the North Shore Black Bear Society said there have been a few bear sightings in recent months. She gave homeowners similar advice about locking up garbage cans and not leaving birdfeeders out during the spring. Between April 2012 and Feb. 2013, conservation officers received 2,393 calls regarding black bear incidents. Out of those, officers killed 436 of those bears. However, Miller said that only seven bears on average are destroyed per year. “Tt’s the people’s fault usually that the bears have to be destroyed. So we support the conversation officers. They make the determination when the bear is eating unnatural foods,” she said. The North Shore Black Bear Society acts to educate residents on black bear safety. Miller said she takes a proactive, in- stead of reactive, approach about edu- cating the public on wildlife concerns. To report a wildlife incident, Miller encourages the public to call the Con- servation Officer Service. They can be reached at 1-877-952- 7277. SAFETY precautions 1 Consider purchas- ing a bear-resistant container for waste 2 Don't let fruit and berries accumpu- late on the ground. Pick regulary. 3 Use bird feeders only in the winter when bears are hibernating and natural bird food is limited. 4 Clean barbeques by burning off the grill, removing and cleaning the grease trap after each use. Source: bearaware.be.ca Vimy Ridge vets honoured next week Vimy Ridge, an important point in Canadian history, will be remembered at Vic- tory Square in Vancouver By JAMES MCLAUGHLIN and KEVIN HAMPSON of young Canadian men ran up Vimy Ridge. Three days later, one of Germany’s key strategic strongholds would be defeated. One hundred thou- sand Canadians fought in the battle and 3,598 died. A commemoration of the battle is taking place next Tuesday at Victory Square. Vimy Ridge Day was enacted as a result of a bill introduced in 2003 by then-Liberal MP ‘<“ A dawn on April 9, 1917, thousands Brent St. Denis. Since then, the Ca- nadian flag on top of the Parliament You want Buildings’ Peace to honour Tower to half-mast every April 9. peop te As St. Denis’ leg- who’ve islation explains, the famous “Battle gone of Vimy Ridge is through considered by that many to be a turn- ing point for our country and the beginning of Cana- da’s march towards nationhood.” Instructor of recreation studies at Langara, Vince Kreiser, is a war histo- ry buff and former cadet whose grand- father served in the First World War. Kreiser believes war memorials serve an important purpose when they’re done well. “You want to honour people who’ve gone through that and you think, maybe we don’t want to go through that again,” said Kreiser. Although skeptical of commemora- tions with a high price tag attached, Kreiser is not opposed to the Vimy Ridge memorials. They should poi- gnantly call to mind the experience of the war and they should tell the story appropriately, he said. Wendy Nelson, the chair of Langa- ra’s political science and history de- partments, is apprehensive about the intention of war commemorations. “Commemorating war and battles, to me, is not the most enlightened way of creating a sense of national identi- ty,” says Nelson. “I think they’re often a perverted attempt to create a sense of unity where often the unity should come from other things.” “Tt’s a bit like the War of 1812 stuff that [the federal government is] doing now, saying that that war brought us together as Canadians. I just don’t buy that. It’s just not historically accurate. I think that it’s a manipulation of histo- ry.” VINCE KREISER John Babcock, Canada’s last First World War vet, died in 2010 at the age of 109. Flickr photo The Canadian National Vimy Me- morial on Vimy Ridge, France.