February 5, 2012. Love authentic character homes? Looking for a rural lifestyle? Here's a gem!  Maple Bay is a treasured part of Southern Vancouver Island...a pastoral ambiance that soothes the soul.  This lovely home began life at the turn of the 20th Century as a state of the art barn. In the early 1980s, it was lovingly converted to a stylish home. Meg Tilly apparently once lived here...  Current owners have enjoyed this fine home since 1989...maintained & restored "in tone" with its yesteryear ambiance, it's a blend of English Country and French Farmhouse charm. Enticing....  Country kitchen with breakfast area, formal dining, music room, formal living, library, guest bed/bath, two offices, sep laundry, all on main level...master "suite" in upper level private wing.  Guest cottage, large barn, seasonal creek, pasture, pond...fenced veggie & flower garden, peaceful lawns, heirloom orchard...ahh...beauty, flair...with lake, valley, & mountain views, sunny (e/s/w exposures), and close to ocean. Irreplaceable! Call me, & enjoy the Maple Bay lifestyle.... liread33@gmail.com February 4, 2012. Thinking of an off-island jaunt, & feeling some early Spring restlessness? On Feb 18 (noon to 5 p.m.) & 19th (11 to 4), enjoy the 6th Annual Victoria Tea Festival. Held at Crystal Garden, across from Victoria Conference Centre. Taste. Discover. Shop. Experience. A fundraiser for Camosun College Child Care Services. On Feb 8 to 12th, it's the 50th Anniversary of Vancouver Boat Show...at B.C. Place. Come by my booth (#31) and say hello...discover Salt Spring Island & Gulf Islands properties. Call me. How may I help you to buy your dream Island property? liread33@gmail.com Early Spring at Butchart's Gardens...be inspired by Victoria's Abkhazi Garden...on Friday, Feb 10th, enjoy a special Valentine's Dinner at Abkhazi Garden. Make a weekend of it! Love beaches & can't take the time to walk Tofino/Uclulet's gems? Off to Point No Point, and breathe in the Pacific's energy! A baby Long Beach, on the doorstep of Victoria. Always great to come home to Salt Spring...good to do some daytrip/weekend voyaging, too. And your suggestions are? Always welcome! February 3, 2012. Choices, choices! Late February offers a writers extravaganza...the annual Galiano Literary Festival takes place Feb 24 to 26, on Galiano Island. A stellar line-up to inspire you! For info or registration, call 250-539-3340 or GalianoLiteraryFestival.Wordpress.com(Books: Windows to the Future is the theme). Same dates, Feb 24 to 26, on Salt Spring Island, is a new event: Words Without Borders, put on by the Salt Spring Forum, & held in celebration of Freedom to Read week. Visit their website (www.saltspringfestival.com) for details. Galiano has been presenting this important writers venue for some years, now...wish the new kid on the block, Salt Spring, had chosen different dates...should be able to choose to attend both. Frowns to whoever chose same weekend...good to create opportunity on all the Islands! New home for Salt Spring Arts Academy...this dance studio is now located above Home Design Centre on Upper Ganges Road...call Shelley at 250-537-4294 for more details! Did you miss yesterday's First Thursday talk at Pegasus Gallery of Canadian Art. It was featured Ian Sigvaldason for Feeding the Spirit: Bowls, Rattles and Spoons. Take part in this interesting series, the first Thursday of each month. Call 250-537-2421 for more info. Feel like dancing? Off to Meaden Hall on Feb 11th...concert presented by Swing Shift! Bring your sweetie...a Valentine's moment. Tickets at Acoustic Planet & Stuff and Nonsense. ArtSpring presents One Thousand Cranes on Feb 13 & 14...ticket info at 250-537-2102. Feb 4th, catch The Sweet Lowdown at Moby's...a Victoria roots-bluegrass trio. Music starts at 9 p.m. Treehouse Cafe reopens Feb 6th, & live music starts on 10th...stay tuned! Live music at Harbour House Hotel on Friday...featuring the amazingly talented Vaughn Fulford with Oscar Riley...music begins at 6 p.m. Saturday enjoy Lloyd English & Ian Van Wyck...don't miss them! Sunday, catch Diana English, also at 6 p.m. Lucky Islanders! Every Saturday, at Salt Spring Inn, enjoy those Island treasures: The Barley Brothers. 6 p.m. start. Missed the ArtSpring meeting at Spinners & Weavers group yesterday morning? More coming up, between March & May... get involved! Saturday, Feb 18th, at 7:30 p.m., enjoy the Salt Spring Players...at ArtSpring. Pre-concert talk at 6:30 p.m. Music by Rossini, Ravel, Rachmaninoff, Paquito D'Rivera...presented by Matthew, Laurie & Jim Stubbs. Tickets at ArtSpring. February is that hiatus between real Winter & Early Spring...yes, still rain & grey but also sunsplashed days to lift the spirit...California Quail are dashing across country roads, lambs are gamboling, early rhodos are spilling blossoms, carpets of snowdrops froth in meadows, daffodil & tulip bulbs are emerging in gardens...take a walk at low tide on Fernwood Beach, enjoy a picnic at Ruckle Park, check out the views from Mt Maxwell Park on a crisply clear day...ahhh...breathe...it's February and Spring is on its way! February 2, 2012.  In October, 2011, I was very pleased to receive an award for prowess in Social Media Marketing. The award was presented by the prestigious international group, Luxury Real Estate. Based in Seattle, with their head office in the tech savvy "Emerald City", the LRE group membership is truly global.... Along with membership in Luxury Real Estate, as an individual realtor (& since the mid-90s), I'm also very pleased to be a member of LRE's prestigious Regents Group...this allows me to partner, as an individual real estate agent, with almost 90 prime global companies. In this post-Internet era, which has completely changed the landscape of real estate marketing & sales, it is essential to acknowledge that we are now in that Global Village time (thank you, Marshall McLuhan, for your wise forecast words, back in the 70s)...technology has changed the face of all business, and especially all people-centric ones. As the first realtor on Salt Spring & the Gulf Islands to have a website, & one of only a handful in B.C. to have a website that early (1996), I have always explored the shifts & opportunities of our time. One has to be "in the now" in our business. In early 2008, I began to pay attention to the burgeoning social media revolution...it was seemingly completing the shifts delivered by those early Internet days of the mid-90s. The digital world is a consumer-centric one. It's a bottom up model, and the old top down dynamic is over. Twitter can create a societal revolution, and in an eyelid's blink. Facebook & Twitter & YouTube are knitting & perling us into a connected mesh of community experience. The blurring of our once separate selves continues...the personal & the corporate have become holistic. It's just about "us".... Marketing, then, has changed dramatically...to meet the consumer's changed demands. The experience of connection is a part of it. I've been blogging since 2005, and consistently experiment with the current social media options...new ones keep flooding in. It is a necessity to connect the information needed with the person who needs it, of course...the methodology of doing so has changed. It is not business as usual! More info about this dynamic marketing opportunity, & how it can benefit you, in selling or buying your Gulf Islands/Salt Spring Island property? Call me! liread33@gmail.com February 1, 2012. "Every river has its banks, Every ocean has its shores." (Deng Ming-Dao: "Tao...Daily Meditations") |
Contact Li Read at Sea to Sky Premier Properties (Salt Spring), 4 - 105 Rainbow Road, Salt Spring Island, BC, V8K 2V5; Direct Tel: 1-250-537-7647