I spent 4 hours, yesterday, writing a THANK YOU letter for all of YOU!!!! It was intended for an email and came with many fun photos to enhance the reading experience. I cant add photos on Facebook so I just sharing the words. Remember - 4 hours to write this... please share a few minutes to read!!!! Thank you, London… and friends from around the world!!! The spark for my 2014 ‘Mr. Jim For Mayor’ campaign began four years ago… during the last municipal election. As I read the headlines and watched the debates, I couldn’t help but wonder why not one candidate spoke about our need to become sustainable. I had been advocating on behalf of our Earth for nearly 15 years and I have witnessed a dramatic increase in our society’s willingness to accept change and yet our politicians continued to talk about ‘our environment’ as though it was a separate issue that has no bearing in regards to job strategies, educational forums or community development plans. I realized then that an honest and determined voice was needed within our local government. Over the next year, my family and I were quite occupied with the birth of our son, Devon, who is celebrating his third birthday, today!!! The next year, I had immersed myself into the research phase of my campaign. I knew that I was soon going to be diving into waters that were a bit unfamiliar to me and so, I needed to prepare myself. I began researching government policy and strategy as well as the technology side of the businesses that I feel are needed in London to make our transition into a sustainable urban centre a reality. A day never passed where I wasn’t surprised with the results that I had uncovered… youtu.be/kAwXYN8U6Sg Anaerobic digestion is one technology that I had been hearing a lot about and soon my investigations connected me with the management of one manufacturing company that is located in the United States. Anaerobic digesters can take any organic product – table scraps from homes or restaurants as well as grass clippings and leaves (which are abundant in the forest city) as well as all the tonnes of agricultural waste – and process them into natural gas and electricity with a by-product being compost. I learned that a 1 million dollar investment into the needed facility could earn a 3 million dollar return in just the first year!!! I also learned that the manager of this company was a UWO graduate in the field of environmental sciences and that after graduation he had moved to the U.S. because London offered no job opportunity for graduates in this field. This fact opened a new door for inquiry as I continued my research and it soon played a part in one of the ‘Mr. Jim For Mayor’ videos where I speak about our need to keep our young and fresh minds in our community… youtu.be/ebjeT0TiOSg My second year of campaign building saw me setting down my paintbrushes for the first time in 16 years! It was now time to concentrate on sharing all that I had learned. Because I work two jobs, six days a week and I take care of Devon every evening because my wife gets home late in the evening, I knew that I would be challenged with getting my message out to Londoners. I came up with a solution… create a series of videos and put them on Youtube. Since many of my connections in cyberspace are with groups from around the world and since our shift to become sustainable is a global initiative, I knew that these videos would be viewed by people around the world and so my message would (and has) reached a very large audience!! This year, I have completely dedicated myself to promoting my platform videos and involving myself in community events at a very high level. I’ve always been involved with our community… but this year I raised the bar quite significantly! This has been a year filled with so many positive experiences and so many friendly interactions that I feel I would be neglecting my duty as a mayoral candidate if I did not express my gratitude for the many who became involved with this effort… Nearing the end of January – just one month into my campaign – Linda Wayne from the East Village Coffeehouse contacted me on Facebook. She told me that she was glad to hear that a candidate existed who was placing our environment in the spotlight! She offered me an opportunity to share my vision with the community and soon my first event was in the planning stages… Soon, musical guests, event promoters, special menus and door prizes were being added to the event and my campaign had its official launch!! Thank you, to all those who were involved in creating this event and all of those who attended! lfpress/2014/03/12/mayoral-candidate-and-local-artist-hopes-to-share-his-green-vision-with-voters Along with the planning of this event, I continued reaching out to local papers as well as National icon figures and soon many articles were filling the pages of our newspapers. This will not be the only thank you that I’m sending out to local reporters! I’ve always been dedicated to face-to-face meetings and it was during an interview with the owner of The London Chinese Post when Leon Lee expressed his support for my campaign by offering me a deal for advertising in his paper that I could not refuse. Every single week, since the middle of February, I have placed a 3” x 4” ad in this paper! To show my creative side, every single ad has been a unique expression, showcasing the many ideas that I want to see embraced by London. Thanks, so much, Leon! Your generosity and support has always been one of the highlights of my campaign!! Since I’ve been an artist advocating for sustainable ideals for nearing 18 years, throughout all of Canada (youtu.be/rp3iPj_Kefc ), it only made sense that I should share my artwork with the community. With the help of the London Library, I was able to organize a small tour through many libraries throughout the city. The only catch was that since the libraries are non-partisan, I could not have any material at these venues speaking about my ambitions to become mayor. A catch that I was able to easily live with. Thanks to the library staff and all those who attended these exhibitions – especially my former Peacebus students! For the last many, many years, I have always been involved in getting people (mostly Peacebus students – youtu.be/q8ruqxKBUAY - and their parents) to join me for an Earthday tree planting event. This year, as I had upped the bar on the calibre of my events, I thought that it would be even more fun to create a parade to get more people involved. This event was so successful that I have no doubt that I’ll continue with this effort for the many, many years still to come! “Did you have fun at the Earthday parade, Julia?” “Yes, Mr. Jim! It was great!!” “Why did you enjoy the parade so much?” “Because I was in it!” I’ll never forget this conversation!!! Thanks to the London Police, the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority, students, parents, friends and family for bringing this event to life! I spent the month of May preparing for the upcoming ‘Strawberry Dayz’ event that I was planning with the Glen Cairn Community Resource Centre. By this time several of the other mayoral candidates were busy having fundraisers so that they could cover our landscapes with their election signs to get people interested in hearing about all of the wonderful things that they would do for the community if elected mayor. Instead of filling the air with talk, I decided to fill the air with action – by creating pilot programs that would allow families on fixed incomes to save money, support nearby farmers, build a stronger local economy while reducing our carbon footprint. Both the ‘Strawberry Dayz’ and ‘Blueberry Dayz’ (youtu.be/mj1n0pGKwWA ) events were extremely successful! I first starting building these programs back in 2010 and this year saw my original program expand… to everyone’s delight! I know that next year we’ll be able to add several vegetable picking events into this mix, as well. Thanks to Voyageur Transportations for donating the bus, the GCCRC for organizing the registration, all the families that attended and Heeman’s and Kusterman’s farms for supporting this sustainable initiative!! Thanks to the London community for making me feel so popular – LOL!!! Throughout the summer, I received many invitations to art exhibitions, bbq’s, poetry reading events (youtu.be/lIyczs3rHcs ), community fairs and gatherings and I attended as many as I could. Devon always had a great time! We spent the summer on my bike or travelling on the LTC to get to all of these events and soon Devon started expecting each day to end with a few thousand High-Fives, hotdogs and tasty treats! I had many engaging conversations and word about my campaign grew and grew! This brings us to the first part of August. By this time, all the heavy hitters had entered the race to become London’s next mayor and the spotlight had been shifted away from the candidate who did to the candidates who want to talk about it! I was being completely ignored by the media and I knew that somehow I would have to do something that would bring the focus back to me and my vision for a sustainable future. I received an invitation to join forces with a few other mayoral candidates who were also eager to get involved in community events. We wanted to showcase our dedication to London and our commitment to working with the many local organizations that are involved in building a brighter future for our city. The Alliance was born! Over the course of the next eight weeks, we saw our very busy schedule become completely booked as we got involved with The Terry Fox Run, Walk-A-Mile-In-Her-Shoes, The Canadian Lung Associations ‘Amazing Pace’ scavenger hunt, TD Tree Days and the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge! We raised over one thousand dollars for these events, got on CTV News twice and became a main attraction within the pages of the Metro newspaper (metronews.ca/news/london/1129692/four-who-want-more-new-political-alliance-asks-londoners-to-pay-attention/ ) for several weeks… and inspired a community!!! Thanks to Alex Main, Dennis Perry and Steve Gardner for all of their hard work and perseverance during this time. Thanks to all the organizers of these events and to the media for sharing our stories with the community. Thanks to all of our Facebook fans and supporters for all of their encouraging comments and gratitude for our efforts! The last two months have also been filled with many radio interviews and community debates. With only a few short weeks until Election Day, interest was exploding and the demands on all candidates increased dramatically. I’d like to send a huge THANK YOU to all of the organizers and attendees for all of these events, as well as London’s radio talk show hosts and television news personalities. It was great to be a part of something very special!!! It felt even greater to have one of London’s radio personalities offer me a job… “if you happen not to win the election.” Thanks Steve Garrison and CJBK Newstalk Radio! Thank you to all the people who came to meet me at these events. It would be hard to describe my feelings when someone would push through a crowd to shake my hand and tell me that they felt honoured to finally meet me… “I was walking home from work, one day, and I saw one of your flyers. I read it, smiled and then brought it home. As I walked in my front door, I waved your flyer in the air and said, ‘Honey! I know who we’re voting for this year!’” These last few weeks have really shown me the love and dedication that runs through the veins of all Londoners! Never before have I felt so accepted and humbled by the way that our community is reaching out to me, helping me, encouraging me and sharing in the ultimate dream… a dream that needs to be realized to ensure a healthy and safe world for future generations!!! I’ve been surprised by gifts from former Peacebus students! I’ve been absolutely shocked by seeing ‘Mr. Jim For Mayor’ signs on people’s front lawns – signs that I had no part in creating!! First there was one sign… and I delighted in sharing that story on Facebook. Then another person felt inspired to also create a hand made sign to support my campaign… and then another! I’ve seen my promotional artwork being used as people’s profile pictures on Facebook. I’ve seen other images being used as people’s banner image on Facebook. I’ve been seeing many, many posts on Facebook where people are helping me to advertise my campaign and promote sustainable ideals. I’ve lost count of the number of status reports that I’ve shared that begin… “Thank you, London! I’m on cloud 9 again today!!” Even other candidates are expressing their admiration for my efforts… Roger Caranci always smiled when we shook hands, complimenting me on my ability to engage the audience with my ideas and my golden voice. Donna Kelley is always sending positive comments and suggestions to me, on Facebook and Arnon Kaplansky has sent me many nice remarks about my videos that deal with our need to build communities instead of subdivisions (youtu.be/Md6zMBxTuK8 ). I’ve learned that Arnon is a gardener and several years ago, while living in Nova Scotia he took a course that taught him how to forage wild mushrooms from our forests. He’s invited me to go mushroom picking with him next spring! Now, I’ve saved my most important THANK YOU until the end… and I’m sure that it is no surprise that my greatest supporters have been my family and my lovely wife, Joanne! My parents and my sister have helped to focus many of my ideas, they’ve let me use their car, computer, fax machine on so many occasions that sometimes I felt that I had moved back home! I’m sure that I owe them at least one tank of gas. My in-laws have also been very supportive and I was delighted with the surprise of an embroidered ‘Mr. Jim’ T-shirt from Jo’s mom! Joanne has been my foundation of support! With all of the demands placed on me during this time, Jo’ has picked up the slack in maintaining our home. On the days when I’ve fallen asleep on the couch, completely exhausted, I’d wake up to the smells of the dinner that I should have made. On the days, when we should have been relaxing and playing family games, she nods and tells me it’s OK that I spend the afternoon replying to emails, filling out surveys and painting election signs. These same demands have been placed on all candidates – mayoral, council and school trustees – and I’m sending out a huge THANK YOU to all of their families, as well! Easily, this has been the most successful endeavour that I’ve ever been involved in – I set out to share the most important message with the world - and because of you this message has reached more minds and hearts than I can even imagine! Thank you!! All of you!!! Be blessed… and be voting this Monday, October 27, 2014!!!! Jim Kogelheide
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 17:01:48 +0000
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