Fresh and ready to go for 2008, Georgia Strait Alliance has launched a great new website! It’s filled with exciting features such as Latest News and Hot Issues, Strait Fun, a Strait Spot contest, Opinion Polls, and much, much more.

Though the look is new, our website still has a lot of useful information on the many issues we tackle to protect the Strait of Georgia and its adjoining waters. There is also extensive information on our history, key achievements, and our involvement in burgeoning issues.

To celebrate our new site, we’re running a few contests.  On our home page, you’ll find “The Strait Fun draw”; enter, and you can win!  You can also win in our “Find the Hot Spot” contest.  Be the first to answer a question correctly – hint: the answer is somewhere on our website - and a prize is yours.

Take a look, enter our contests and let us know what you think!

Help us make closed containment a reality

Wild salmon fry infested with sea lice Photo: Alexandra Morton

At right are emaciated, sea lice-infested salmon fry found near Brougham Point in the Discovery Islands (northern Georgia Strait) and they clearly show what we feared all along: the sea lice are decimating juvenile wild salmon everywhere there are fish farms.

The Provincial Government must fund the development of closed containment technology in the 2008 budget, so future wild salmon don’t suffer this fate.

Please, act now and help us stop the harm being done to our coastal waters.

Looking to the future with our Coastal Stewards

Photo: Christianne Wilhelmson

The Coastal Stewards of Tomorrow will engage environmentally active young adults in coastal issues. Through this program, these future coastal leaders will gain a variety of skills and hands-on experience in areas such as marketing, fundraising, writing for a not-for-profit organization, governance, strategic planning, campaigning and project management. They will also develop a greater understanding of their lives in relationship to others, their environment, community and region.

Please visit our website or contact Amber for more information.

We all struggle with that person on our gift list who just won’t be happy with a tie or pair of socks - so we at Georgia Strait Alliance would like to help.

Do you have someone on your list who wants to learn more about how to help the environment? How about a young person interested in our coastal waters? Someone interested in creating better coastal communities?

What one holiday gift has the ability to inform, empower and inspire, keep giving throughout the year and support human and marine health?

A Georgia Strait Alliance Gift Membership!

To buy the gift memberships, all you need to do is call Michelle or Lisa today at 250.753.3459 and we’ll send you your gift cards with your personalised holiday message; that’s it!

You can then tuck their GSA Membership announcement into their stocking or their holiday card, and know you’re making someone happy and making a difference.

Now we can officially say it: “Georgia Strait Alliance is everywhere”! To help our members stay better informed, connected and ready to take action, we’ve joined this social networking phenomenon and created a GSA Facebook group.

New to Facebook? Facebook is a social networking tool which, once you are a member, allows you to receive updates on what your friends, groups, and causes are up to. It’s also an easy way to communicate with large groups of people all at once.

To find us, sign up for a Facebook account, then search for Georgia Strait Alliance under ‘Groups’. Join the GSA group and we will be connected. It’s as easy as that!

Once you are a member of our group, you will receive monthly updates, have a chance to meet and greet some of our other members and receive invitations to all of our events. We’ll also send out occasional ‘calls to action’ where you can act and be part of making change.

Please join us on Facebook - share your ideas and thoughts on the work that we do, share GSA memories, as well as photos from past events.

Keep an eye out for other ways GSA will be taking advantage of the growing world of alternate communications and social networking strategies. If you want more information, contact Amber Hieb, our Coastal Stewards of Tomorrow Coordinator, and resident technology expert!

If you aren't yet a member of GSA, please consider supporting the only organization solely committed to protecting the waters of Georgia Strait - Canada's most at-risk natural environment and the place where three quarters of British Columbians live, work and play. Membership is by charitable donation, so please DONATE today! Thanks to you, we are making a difference - in Victoria, Greater Vancouver and all around the region!.

Please pass this newsletter on to friends and family who share your love of these waters.

Georgia Strait Alliance respects your privacy and does not lend, sell or trade its membership, donor or email lists with any other organization or individual.

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