Can I Call Myself a Professional Blogger Now?

My first post on the Halifax Chamber of Commerce's new blog is up! It gives me a chance to write about some more 'serious' stuff - this one's about my vision for the future of transportation in Halifax! Check it out here...

I am not a golfer... but I am a published writer!

Here's a recent article I wrote, a review of some golf lessons I had taken, for the Chamber's Golf Links publication:

Helpful tips abound at Chamber Golf Academy

By Jennifer Hopper, Halifax Chamber of Commerce

I am not a golfer. I may look like one, with my own clubs, pull cart, shoes, glove, and ugly-golf-chic pants, but the problem is, I don’t have the game to back it up! To be fair, I have only been golfing since last summer, and I certainly enjoy the game, but unfortunately I’m not very good at it yet.

Thankfully, the Chamber Golf Club has a solution to that: Chamber Golf Academy. I had the chance to participate in a recent Academy hosted by The Links at Montague, a Chamber Golf Club Partner. Kevin and Craig, two of the great golf pros on staff at The Links at Montague, spent four hours giving us tips and tricks to help improve the three basic areas of the game, beginning with putting, moving on to chipping and finishing big at the driving range.

From tips for the very beginner (like ‘here’s how you hold a club’ and ‘to chip try an 8 iron’) to fine adjustments for those who know the basics and are looking to improve their game (like ‘turn your wrist a tiny bit sooner’ or ‘move your foot an inch to the left’), the pros were willing and able to give us what we needed.

As someone who has only played a handful of times, it was also handy to have a refresher after a long, golf-less Nova Scotia winter on things I’m sure I knew last year, like the ideal foot position for chipping, and when to put the ball closer to your left foot versus more centered.

Other helpful tricks got thrown in too. It’s always good to learn useful tricks such as how to read the green by holding up your club in front of your dominant eye, blocking out the ball with the shaft of the club and looking where the hole is in relation to the club. Golf etiquette tips are great too, such as not scuffing your feet across the green. And one member of the group even got a suggestion to have his clubs lengthened a bit, along with information on how to go about doing so.

The driving range is where I personally need the most practice, and was where I learned the most during our lessons. Craig took one look at my swing and told me about 5 things I was doing wrong! He immediately spotted the reason my drives always head right: turns out the way I was swinging caused my club face to be turned to the right at the point of contact. I’m still not going to be hitting any 300 yard drives any time soon, but hopefully now they’ll stay out of the woods!

Overall, though, my favourite tip – and the one that made the most difference to my swing – is simple: RELAX. After all, this thing called golf is supposed to be fun!

Jennifer Hopper is the Member Services Manager (and sometime golf networker) at the Halifax Chamber of Commerce.

Read the whole issue...

Smoke on the Water

Today provided a hard-to-resist opportunity for photography. There are some pretty big brush fires across the harbour (which unfortunately are apparently also consuming some houses) which are creating some pretty impressive smoke plumes. They can be seen all over the city, including from my office and from the beach at the end of our street. So, Loki dog, my roommate and I went down to the beach to a) enjoy the unseasonably summery day and b) take some pictures of the smoke.

Loki didn't seem fazed by the smoke; she was just happy to be running and chasing seaweed and digging in the sand and running. Here's hoping they get the fires out soon.

Last Thursday was one of the biggest events of the year for the Halifax Chamber of Commerce, the Spring Dinner. While I am not techincally part of the events team, on days like this I get to indulge my event-coordinator side and help out. We spent most of the morning tying chair covers onto 600 chairs in the room. It's impressive to see the room come together from bare tables and uncovered chairs to a fully set, green-and-champagne, film-themed spring "zen garden," as I called it. And the food and speaker were pretty good too - with a beer company sponsor, everything was cooked using beer, and Steven Brandman was really interesting talking about the film industry in Halifax. Unfortunately, he didn't bring Tom Sellick with him (Brandman is the procuder of the Jesse Stone series which shoots in Hali). But, RBC did bring the real Olympic torch (right)! It is admittedly a great advantage of my job that I get to try and experience such a variety of things. Not many jobs offer you the opportunity to get experience planning and executing large events without that actually being your job! More photos can be seen on the Chamber's website.

And as an ending point, as a follow-up to my last post: today's sporting event on tv as I write is Canada vs Czech Repubic World Championship hockey, on repeat on TSN.