Strike Coming to an End?

There have been rumours and murmurings that this Canada Post strike may be over soon but not because they managed to come to an agreement. The postal workers are being ordered back to work. I suspect the mail service will still be slow. How can you expect unhappy employees to give 110% especially when they are being forced to return to their jobs?

I attended my brother's wedding this past weekend and they had a table set up for guests to write letters that they would open in the future. I wrote about this in my post Letters on a Wedding Day. I wrote three letters over the course of the evening to be opened 5-20 years from the wedding day. Sitting down and writing those letters reminded me of how much I LOVE to write letters. I have decided to get back into it, strike or no strike, and at least have some written for mailing when the opportunity presents itself again. My pile of letter writing supplies are literally collecting dust sitting unused on my kitchen table. I haven't put a stamp on an envelope in weeks and I haven't bothered to walk into the Post Office in days. There's no point. Mail isn't coming or going anywhere. Kind of sad, really.

I am hopeful, though, that this glitch in The Letter Writing Revolution will pass and soon my mailbox will be brimming with letters once again.

The Circle Letter

I have received news that as of midnight last night, our area of the country will be directly affected by this rotational strike of Canada Post. I have cringed over and over at the news reports regarding the lack of need for the mail system as the world becomes more and more electronic. I was daydreaming as I drove along the highway the other day about what letter writers would do if the postal system decided to call it quits. I have found these last few weeks frustrating waiting and wondering and holding off. I have had friends who could have used a special card in the mail but I didn't send any. I realize how much I really like the postal system especially today when I opened the mailbox and it was empty. That hasn't happened since last summer. This is such a rare occurrence that I even blogged about it when it happened.

In the meantime, the revolution has come to a grinding halt although my inspiration to blog about all things letter writing has returned and so that can only be a good sign. Perhaps this shift in my thinking will somehow impact Canada Post and soon the mail will be travelling again to and from one another.

Recently, I received a letter from a woman who lives locally who follows my blog. She wondered if I had ever heard of "Circle Letters" and if so, why I hadn't written about them. She said she would have been rather surprised if I hadn't heard of them. Well, folks, I hadn't heard of them. Had no idea what she was talking about. She offered to explain it in an email but I was even more confused so I went to her home so that she could show me a Circle Letter and explain it to me in layman's terms. I have attempted to explain it since and I just seem to go around in circles, kind of like the Circle Letter. I pulled this explanation straight off the internet  from here:

The Circle Letter by Rhoda Weber Mack
The circle letter is useful for keeping community with scattered friends and colleagues. We use this for our eight sibling family, to keep the common conversation intact. Here's how: 

• Write your own letter, and mail it with a list of mail stops to the next in line, who inserts his or her own letter along with yours, to the next stop, etcetera all the way back to you. Now, read the fat contents with relish, withdraw your old letter, add a new one, and mail it on. Full circle.

My old letters add up to a diary of our days, forgotten moments with our children, moods of summer afternoons or wintry mornings long ago when I sat down to add my commentary to the family circle letter.


Extracted from the Whole Earth Review 

The woman who shared this interesting concept with me  had an example to show me. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me that day to photograph an actual Circle Letter. She comes from a large family and in order to keep in touch with her siblings, they use the Circle Letter as a personal and effective way to communicate. Rather than writing out a separate letter to each person, they simply write one letter and send it to the person next on the list who adds their letter (after reading the ones inside) and mails it on to the next in line. The list of names/addresses is contained in the envelope so you always know. Eventually the packet of letters grows larger and returns to the initial person on the list. They catch up on all of the news that has been shared since they first sent their letter weeks earlier and then they take out that original letter and add a new one. Round and round it goes. Brilliant.

Perhaps I will start a Circle Letter to be shared between myself, my blood sisters and our new sister-in-law, Ada, who is marrying my brother on Saturday.

How many of YOU have heard of a Circle Letter?

Happy 1st Blogiversary TLWR

One year ago, I launched my first web-log, The Letter Writing Revolution. Although my posts have been few and far between in the last couple of months, I am still here and still hoping to keep the revolution going. It hasn't helped that Canada Post is having a serious strike and there is no light shining at the end of this tunnel for now anyway. My husband thinks I should still write and mail letters in spite of the strike as eventually Canada Post will be back in business. Eventually those letters will make it to their destination. I disagree, however, as I like my letters to arrive to the recipient in a timely fashion so that the news and information contained in the letter are still fresh.

The highlights of this first year my TLWR Blog are:

• Letters to a Soldier which was very exciting resulting in a personal letter exchange with a soldier posted in Afghanistan as well as a phone call from Chris....the soldier who received and distributed the letters from TLWR followers.
• Love Letters when I dug out some of my old love letters and shared bits and pieces with you, my dear readers, and encouraged all of you to sit down and write a letter of love to a deserving heart.
• Letters in a Time of Tragedy which was inspired by my trip to NYC in October 2010 and specifically to Ground Zero.
• A Letter to Someone Dying which was a post written during my grandmother's final days and which addressed one of the toughest but most important letters we can ever write.
• Blessed Be the Letter Carrier : A post that came out of two field trips that I did accompanying an Ottawa letter carrier in the fall and the winter. Yes, blessed be the letter carrier, especially now as their employer (Canada Post) makes it very difficult for them to work when many of them would like to.
• A Box of Letters which featured the handwritten correspondence between my paternal grandparents, Pearl and Eldon Keon.
• Letters on a Wedding Day which inspired my brother and his soon-to-be-wife to incorporate this idea (courtesy of my sister, Stephanie) into their own wedding which will take place in three days!
• Letters for a Birthday celebrated my 40th birthday and the letters written by dear friends which were by the far the best gifts I could have ever received.

Thank you for reading my blog and commenting along the way. Thank you, too, for the letters that came from near and far from those I know and from those who were strangers prior to the launch of The Letter Writing Revolution.  For now, this blog will continue and will hopefully contain more frequent postings.

What were your favourite posts or experiences from The Letter Writing Revolution?

Blessed Be The Letter Carrier

While Canada Postal Workers strike, I wanted to remind everyone of the work that they do. Please read the posts I did on the days I walked a route with one Ottawa Letter Carrier.
Blessed Be The Letter Carrier Part #1
Blessed Be The Letter Carrier Part #2

Why We Must Support Our Postal Workers

This is a lazy post as I am simply linking you to this blog that has an interesting post.
I have yet to read it but my Postal Worker friend posted it and so I thought I would, too.

We are still sitting and waiting as to whether or not Canada Post will strike........any day now.

Looming Postal Strike

The Letter Writing Revolution may have to come to a grinding halt if there is, indeed, a Canada Post strike next week. My advice would be that if you are Canadian or sending letters to Canada, that you continue to write your letters but hold of on mailing them until after the strike, if there is a strike in the end. Read on:

Canadian Postal Workers Could Strike

Posted: May 18, 2011 1:44 PM ET(CBC News)

Preparations are being made for a possible postal strike as early as May 24, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers says.The union said in a statement Wednesday that it and Canada Post remain far apart on many issues, including wages for new employees and a proposed sick plan that it says is inferior. Negotiations are still ongoing, however. The union will be able to exercise its right to strike and Canada Post its right to lock out at midnight on May 24. Both sides have to give three days notice of their intention to strike or lockout. The collective agreement expired on Jan. 31.

Cheques for pensioners and social assistance recipients will still be delivered regardless, the union said.Volunteers from the union will deliver federal Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security and child benefits cheques, as well as provincial social assistance cheques in Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories.The B.C. government has said it will mail out income assistance cheques one week early on May 18 rather than May 25 to ensure they arrive.

Fan Letter

While visiting with friends last night, we discussed the power of the humble letter to get things done and I recalled one letter in particular that I wrote in the spring of 2009 when I heard that my childhood heart throb, Bryan Adams, was going to be performing an acoustic gig in a smaller than usual venue. I decided right then and there that it was now or never. I was going to meet him face to face and The Reckless Campaign was born. I spread the word on Facebook and even wrote a letter to Ellen DeGeneres to see if she could lend a hand in making arrangements. I wasn't really sure who to contact and then it dawned on me that I should just write a letter to customer service of the venue~ The National Arts Centre in Ottawa. Surely, I reasoned, they would pass along my written request to the "right" people. Here is the letter I wrote:

March 22^nd 2009

Dear Ms. Deneau;

I am writing to you with a very unusual and special request. I thank you in advance for reading this letter.

It all started when Ellen DeGeneres decided that she wanted to dream BIG and so she started the "O Yes I Can" Campaign. She wanted to be on the cover of "O" magazine. If you have ever read "O" magazine, you know that Oprah has always been the one and only person featured on her monthly covers.....until recently when she shared her cover for the first time with First Lady Michelle Obama. On Friday, March 20^th Ellen's dream came true when Oprah invited her to share a cover of "O" with her. I, too, have a dream.

When I was 12 years old, I was introduced to the music of Bryan Adams at a cottage in Temiskaming, Quebec during the summer of 1983. Cuts Like a Knife had been released a few months earlier and I got my first taste of rock n' roll (not counting the Elvis records I listened to growing up). As I blossomed into a young teenager, I would rush home everyday after school and run upstairs to the room I shared with my sister. I would throw on my Bryan Adam's cassette tape and sing into a full length mirror using a hairbrush as my microphone. By January 1984, I met my first love at a small town hockey rink and songs from the album Reckless were topping the charts. In one of the handwritten love letters he sent to me (long before email!), he wrote out the words to the song "Heaven." This song would have a special place in my heart for years to come. Bryan Adams came to Ottawa several times when I was a young teen but I was never allowed to go as it usually was on a school night or I was unable to find transportation. I grew up in a small town in the Ottawa Valley about an hour from Ottawa.

Three years ago, I heard that Bryan Adams was coming to Ottawa and I tried winning tickets by calling into a local radio station and singing "Kids Wanna Rock." I didn't win. Thankfully, my family surprised me with tickets to his concert. Seeing him live brought back all of the feelings I had as a young teenager.

This past Monday I was surprised again when my husband (who, by the way, was the boy that wrote the words to "Heaven" in that letter) told me that he got me two tickets to the concert at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa for this August. I cannot wait to have the opportunity to see him again live in a smaller venue and performing acoustically and solo.

I would like to meet Bryan Adams in person…….just for a moment. This is why I have created Julie’s Reckless Campaign. Not sure how one goes about arranging something like this but I know it can’t be impossible. I figure that, like Ellen DeGeneres, if you can dream it and conceive it, you can achieve it. I am not even certain if you are the person to be addressing this letter to but perhaps, you could forward it on to someone who might help with my dream. Any assistance on this would be greatly appreciated!! I can be reached at ***-***-**** or at the above address! I look forward to your correspondence.

Sincerely;

Julie Keon

Two weeks later, on the afternoon of my 38th birthday, my husband received a call from a man who identified himself as the concert promoter for the Bryan Adams tour in Ottawa. This man had also been responsible for bringing The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, and many other big names to our capital city. He asked Tim to pass along the message that he would make arrangements for me to meet Bryan Adams before the show. I couldn't believe it and thought that this had to be the best birthday present ever!

In August my sister, Stephanie, and I drove to Ottawa, had dinner and then made our way to the NAC. Shortly before the show we gathered with a few others in a small room and waited for Bryan to arrive. They served wine and snacks and informed us that we would all get a copy of his new cd and we were to unwrap it and write our names on a post-it note so that Bryan wouldn't have to go through the trouble of asking the spelling of our name ('cause you know what a pain that is......sheesh). And then, there he was........standing within a few feet of me. I was a little stunned as memories came back of how I used to sit in front of the television waiting to watch Video Hits and hoping that I would see him in a video. And then when we would see him  perform live on the Juno's or the American Music Awards I resembled the screaming teenagers during Beatlemania. And now, I was desperately trying to hush up the screaming 12-year old that apparently still resides in this older body. His "handlers" lined us up like cattle and one by one, we got a couple of minutes to have our cd signed and a photo taken and that was it.

Me with Bryan Adams~ August 2009

Do not underestimate the power of the handwritten letter. If there is something that you really, really want, send a letter and should it land in the appropriate hands, you will be surprised what amazing things can materialize.