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Take a career break to travel

Ever wanted to take a few months off work to climb Mount Kilimanjaro before global warming melts the remaining snow? Or take a one-year sabbatical from your job to travel the globe, teach English in Beijing or learn Spanish in Buenos Aires? A Canadian travel company is making it easier with the introduction of what it calls a Career Break Guide geared to workers who want to either quit their job, take a vacation, or leave of absence and put some meaning into their travel, rather than simply lounge on a beach.  Source.

Hot Trends for 2007

What will be the hot gardening trends in 2007? And what will be some of the exciting new plant introductions and key gardening events in the New Year?  The key factor shaping the direction of gardening more and more today is the reality that people have less and less time to do it.  Busy work schedules, hectic social lives plus multiple distractions and competing interests have drawn many people away from spending time in the gardens actually doing the work.  Source.

Keep your brain fit

Now that research has all but nailed down the link between healthy hearts and fit brains, organizations such as the Alzheimer's Society are trying to educate the public about how to avoid being a couch potato -- in both body and mind.  A number of studies in the past few years have shown that lifestyle changes that promote cardiovascular health also help to maintain and even improve cognitive abilities, including memory, information processing, and verbalization.  On April 24, the Alzheimer's Society will sponsor a presentation teaching up to 1,000 people how to invigorate not just their brains, but their whole lives, with simple, practical behaviours that may reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer's.  Source.

Music, color honour holy day

For over 100 years, the Sikh community in British Columbia has been shaping our province, shaping it in every walk of life," Campbell said. "On behalf of all British Columbians, let me say how important it is to each of us that you invite us to join you in this Vaisakhi celebration.  Source.

'Healthy' takes top spot in food trends

What do pomegranate juice, dark chocolate and beta-carotene drinks have in common? They're all among the hottest food trends of 2007 -- healthy, anti-oxidant items to be showcased at a national grocery industry convention in Vancouver this weekend.  "The biggest trend out there is better-for-you products," Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers president John Scott said in an interview. "People are really reading labels now, so they know what's in a product and they know what they want."  Source.

Skills Shortages

Skills shortage is a global phenomenon. Employers are actively seeking skilled immigrants to meet workplace needs. In this connection, the Business Council has completed a comparative analysis of major competing, immigrant-receiving countries, examining relevant skilled migrant worker policies, programs and practices for further consideration in BC and Canada.  Source.

$100,000 a year?

"Trends throughout the past three years have shown an increase in base salary, combined with a stronger focus on short-term incentives such as signing bonuses, increased annual bonuses, profit sharing, and stock options."  Source.

BCIT program aimed at filling biotechnology needs

When people think of a career in B.C.'s burgeoning biotech industry, the prospect of spending a good chunk of your life getting a doctorate degree can seem a little daunting.  But that doesn't have to be the case, as a local program geared for lab technicians and researchers attests to.  "We train [students] to go out and work right away and our students are getting snapped up," Carly Handel, the program and marketing assistant for B.C. Institute of Technology's biotechnology department, said in an interview. "Some go on to be MDs or work in other fields, but for the most part they take entry-level jobs as research associates or lab technicians."  Source.

Gearing up for an Olympic show

Televising the 2010 Olympics will be a billion-dollar job for the Olympic movement. And already, the vanguard to an army of 2,200 camera operators, technicians and producers has landed in Vancouver to draw up its plans to deliver competition footage that the Games' official broadcasters will beam to a global audience of more than three billion.  Source.