RESIDENT BAFFLED BY POLICE STATISTICS
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PREMIER BITTEN BY PEST PROBLEM
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FARMERS MARKET HOSTS FUNDRAISER
WEDNESDAY
MAY 23 2012
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When it comes to making Great Strides, Eva Markvoort was one of the best. Now you’re invited to come and walk in her honour, May 27. See Page A9
www.newwestnewsleader.com
Cook proposes parent bill of rights Trustee says adversarial relationship needs to be collaborative Grant Granger newwestnewsleader.com
GRANT GRANGER/NEWSLEADER
Ryan Cousineau plays a portable video game, Mario Bros., the predecessor of Super Mario Bros., on a Game and Watch device from the early 1980s. Cousineau is the guest curator for Pong to Pokémon – A History of Video Games in B.C. that is on exhibit at the New Westminster Museum and Archives until Oct. 14.
Turning on to video games Pong to Pokéman exhibit shows emergence of a highly popular industry in British Columbia Grant Granger ggranger@newwestnewsleader.com
Like many other kids of his generation, Ryan Cousineau ¿rst got hooked on video games in the early 1980s when his family got an Atari 2600. As he accumulated newer and hipper machines and games he developed his pack rat tendencies and didn’t throw the old ones out.
“I amassed a modest collection of goofy video games,” says Cousineau, 38. “It’s not a world-class collection by any means, but it’s a representative sample of video games starting from their original existence on to today.” He didn’t give up his love of them as an adult either, especially during his university days when he’d regularly hit the student pub and play “a terrible baseball game” in the arcade. “That was our impoverished student entertainment,” recalls Cousineau. These days, he’ll often dig his
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old games out at parties. The ones requiring multiple players are always a big hit. “A lot of the fun doesn’t go away,” he says. “With all of those games that we lived and died on there was a core of fun.” So when Oana Capota asked him to put on an exhibit at the Surrey Museum, the Douglas College audiovisual technician jumped at it. When Capota took over as curator of the New Westminster museum, she recruited Cousineau to do another exhibit, but this time
they concentrated on how British Columbia became a hotbed of video game development. The result is Pong to Pokémon – A History of Video Games in B.C. which will be on display at the museum until mid-October. Some of the province’s rich history of producing fun for nerds includes how Don Mattrick founded Distinctive Software at the age of 17 along with Jeff Sember. They set up shop in Burnaby during the 1980s developing a game called Evolution, amongst others. Please see EXHIBIT INCLUDES PLAY DAYS, A3
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A New Westminster school trustee is proposing a parents’ bill of rights in a bid to repair the often adversarial relationship the district has with individual parents and parental groups. “Let’s be really clear that most of the engagement has largely been adversarial. It needs to be collaborative,” said trustee Casey Cook, who submitted his proposal for discussion at Tuesday’s board meeting. “What’s happening is merely symptoms of a system that is ineffective and needs to be changed. We need to have a decision-making process where people feel valued and advocacy is welcomed, where parental and caregiver participation is an ongoing process. We need to view parents and the community as a resource and not as an impediment. They need to be part of the education process.” Please see EWEN, A3