BUSINESS
FLAG FOOTBALL is proving popular in B.C. as the recent provincial playdowns in Kelowna witnessed. A record 126 teams competed.
THE SECOND PHASE of the Rails With Trails recreational pathway was opened on the weekend, helping link a 30-kilometre network of trails in Kelowna that loops through the city.
XERISCAPING is not just about rocks and no plants. A Kelowna landscaping company is happy to show off just how colourful xeriscaping can be.
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TUESDAY June 10, 2014 The Central Okanagan’s Best-Read Newspaper www.kelownacapnews.com
▼ CITY PARK
Floating waterpark proposal gets green light
Kathy Michaels
STAFF REPORTER
Every Kelowna oldtimer knows that the waters off City Park used to be bustling with activity in the era of the Aquatic Centre. Now a new generation will get their fill of the same kind of excitement—but with a modern twist. A company called Kelowna Wibut entered a three-year agreement with the city Monday allowing it to lease a portion of the lake for a floating aquatic park. And if all goes according to plan, it should be up and running as early as the first weekend in July. John Saufferer, with the city’s property management branch, told council the park is non-motorized, and consists of a series of inflatable, interlocking pieces that will take up a 30-by40-metre space on the lake. It’s similar to something from the game show Wipe Out, he explained, noting that, as seen on the program, the aqua park’s users will get on the floating obstacle course and do what they can to stay on it. It was an idea well received by council. “People climb up, maybe fall down? I think
it’s a great idea. I really like it,” said Coun. Robert Hobson, Monday after the proposal was floated out. Other than the chill of the water in that particular spot, Hobson said that he couldn’t see any downside to the project, as it’s non-motorized and can easily be removed when the time comes. Coun. Colin Basran said he liked the fact that the aquatic park would fill the gap left by Flintstone Park or the watersides. Like the latter of those attractions, the aqua-park is really geared toward those between the ages of 10 and 20, although it’s a bit pricier. The cost is pegged at $25 per person for a day’s worth of splashing about. The aqua park will also be the first of its kind in Western Canada, although Harrison has something very similar. It may be a novelty, but Coun. Luke Stack pointed out that there are parallels to what preceded it a generation ago. “What I couldn’t help but notice is that it’s right next to the former Aquatic…It’s a 21st century aquatic playground where we used to have the old one,” he said. See Waterpark A4
MATT GOMEZ, developer of Soil Mate, (left) talks to Jeff Ricketts, who recently took over Old Meadows Organic Farm, about some of the challenges he’s facing as a new organic farmer. JENNIFER SMITH/CAPITAL NEWS
Break up with your grocery store, tech startup says Jennifer Smith STAFF REPORTER
With a glint in his eye, one can see Matt Gomez’s heart start racing as he pitches his young company Soil Mate (soilmate. com). The tech startup is a well-crafted farm-totable social networking site pairing consumers with the farmers, farmers’ markets and wineries they need to be able to eat and drink local, and farmers with the technology and marketing expertise to compete in a world geared to industrial monoculture. “This is a small team that’s full of heart and cares about the mission
more than the business,” said Gomez, who launches a cross-continent introduction to farmers and shoppers this month. Within the next year, he expects to have more than 30,000 farmers signed to the site, to outpace his only competition, and within two to three years see large enough profits to buy up farmland all over North America for Soil Mate farms capable of helping young farmers get a start or neighbourhoods establish community gardens so everyone can grow food. Heart is at the centre of Gomez’s business and he fully admits agriculture and food is a passion, not
an expertise. He was raised in Luton, England—it tops the Crap Towns to live in the U.K. list by popular vote—and his knowledge of food systems boiled down to buy-one-get-one free at the supermarket. Nevertheless, he succeeded young and was running an airport ten times the size of Kelowna’s before his 25th birthday. Then, his best friend died following heart surgery and Gomez realized he needed to find his passion and took to exploring the world. “Pretty much everybody around the world— in Peru, Bolivia, Argentina—once you’re out-
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side the city, everything is based around the market,” he said. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was a big discovery for me.” He met his wife and moved to Kelowna. Learned about genetically modified food, pesticides and the distance food travels to our plates as he adjusted to his new agriculturally-focused home. By the time his children arrived, the seed was planted; it was time to find good locally grown food. “What we found was there wasn’t any convenient way to find some very basic information: who grows what, how they do it, when it’s available and how to buy it,” he said.
Soil Mate grew organically. Gomez was working in a very successful web design company, Acro Media, and quickly devised a game plan: connect farmers to consumers, and consumers to farmers. He hired Acro to build the responsible site of his dreams. “We’ve leverage all the best available parts of every other type of online system to work for farmers for free because we appreciate the work they do and we want to be able to help them to build a sustainable system for our
See Food A4
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