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Interview with Oakville Mayor - Rob Burton

2/19/2014

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Young journalist (from left) Michelle Zeng, Gratiana Chen  and Editor-in-Chief Joanna Liu taking a photo with  Oakville Mayor, Rob Burton.Voice K Journalists taking a picture with Mayor Rob Burton
“Oakville is a city that calls itself a town and feels like a village” are the words Mayor Rob Burton always says to newcomers once they enter the community. And these were the same words he repeated to us when we went to interview him on February the 9th, 2014, for a Chinese New Year event. Mr. Burton was kind enough to lend us his time for an interview, and we asked him many questions regarding his life, how he came to be mayor and what future plans he may have for Oakville’s budding future.

We found out that Mr. Burton had always wanted to become a police officer as a child, as he loved helping others and wanted to protect people in need. In fact, the thought of ever becoming a political leader had never crossed his mind. What had gotten Mr. Burton into politics in the first place, then? It turns out that the beginning of his consideration of running for mayor arose around fifteen years ago, when he and a couple of friends decided that the environmental lands 
north of Highway 5 and below the 407 needed to be better taken care of. Mr. Burton convinced his friend to run, telling him that only one good person is needed to convince the City Council to make changes. However, when his friend didn’t manage to make the change on his own. He returned to Mr. Burton and urged him to lend a hand and run for mayor. And so, Burton ran and soon afterwards became the mayor of Oakville.











How has Burton’s life changed ever since becoming mayor? Well, he is evidently far busier than he was before, and now has far less personal ‘me’ time. "Being mayor is a 24/7/365 job," Mr. Burton says. Mi casa es tu casa is a Spanish proverb that translates into “my house is your house”, a typical welcome greeting. In the mayor’s case, however, the saying goes, “my time is your time”. His wife enjoys joking about his full schedule, “I’m so glad you won; I wanted you to get out more.” Burton quotes his spouse.

When Mr. Burton is not busy being mayor, he enjoys going on car trips with his family to see the many different places in Ontario. He calls these short breaks the “relaxation tours.”

Mr. Burton has brought many changes since he became the mayor of Oakville; one of the main changes being the updates in the environmental areas of Oakville. Natural parks and the like are now highly protected and well-maintained in an effort to keep a bright, clean community. According to Mr. Burton, as “One of my favorite things about Oakville is the nature.” He hopes and expects to see Oakville as a cleaner, greener city in the future.

We were also curious who would be a role model to Mr. Burton. According to him, Barack Obama was a huge inspiration. “I have a picture of President Obama; it’s hanging up on my office wall,” quips Mr. Burton.

The mayor himself is also considered a great role model in the eyes of many young and aspiring environmentalist.  At the end of the interview, he gave an excellent advice for children, “Life does not require perfect, but it really likes hard work.”

*Corrections: 
Feb 20, 2014 11:21 pm - A few corrections to the article have been made to the previous version of the article. 
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Hi, my name is Gratiana Chen. I am a journalist for Voice K. It is fun to write about cool activities and I really enjoy the experience. My other hobbies are skating, drawing, rip sticking and playing the clarinet. Living in Oakville is really nice. I am twelve years old and in the gifted program. My favorite color is orange and my favorite animals are orcas, koalas and tigers. Thank you for reading our magazine!

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Hello there! My name is Michelle Zeng. I am twelve years old, in grade seven, and I go to the awesome Erin Centre Middle School. My hobbies are reading, writing of course, as well as watching movies. My favourite colour is spring green, my favorite animal is the cat, and I also enjoy roleplaying in fandoms such as LotR and Warrior Cats. My absolute favourite book series EVER is the Lord of the Rings - you need to read it. My favourite movie at the moment is definitely “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” but the first three movies of the Pirates of the Caribbean series follow closely after. Thanks for reading our magazine!

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Get Animated

4/1/2012

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By: Michelle Zeng and Sunni Zhou

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) presents “Get Animated” to give kids the chance to learn how to animate. “Get Animated” was really popular. Over 30 kids attended the programon October 30, 2011.

The program invited guest speaker, Co Hoedeman, known for his Oscar award winning film the “Sandcastle”. He was there to demonstrate his animation techniques and also to teach kids how to animate.

The kids made their own animated videos. Hoedeman divided 30 kids into groups. Each group made one animated video and the characters to go along with it. The characters for the videos had to be made in a special way in order for the video to be more interesting. For example, to make a person, the artist would have
to draw a head, cut it out, draw the face, cut it out, and then do the same for the rest of the body. The animated characters were made like this so each body part can move and make facial expressions.

One second in an animated film will need 24 pictures. Since there was only an hour for the kids to create the characters and the videos, all the videos were fairly short.

Despite all the work involving creating animations, Hoedeman said, “Creating animations is simple.”

Perhaps that’s why so many people attended “Get Animated.”

Voice K had a chance to sit down with Hoedeman:

Voice K: Is it hard to make animated videos?
Hoedeman: No, actually it is very simple.
Voice K: Roughly how many videos have you made so far?
Hoedeman: So far, I have made 23 films. They are all animated films. All of my videos are for children.
Voice K: How do you get ideas for your videos?
Hoedeman: All the videos I have made are based on what I have seen and experienced.
Voice K: Which video of yours got an award?
Hoedeman: Many of the videos I made have gotten an award. One of my videos, “The Sandcastle,” received an Oscar Award in 1978, which was a long time ago.
Voice K:  What materials did you use to make your videos?
Hoedeman: I didn’t always use paper. For “The Sandcastle”, I used puppets made of sand.
Voice K: What was your favourite part of today?
Hoedeman: My favourite part of today was helping the children to get ideas. I really like how the children made the artwork.

Hoedeman was not the only person who was enthusiastic about “Get Animated!” Many other people gave “Get Animated” a thumb up. One participant, Kyle said, “It was very good.” Others agreed, including Glenda and her daughter, who said that “‘Get Animated’ was great! In fact, we had been to NFB art programs over 10 times,
we would love to come again.”
Later, Voice K had a chance to interview Jessie Curell, who works for NFB to organize
the program. “I was inspired by Mr. Hoedeman because it’s a rare opportunity
to work with him and learn from him,” said Jessie when asked what inspired him to
organize the event.
We really enjoyed the program, so why don’t you “Get Animated”?For more information about this program, visit www.nfb.ca/getanimated. 
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