Defining the Saanich Peninsula is akin to putting a label on an idea.
We are sea, sky, farm, garden, young, old, active, peaceful, we are old books and high tech — we may be indefinable — but a group of local business people has taken on the task of doing just that.
A project is underway to come up with a brand for the Saanich Peninsula, not just a slogan or logo, but a clear mission and purpose for the area.
“We feel the ocean discovery centre has hit a ceiling. We’re the third biggest attraction on the island in a year and a half — which is an amazing accomplishment — but we’ve hit a ceiling. And the way to raise that ceiling is to raise everyone’s ceiling and that’s why I, as vice chair of the Sidney Community Development Commission, asked if our mandate could be extended to reach across the Peninsula,” said Angus Matthews.
“Dayle (Ryan of Jazz Communications) has done a wonderful job of capturing it in a big net, we have to figure out now what to do with it … You notice there are no slogans up here that’s not what we’re working on. We’re working on, what is the experience of the Peninsula? I think were actually coming close to it, we’ve talked about pride of community, we’ve talked about our sense of geographic confinement, which is actually a plus.”
The group put out a survey through the Saanich Peninsula Chamber of Commerce and held a meeting on Feb. 24 with a number of community members, that was followed up with a smaller group discussion of those results in early March.
Ryan gave an overview of the process so far to a lunch meeting of chamber members which was held at Muse Winery.