Deutschland ist wunderbar!

Yes, that’s right. Just like Starbucks, we’re expanding exponentially. That means more voices and more time for John and I to hit the pavement and promote the Gumboot’s unique offering in the wilderness of the world wide web (isn’t alliteration wonderful). In fact, in the coming weeks watch out for more and more new contributors coming online (and if you want to be a contributor – make sure to email us!).

In the meantime, I’d like to belatedly introduce our newest correspondents, Peter Joerdell, Jim Clifford, and Katie Burns. Our newest correspondents hail from Germany and Toronto expanding the Gumboot community from Vancouver to a global network of community correspondents.

Peter’s a nifty fellow. I’ve known him for years – since my young formative years at Bishop’s University. I’ll always remember sampling the apple wine (at least I think that’s what it was) – which felt like rocket fuel going down – as Peter and I along with three other Germans cruised in a dirty pickup truck through the back country dirt roads the rural Eastern Townships. Peter and I were stretched in the back, bundled up tightly and clinging to old Mauser rifles, a shot gun and some sort of tricked out sub-machine gun (yeah – in retrospect I’m not sure if it was legal either). The whole scene had a vague Stalingradish feel. It was cold, wet, and dirty; except we weren’t there to shoot Russians, but tin cans. A preferable endeavor particularly considering tin cans don’t shoot back.

Peter Joerdell - our German Correspondent.

Since then Peter, like all of us, has gone on to new and exciting things. He’s now a journalist and PR guy who works as a freelancer on top of it all. He lives in Germany in the north, where they don’t like Southerners and dress in black and are inordinately serious.  The Gumboot managed to snare him after offering more than the New York Times and Washington Post were able to shell out for his journalistic talents. Sorry Arthur Sulzberger – maybe next time.

Peter will be providing the Gumboot’s fabulous audience with a fresh new perspective on the Fatherland and the countless communities that connect it. We’d highly recommend you consider checking out his first piece on Oki, a local German punk who lives in a train station and keep tuned to his next article coming up this Friday. On behalf of the whole Gumboot staff and audience (with the exception of the “real Pete”) welcome to the team Peter.

Jim and Katie – well, I need not say much more than they are both awesome and (almost always) reliable.

You can find out more about Jim here and more about Katie here.

That’s right – they were such hot stuff, we had nailed them down for a Get To Know Your Community segment early on. Who says John and I can’t spot rising stars?  Turned out they were so blown away by our site they begged us to come on as full time correspondents. At least that’s the story I’m planning on telling anyone who’ll listen.

In the spirit of this post I’d like to elaborate on these two characters to explain my own personal connection to their awesomeness.

Look at that cute couple.

I found my love of cooking from Jim and my interest (it’s not full blown love yet unfortunately) in baking from Katie Burns. For them, I traveled across the entire continent packing a camoflage knife bag with my favorite chef’s knife so I’d have the opportunity to whip up a tasty treat or two at their wedding several years ago.

Both of the dynamic duo bring a unique and interesting organic/sustainable/friendly-folk-in-the-city angle to the Gumboot and frankly we love em for it. Jim’s able to do all of this while he’s publishing ActiveHistory.ca – a website dedicated to expanding history into new non-academic communities. As a former history student I must say I admire this mission – one which may well be as difficult as any James Bond ever came across. On behalf of the rest of the group – we’d like to welcome you to the team!

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