Raven sets sights on new goals as time on council ends
Spending time with granddaughter among top priorities
She is a Kings County resident with a focus on social justice who plans to continue this type of work even though her time on Kings County council has come to an end.
Raven was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and immigrated to Nova Scotia in 1973. She lived in Ottawa for two years before moving to the Annapolis Valley. Raven has lived in New Minas, Greenwich and currently resides in Delhaven.
Raven just wrapped up her second term on Kings County council, having first been elected in 2012 and again in 2016. She said the aspect she would miss most is the people and all of the community involvement at the core of small organizations that went along, particularly in Centreville and Meadowview.
She said the thing she would perhaps remember most about her time as a councillor is overall change, in terms of tone, skill level and leadership, particularly following the 2016 election.
“The council I joined and the council I left were very distinct bodies. They were very different from one another,” Raven said.
She said she has never regretted serving on council but admits she never really fell in love with the job with regard to sitting in council chambers and duking it out there in terms of what she would like to see happen. This could be frustrating at times.
Raven serves as the chairwoman of the Grand View Manor Continuing Care Community and will now be devoting more of her time to ongoing efforts there. There is a major project in the works that Raven believes could take four years to complete. This involves a replacement for the aging facility and the redevelopment or repurposing of the old space.
She anticipates making the move from chairperson to vice-chairperson at some point but sees herself being with the organization for at least another three or four years.
Raven said she has a good friend who she has done a lot of social justice work with in the past. She said they have an idea for a social enterprise that they’re “dreaming up together” now that they’re both retired that involves taking various social justice messages into homes. She plans to devote more time to this over the coming years.
Raven also has a granddaughter who is almost two years old in her life, which is “absolutely incredible.” She said having a grandchild wasn’t something she necessarily expected but now that her council commitments have concluded, she’ll have more time to do more things with her.
Raven was the original author of the annual Nova Scotia Child Poverty Report Card, which she did for 10 years.
She said she always had a coauthor, which changed along the way, until Dr. Lesley Frank took on the role. Raven said this allowed her the opportunity to ease her way out of the author’s position and leave the initiative in Frank’s “very capable hands.”
The initiative began in 1996, the 10th anniversary of a parliamentary promise to end child poverty in Canada, something which has yet to happen. Raven and a woman from Toronto spearheaded a national campaign and the Nova Scotia Child Poverty Report Card grew out of that.
Raven said there was a national child poverty report card but not provincial report cards at that point, although report cards for Ontario and British Columbia were also introduced that year. She said the metrics provided by the report cards are important in terms of measuring progress.
Raven recently took part in a Q&A session:
Q: What is your full name?
A: Pauline Raven.
Q: What is your favourite place in the world?
A: The proper answer would be to say Nova Scotia, and it’s probably true, and I also just love Mexico.
Q: What would people be surprised to learn about you?
A: Not much. I think my life’s been quite an open book. I don’t see my life as holding too much in the way of secrets … I don’t think there’s anything particularly unique about me in any way, shape of form. I’m fairly ordinary.
Q: What is your favourite movie or book?
A: There’s so many. I love a good mystery. Particularly, I’ve enjoyed Ian Rankin’s books, the whole series. The Rebus series I think are so well written and describe the Scottish landscape and urban areas so well…In terms of books, I probably should say Margaret Atwood who I also enjoy, a good Canadian author.
Q: How do you like to relax?
A: Gardening, I love to garden. We (Raven and husband Gerry) have three-and-a-half acres on the side of the Minas Basin, so we’ve got the most amazing view … That’s where we love to be, we love to be outside. My little granddaughter now loves to be outside, too, with us … That’s where we find our joy.
Q: How would you describe your personal fashion statement?
A: Probably lazy (laughs). I have two older sisters that both passed actually in the last two years. They were much more fashion conscious than I was. I like colour, I like to be comfortable.
Q: What is your most treasured possession?
A: I would say a cross that I got from my sister when she passed two years ago. I’ve got a photo of my mom beside it and it’s something that I look at every day and that I treasure because I know she really loved it, we bought it together when we were in Mexico so I can remember when it was purchased.
Q: What is your best quality and what is your worst quality?
A: In a way, I think that’s something for others to say. I think my best quality is that I’m a good problem solver. I can be well organized and I can problem solve. I guess that’s two things although one may link to the other. In terms of my worst quality, I don’t have a lot of patience. I like things to happen, there’s a lot of good things we could be doing as a country and as a community and I just think we need to do them faster.
Meet Your Neighbour is a regular feature that profiles area residents. Want to suggest someone that should be featured? Email your idea to scott.doherty@saltwire.com.