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GENERAL MEETING A General Meeting of the \7est Vancouver Museum and Historical Society was held on Thursday, November 24, 1988, in the Music Room of Pauline Johnson School and despite the nasty v;eather, approximately 45 members attended. In his opening remarks. President Jack Leyland referred to the ceremonies at Ambleside on November 5th when he unveiled a plaque to be placed on the restored Ferry Building. Hugh Johnston then spoke about the Shield's logging operation at the 2,500 ft. level on Hollyburn Mountain and how he and four other members - Hugh Addison, Frank IThiffin, Lucy Smith and Don Youngson, accompanied by his 13-year old son - had searched the area to find artifacts dating back to the 1890's, not only sections of railv;ay tracks, spikes, sleepers, pieces of rusted metal, trestle supports and massive stumps but also the youngest member of the group pounced v;ith glee on an old "midden" full of broken crockery which gave mute evidence to the fact that a Japanese v;ork crev; had once camped on that spot. Georgia Wilson was thanked for the work she is doing with "History-onics", then Jack Leyland reported that Joy Leader will be calling for volunteers to man the booth at Park Royal during Heritage Week, and also mentioned that the North Shore Historical Society will be having a display at the same time. The Christmas party v;ill be held on December 8th and there is a need for helpers to decorate the tree. Laura Coles, who was hired in May to clear up a back-log, gave an interesting account of the work she is doing, instructing volunteers and putting a system in place for following things through from beginning to end. Hugh Addison then introduced our former President, Bernie Holt, as speaker of the evening. With the aid of School Board notes dating back to 1911, Bernie compiled a very interesting word picture of school activities in the early years of the Municipality. The first teacher, Mary Reid from Ontario, had been invited by pioneer John Lav\/son to teach the first class of 14 children - 7 boys and 7 girls. This was the year before West Vancouver Municipality came into existence: prior to that, dating back to 1891, the area had been knov/n as Capilano West and was part of the District of North Vancouver. This first class met in a tent until it collapsed under the vjoJght ol v;inter snov.J It then moved to the Presbyterian Church building at the corner of what is nov; 18th and Marine. An interesting aside was that John Lav/Svon had built this church because he got tired of rov;ing the family to Stanley Park and walking to the Presbyterian Church in Vancouver! Bernie had unearthed a number of anecdotes from the early days which proved that human nature hasn't changed all that much, if at all! At the conclusion of his address, Bernie \^as thanked by Hugh Addison on behalf of those present, who had enjoyed going back in time and being reminded, perhaps, of incidents from their own early school days. Refresliments brought the evening to a close. Lucy E. Smith, Secretary