Years ago, choosing a savings account was a fairly
simple process. There were few choices, so making a
decision was easy.

Today, however, the consumer is offered a
mind-boggling selection of savings and hybrid savings
and chequing accounts, with varying rates of interest,
charges and flexibility.

ith the advent of high inflation and high interest
rates, people wanted to make sure their money was
working for them,” says Jeane Lesslie, spokesman for
the Royal Bank of Canada. “The

slowing growth for the rest of this
year, no real expansion or-even a small decline in 1985 and

He prefers to be known as realistic and hard-headed in
his economic assessments, and has noted that in the seven
years since the board got involyed in forecasting it has

means we have to offer a lot of variety.”

She cites the fact that even the federal government
now is selling treasury bills on the open market as an
example of how competition has increased.

However, traditionalists will be glad to hear that
there is still the old-style savings account with no
chequing privileges.

INTEREST PAID

At the bank of Montreal, for example, the True
saving account pays 8.5 per cent a year, calculated
monthly on the minimum balance and payable
semi-annually. Other banks have similar versions.

But even these have developed some new facets. The
Bank of Nova Scotia, for example, offers one type of this
account to those over 59 — called the 59er — and another
to those under 18 — called Getting There.

The interest rate on the 59er is nine per cent, half a
point higher than traditional savings accounts, while
holders of the youth account receive extras such as a
monthly magazine and their names are entered in draws
for prizes.

Then there is the daily interest savings account,
which pays a little less im interest and also has no
chequing facilities. At the Imperial Bank of Commerce
the rate is eight per cent and a customer is allowed two
free withdrawals a month unless the closing daily balance
is more than $1,000 during the entire month. Then they
are all free.

“RATES GO UP’

Not surprisingly, the best interest rates can be
obtained with the largest deposits.

The Toronto Dominion Bank's Moneybuilder account
offers a 10 per cent rate on deposits over $3,000 and eight
per cent on the first $3,000 when the daily balance is at
least $1,000. Below that it’s three per cent

Many of the accounts have chequing privileges and a
variety of charges.

With the Royal Bank of Canada’s Signature account,
which earns between three per cent and 10 per cent
depending on the balance.

Meanwhile, the Toronto Dominion’s Money Manager
account pays eight per cent on daily balances of $2,000 or
more, three per cent on anything less. There is no charge
for cheques or automatic teller machine withdrawals is
when the minimum balance is $300 or more throughout a
statement period. Otherwise it's 27 cents a cheque and 19
cents per withdrawal at a machine.

Just to kc retged the variety, here is a partial list of
the old-style savings,
daily interest savings savings and chequing, preferred

and what i calls power
other banks offer eae of all of these.

Good money in
plastic plants

CALGARY (CP) — The man in the jungle safari outfit.
complete with pith helmet, peering out from behind the
potted palm is Bob Thorssen.

Thorssen, 36, has discovered he can make a good living
selling realistic plastic plants.

Thorssen's efforts have nothing in common with the
eternally-booming pétunias and tulips that might be hauled
up from a basement box to stick in a planter during that
sterile period between February and May

Jungle Interiors, Thorssen's Calgary-based company,
sells artificial silk plants to decorate offices, restaurants and
public buildings. They're lifelike enough, he says, that
building caretakers have watered them

The company will make $1.2 million in sales in 1984, the
third year of active operation, says Thorssen. About 20 per
cent of the business comes through exports to Hawaii and
Australia.

The idea sprang from Thorssen’s seven years in Asia,
where he tried everything from logging in Borneo and
Sumatra to owning a bar and grill on the Borneo coast

Thorssen calls his business approach “W-W™
“whatever works.

Making artificial flowers from silk and other materials is
common in Asia and Thorssen said the methods used in
North America are primitive by comparison.

A Hong Kong factory owned by Thorssen’s partners
produces the plants using a silk-screen process.

A photographic color plate with the image of the leaf or

plit into three layers, each laid down separately on
tie and fabric material to provide over-all shape and
fine details.

The result is highly realistic, so much so an observer
half expects simulated aphids to be clinging to the under
sides of the leaves.

Thorssen claims the plants are very durable and will
resist fading, even outdoors.

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been i tie for being too pessimistic

Instead, events have usually proved the board to be on
the high side of reality:

What are some of the conditions Maxwell says he looks
at realistically while most of Canada’s major chartered
banks — which have a reputation for taking a hard look at a
dollar, too — consistently come in with projections that are

~-deesa't

pars tren

are basing
their om the belief that the United States will take
joe action after the Nov. 5 election to
billion deficit and generally try to whip its
pros. into shape.

Maxwell, anda lot of U.S. economists, don’t think so.
He noted at a recent board conference in Toronto that
government deficits can be tackled either by collecting more

money —that is, raising taxes — or cutting spending.
President Reagan's re-election, Maxwell
nt tax inereases. First, they are
anathema politically to Reagan and his cabinet; secondly,
they would take some of the steam out of U.S. growth —
something no one near the White House would be likely to

and that would be-certain fo maintain interest rates at or
oear historic highs.

Unless there's an unexpéeted about-face in Canadian
oolicy, that means rates in this country will remain high too.

Personal savings fell to 11 per cent of disposable income
from almost 16 per cent at the depth of the recession, when
gains in real income were too small to finance major
purchases.

There's plenty of evidence, however, to indicate that
consumers ate ready to pull in their horns again in view of
little prospect of higher real raging
and concern over interest tates.

Since the last spurt of spending added an estimated $5
billion to the economy, any slowdown in that sector would
rapidly affect growth prospects at large.

Monday to

Thursday ond Friday 9:30 te 9:00

Discovery
just full of magical, mystery surprises!

Sa

9:20 to 5:30

PERSONAL SHOPPING ONLY, PLEASE

EDITOR'S NOTE: CasNews education reporter
Adrian Chamberlain completes his two-part series
on alternative schooling in the Castlegar area with
this piece on the Vallican Whole School.
By ADRIAN CHAMBERLAIN
Staff Writer

When most parents hear the familiar refrain, “I don't
want to go to school,” from their children, they pack their
kids’ lunches, button up their coats, and tell them to get
on the school bus. Or else.

But a group of parents who'd recently moved to the
Slocan Valley from places like California, Ontario and
urban centres in B.C. took a different route when their
children made the same complaint in 1972. They fopunded
the independent Vallican Whole school.

“Ten years ago it was very isolated — the kids felt

FEATURE
REPORT

new, very different,” explained Lisa Farr, part-time
co-ordinator for the school.

“It can be very difficult to move into a rural area.
People tend to be possessive and resistant to new
comers.”

Farr said another parental concern was that public
schools in the area “were very conservative” in their cur
riculum, teaching methods, and attitudes.

Sam Simpson, a parent with an eight-year-old
daughter at the school, and who holds down the job as the
school's janitor, agrees.

She said the school was started by people who were
“disillusioned” with the public school system; “people
who really wanted to be involved in their children’s edu.
cation.”

According to Simpson, the Vallican Whole school
“strives to combat sexism and racism (and) provides a
different perspective than the public school system in
general.”

Certainly, the Vallican Whole school qualifies as
being “different.” Parents make decisions on which
teachers are hired, and determine school policy, said
Farr.

There are no specific grade levels for students, as in
public schools — children work at their own speed and
abilities in subjects. A child could, for example, be at the
equivalent of a Grade 4 level in Mathematics, and at a
Grade 3 level in Language Arts.

There are no report cards at the 21-student school;
the closest equivalent are “progress reports” filled out by
the students themselves, said teacher Bridey Morrison
Morgan.

The progress reports “are largely directed to the
kids on how they were doing in school, and are not a
reporting to the parent per se,” she explained

The students not only have a say in their evaluations,

WHOLE SCHOOL TAKES
A 'DIFFERENT' ROUTE

but also have input into how the school is run.

Weekly meetings attended by parents and staff are
chaired by one of the students, and the children are
invited to actively participate.

Morrison-Morgan said the students sometime raise
subjects that adults would consider “petty.” For example,
recently one student brought up the problem of other
children whispering in class.

But she says the idea behind letting students par
ticipate in these meetings is “to work out problems, and
give the kids the suggestion they have some power in
making decisions for the school.” -

The school is divided into two classes of students:
those who are ages five to eight, and those aged eight to
11. Although the students aren't cat into formal
grades, the school goes up to the equivalent of Grade 7

In the morning, students fill out a “contract” to
decide which three subject areas they're going to work

on, said Morrison-Morgan. As well as core subjects such
as language arts, mathematics and science, students
work on pottery, carpentry, dress-up, puppetry, music,
and drama. Other course work includes practical chores
such as building sandboxes, or painting garbage cans.

While the school says academic progress is a
priority, and provincial guidelines for time allocations in
various subjects are met, the structure of the school is
loose compared to public schools.

For example, Morrison-Morgan said “there are times
in the Math class when we don't get around to doing
Math, because there are interpersonal relations going
on,

According to Farr, this is in keeping with the
Vallican Whole school’s “holistic” philosophy, in which all
aspects of a child's development — emotional, social,
psychological, academic — are met

“Public school teachers tend to be dened by
very stringent academic expectations,” she said.

Students at the school receive more individual
attention than their public 8ehool counterparts. Often
subjects are taught in groups of five or six, and there a
five teachers working full and part-time. Four of the five
have teaching certificates, said Morrison-Morgan, who
has taught at the school for two years, and who
previously taught in Alberta public schools since 1972.

Many students graduating from Vallican Whole
school go on to Grade 8 at Mt. Sentinel Junior.
Senior Hgh School.

According to Mt. Sentinel school counsellor Debbie
Zeeben, most of these students are “on par with the
public school system.” But she added: “We definitely
have the feeling that the focus (at Vallican Whole school)
is on arts and communications, as opposed to Math and
Science.”

‘The students have input into
how the school is run’

Principal Tomo Naka said he found graduates of the
school strong in the arts and in oral communication skills
but “their written work would be weak, their science
would be weak, their math would be weak.”

On the whole, the students eventually adjust to Mt
Sentinel, although some require the extra boost of
learning assistance, said Naka

But some of the Vallican graduates had difficulty
adjusting to some of the disciplines of public school, such
as assignment deadlines, he added

Zeeben said, however, that over the last few years,
graduates of the school had improved in Math, written
English, and Science

A group of nine Vallican students who entered Grade
8 last September were “quite well prepared,” she said

“They're usually very considerate of others, very
aware of the needs of other people, very tolerant, not so
quick to judge as other individuals of their age might be,”
she added.

Farr says the main problem that Vallican students
have upon entering public schools is adjusting to a “status
quo sytem where you fit in is determined by your age.

The Vallican school is funded partly by the Ministry
of Education, and through tuition fees. The tuition
typically costs from $400 to $1,400 a year; a negotiable
figure based on the parents’ earnings, said Farr.

Although at 21 students, the enrolment is down by
12 from last year, support for the Vallican Whole school
has received steady support from parents living in an
area from Perry Siding to Shoreacres for the past decade
For them, the brand of alternate education offered ir
preferable to the more structured fare doled out in the
public sehool system.

“The issue of academic learning is one I have a lot of
questions about, having taught ina public school,” says
Morrison-Morgan, whose own child attends the school

“Kids at six years of age aren't ready to sit at a desk
and learn how to read and print.”

Kinnaird women
host district
fall workshop

Kinnaird Women’s Institute hosted the District Fall

Workshop Oct. 3 in Castlegar Legion Hall

The day began at 9 a.m. with the hostess WI serving
coffee, tea and goodies

Registration was at 9:30 a.m. with Barbara Moran of
Kinnaird WI in charge of the guest book and registration.

Seven out of eight Women's Institutes in the district
were represented, in addition to several women from
Sunshine Valley WI at Grand Forks. Among them was Jean
Johnson who is provincial Board Editor of The B.C. Women’s
Institute News.

The ladies brought handiwork for their display tables.
Of special interest in the displays was an interesting Book of
Memories by June Bell with pictures and captions telling of
her Women’s Institute experiences from the time she be
came a member until now.

June Bell is Provincial Board President of B.C. Women's
Institute.

The business portion of the meeting was chaired by
West Kootenay District WI President Carol Barclay. She
gave a report on the Triennial Convention held last June at
UBC

Marilyn Levick gave a report on Scope, and told of how
it has increased WI membership.

Freda McPhee of Fruitvale, International Affairs Con
venor, reported that she is progressing with the history of
West Kootenay District WIs and requested information on
Renata and Deer Park WIs.

Doris Partridge of Fruitvale was named nominations
chairman for the May 1985 Distriet Conference at New
Denver

A giant raffle will be held in January to raise money for

. Beatrice Lundquist of host

CORSAGE
Kinnaird Women's Institute gave one of two

the Delegates’ Fund

Each institute will donate a worthwhile homemade item
which will be raffled by ticket sales at various malls in the
distriet.

The draw will be at the District Conference next May

The conference decided to put copies of “B.C. Canadian
Laws for Children” in the district libraries.

West Kootenay District WI Secretary Treasurer Doris
Sweeney told of “The Good Bears of the World” Project.

The project was started by Girl Guides in Ontario for
the Sick Children’s Hospital and is now done by all Giri
Guides.

It is a sheet with some information on one side and
pattern for a knitted teddy bear on the other side. These
bears ean be made in any color and sent to various children's

‘The bears are given to children who have been abused
Or Neglected, and the child can have it as his own “Good
Bear.”

It was suggested the Women's Institute join in this

Gane Bell of Fruitvale, Provincial Board Women's
Institute President, was introduced and she showed how to

Basket from an ordinary basket.
group broke for pot luck lunch. This was
cone — 7 eal peneaivrrslcggs con
After lunch, the prizes for the competitions were

awarded.

These were: sewing or knitting finger puppets which

workshops at the annual West Kootenay toll district

conterence Oct. 3

will be sent to Queen Alexandra Solarium; baking — a baked
item using zucchini with recipe attached; and weird looking
zuechinis.

Judges for the contests were Leona Horvath, Justin
Buffet, Helen LeDue, Maureen Goetting and Bessie
Sehiavon.

Prizes were handmade ribbons with crotchet “happy
faces” made by Elaine Jackman of Robson.

Baking winners were: Dorothy Hird of Slocan; Eileen
Bridge of Fruitvale: and Dawn Anderson of Slocan.

Weird rucchini winners were: Doreen (Billie) Feller of
Harrop, Gwen Robinson of Fruitvale and Marge Brownlie of
Kinnaird.

Finger puppet winners were: Elaine Jackman of
Robson, Stella La Rocque of Fruitvale and Hazel Anderson.

Twe workshops were also condutted — one by Beatrice
Lundquist of Kinnaird WI on making a corsage from silk
flowers and the other by June Bell on Christmas tree

Both workshops were enjoyed by members with artistic
results. The day's raffle winners were: baby booties — Anne

Bullanoff of Slocan WI; and clothespin doll —
Robson.

After the closing. refreshments were served again by
Kinnaird WI

Ivy 8 Saliken of