Outdoor events are a bit of a crapshoot. You’re always at the mercy of the weather. Sure, you can try to mitigate the effects of sudden downpours and the like with costly tents and alternate venues. But the reality is that grey skies alone are enough to put a damper on the festivities. Folks are often reluctant to make plans or venture forth if inclemency is a strong possibility.
So, I was delighted to see that the Kenyon Presbyterian Church won the weather lottery last Tuesday on the occasion of their fourth annual Church Social. Terry and I were unable to attend, but my spies on the ground tell me that they had an impressive turnout. The parking lot across from the kirk was packed with fifteen rows of a dozen cars in each, plus some roadside spillage. This translated into about 300 people through the gate.
With the admission ticket sales, revenue from the bake sale and refreshment booths and a number of very generous donations, the evening was an extremely successful fundraiser for the church. The hardworking volunteers who made it all possible are to be congratulated.
Classical grass
I sure hope Dunvegan’s meteorological luck holds for the next big event — Music Under the Stars — at the Glengarry Pioneer Museum tomorrow (Thursday, July 13th) starting at 8:00 PM. I’m looking forward to hearing NÜ TRIO, a classical string ensemble from Montreal, perform Beethoven’s String Trio No.1 in E-Flat major Op.3, Hayden’s Divertimento in G major, Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Barber’s Adagio for Strings and more.
The plan is to hold the concert… rain or shine. However, organizers are hoping for the latter and that the performance will be held outdoors under the evening sky. In which case, don’t forget your favourite lawn chair or a blanket. If you wish, you can even bring a picnic supper and dine al fresco before the concert. In the case of inclement weather, the performance will take place under the Williams Pavilion and seating will be provided.
There’s no formal admission price; the museum is counting on your generosity. Volunteers will pass around a hat at intermission time. The suggested donation is $15 per person. For those who have never been to the museum in Dunvegan, it’s located at the intersection of County Roads 24 and 30.
Small Halls, Big Music
And here’s more good news for music lovers: the Ontario Festival of Small Halls is coming to Dunvegan. Modeled after the extremely successful festival in PEI, “Small Halls” began with a vision of bringing big music to small places. The Ontario festival has grown from just three venues in 2014 to over 30 this year.
The secret of the Festival’s success is community collaboration. Small Halls finds suitable performers and the host organizations provide the warmth of a small-town welcome… putting on community dinners, selling tickets, decorating the halls, offering local opening acts and promoting the concert.
In Dunvegan, the Small Halls event will start with a fundraising BBQ held in the lot across from the DRA Community Hall. Then, the crowd will cross the road to — get to the other side — and enjoy the evening’s feature performer: Jenn Grant, a Canadian folk pop singer-songwriter based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. To learn more about this award-winning artist and sample a taste of her music, visit her web site: www.jenngrant.com.
While the concert won’t take place until Saturday, September 16, the tickets are on sale now for $25 per person. Just call (613) 402-1425 or visit the Festival’s web site at www.thefestivalofsmallhalls.com. Click the “Buy Tickets” link on the Schedule page.
And speaking of tickets, Ben Williams of the DRA tells me he has four FREE tickets to give away to the first four people willing to work at the pre-concert BBQ and serve beer and wine in the hall (yes, the event will be legally wet). The only catch is that you must have your Ontario SmartServe license.
Panning the Plan
This past weekend, I had occasion to visit the North Glengarry Township’s web site for some land use and zoning information. I was shocked to discover that the on-line version of our township’s Official Plan is not searchable. Instead of a true PDF version like most other Ontario municipalities have, North Glengarrians have to settle for a low-quality scan of the document prepared by the Township’s favourite consulting firm, J.L. Richards & Associates Limited. You can even see the Cerlox binding holes in the poor quality, multi-generation photocopy.
Big deal, you say? Being non-searchable makes looking up information in the Official Plan far more time consuming and tedious than it need be. It’s also a way to ensure the information is less accessible to the people who paid for it. Makes one wonder what’s hidden in there.
These days, “printing” a document as a full-featured PDF for use on a web site is a piece of cake. Given what the taxpayers of North Glengarry paid J.L. Richards for this plan (I would suspect in the six-figure range), I would have expected they could throw in a professional looking, searchable PDF for free.
Sesquicentennial surprise
If museums could grin, the Glengarry Pioneer Museum would be doing so from ear to ear after hearing the news of a $25,000 no-strings-attached gift from The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group.
As its way of marking Canada’s 150th anniversary of Confederation, The Commonwell, a home, farm and auto insurance company with offices in Alexandria and across Eastern Ontario, chose to support heritage causes in the communities it serves. In all, the 122-year-old company is dividing $150,000 between six historical organizations in Belleville, Peterborough, Perth, Bobcaygeon, Ottawa and Dunvegan.
This coming Thursday, officials from The Commonwell will visit our little museum in Dunvegan to present James Prevost and Jennifer Black, the GPM’s Chair and Curator respectively, with a cheque for $25,000. This, of course, leaves the GPM Executive Committee with the problem of deciding what to do with this windfall. No doubt, that’s the type of problem they’d like to encounter more often.
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