That’s right, the latest iteration of the annual Dunvegan Social at the Kenyon Presbyterian Church turns five this year. This summer’s edition will take place on Tuesday, July 3rdfrom 6:30 to 9:00 PM. The evening of fun, food and fellowship features a great line-up of local entertainment: The MacLeod Fiddlers, Fridge Full of Empties, The Brigadoons, James Nixon, step dancers, Highland dancers and local youth performers. There will also be a raft of fun-filled activities for kids. And, yes, this includes a bouncy castle.
Admission is only $10 per head, with children under twelve free and a maximum entry fee of $25 per family.And just like any church fundraiser worth its salt, there will be a bake sale table, a lemonade stand, lunch and snacks.
If it’s raining, the concert will be held in the church. But, if Mother Nature cooperates, don’t forget to bring your own lawn chairs. Or you can throw a blanket on the grass. And don’t forget, this event is open to ALL. It’s wheelchair and walker accessible. Plus, you need not be a member of the Church to attend.
It’s great to see how well this 21stcentury version of the Kenyon Church Social is doing. (I’m told the socials were a huge hit in the 1950s and 1960s.) It’s these sorts of community get-togethers that make Dunvegan such a great place to live.
Stuart McCormick… Glengarry’s Artist
In the Dunvegan column for March 2nd, 2016, I expressed a hope that the works Stuart McCormick (1905 – 1992) — perhaps one of Glengarry County’s most renowned artists — would be gathered in one place for all to enjoy. And my dream has come true, at least for one day.
Happenstance in the form of the Great Depression brought Stuart home to Glengarry from Cleveland, Ohio where, as a young man, he had moved in the 1920s to seek his fortune on the stage. Entirely self-taught, Stuart began to paint around 1935. And his output, to say the least, was prolific. His oeuvre includes rural and farming scenes, buildings and, very occasionally, portraits. In the 40s and 50s, Stuart also illustrated a number of books by Dorothy Dumbrille.And in 1959, he was commissioned by the City of Cornwall to do a painting of the Long Sault Rapids. The painting was presented to Queen Elizabeth when she opened the St. Lawrence Seaway. True to the ‘starving artist’ cliché, Stuart McCormick died in the Maxville Manor in a penurious state. A sad end for an individual who has so enriched Glengarry County with his art.
If you’d like to see why I wax so enthusiastic about this painter’s work, I suggest you attend the“A Celebration of Stuart McCormick, Glengarry Artist” exhibition at the Sandfield Centre in Alexandria’s Island Park on Wednesday, July 4thfrom 3:00 to 8:00 pm. Organized by the Glengarry Artists’ Collective, the event will afford you the opportunity of seeing more than 50 oil paintings, and numerous drawings and preparatory sketches by McCormick.
To round out this wonderful celebration of Stuart McCormick’s talent, at 7:00 pm, Allan MacDonald, from the Glengarry County Archives, will share a brief anecdotal history of the colourful artist. And, if the art on display is not enough to get you high, there will be a cash bar available on site from 6:00 pm to closing. The exhibition is open to all, but sadly it will be gone in the blink of an eye. So don’t miss it.
They’re back!
By “they”, I refer to nanny-state officials who won’t be content until there’s a regulation in place that covers every single aspect of our daily lives. Heavens knows we’re too dense to assess risk and decide for ourselves. Once again, the battlefield is the kitchens and dining halls of churches, community halls and arenas all across rural Ontario… including Dunvegan’s.
A few years ago, provincial health officials tried to introduce stringent controls that would have seriously curtailed church suppers, community potlucks and the like. But there was such a hue and cry that the politicos stuffed the regulations back in the bottle for fear of losing rural ridings. However, I’m sad to report this genie is once again out of the bottle… this time in the form of the Ministry of Health and Long-term Care’s (MOHLTC) “Food Handler Certification Program”, which is administered in this region by the Eastern Ontario Health Unit.
Their first salvo, according to the EOHU’s web site at least, appears to be scaremongering, and I quote: “Do you ever cook for your family, for your friends or for clients? Then you may be interested to know that Canadians report between 11 and 13 million cases of foodborne illness every year. Are you confident that your knowledge of food handling is up-to-date?”
Never one to take things at face value, I checked Health Canada’s web site. Our federal health officials claim there are about 4 million Canadians who are affected by a food-borne illness annually. Of these, there are about 11,600 hospitalizations, resulting in 238 deaths. I grant you this is still a significant number. But it’s not even in the same universe as the EOHU’s figures.
The solution? To legislate that, as of July 1st, 2018, there must be one Certified Food Handler when preparing or serving food at each food premises in Ontario. And how does one become “certified”? By taking a course, of course, from a private contractor by the name of TrainCan Inc.Like barnacles on the hull of a ship, TrainCan has been granted an exclusive contract by the MOHLTC to provide whatever training the Ministry’s food-related regulations require.
Based on the MOHLTC’s Food Handler Training Protocol, the certification course appears comprehensive, covering such topics as safe food handling, foodborne illnesses, bacteria, cleaning and sanitizing methods, and food allergies. However, in the case of church suppers and euchre lunches, I still think it’s a solution desperately searching for a problem.
It might be different if hundreds of North Glengarrians had taken ill from food-borne pathogens served up by grey-haired seniors and other untrained oafs. However, this is not the case. I dare say that the food preparation procedures followed by legions of “uncertified” volunteers are far safer than many commercial kitchens.
So now the DRA, along with the Kenyon Church Women’s Association, the Glengarry Pioneer Museum and countless other volunteer groups across North Glengarry will have to scramble to find people willing to rearrange their schedules to take this mandatory $35 per head course.
Of course, the kind folks at TrainCan have come up with three ways to achieve certification: attend one of their one-day workshops (on a weekday of course); complete the course at home using their workbook; or take the course on-line. However, regardless of how you complete the course, all CFH supplicants have to sit a two-hour exam at their nearest EOHU branch. And, if you have to take time off work to do so… tough. That’ll teach you to volunteer.
It’s interesting to note that the new regulations and the companion course only became general knowledge (for community groups, at least), a few weeks ago — despite the fact that the edict takes effect in just a few days. July 1 to be exact. When I asked about this unrealistically tight deadline, I learned that (although tens of millions of your fellow citizens are writhing in agony from food poisoning) the kitchen kops won’t start really enforcing the regulation until next January 1st.
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