In 2012, the Township worked with Habitat to create an affordable housing opportunity in Lakefield. The successful project brought together many community members and provided a deserving family the opportunity to purchase their first home. A local Planning Committee led this first project and with the community’s incredible support, raised additional funds to support future projects. The local Planning Committee is thrilled to get its second project underway!

“Finding affordable housing can be challenging and it is exciting that we can once again work with Habitat for Humanity Peterborough and District to support the creation of an affordable home for a family in our Township.” states Mayor Mary Smith.

“Habitat Peterborough and District is excited about our partnering once again with the Township of Selwyn. Providing a ‘hand up’ is what this project is all about. We recognized that our first build in Lakefield changed the lives of not only the new homeowners but also for the sponsors and volunteers. We know that this will happen again with this second build.” states Steve Smith, Habitat for Humanity Peterborough & District Board Chair

Habitat for Humanity Peterborough & District is a non-profit organization that was established in 2002. Habitat works with partners and community members to build simple, decent and affordable homes for low-income families.

Ennismore hosts the annual Shamrock Festival – Many Events Planned for their three day celebration!
The Ennismore Shamrock Festival Committee has released their schedule for the 2013 celebration in Ennismore on July 19, 20 & 21. The three day Festival will feature a varied program of fun and excitement for all ages to enjoy at the Ennismore Robert E. Young Recreation Complex, 553 Ennis Road, Ennismore, ON.
The party begins on Friday, July 19th with the Country 105 Video Dance at the Ennismore Community Centre, beginning at 8pm. Tickets are $15.00 at the door. Listen to Country 105 in July for advance ticket information.

Saturday is Family Fun Day with many free children’s activities, Airbounce Amusements, sundae making, face painting and crazy hair to name a few. All day BBQ, several local organization booths; Library book sale; Optimist Rookie Ball and Ball Hockey Tournaments, and Family Tyes perform from 11am to 3pm; are among the attractions. Check out the website for complete schedule www.ennismoreshamrockfestival.com

The Annual Truck & Tractor Pulls will be held Sunday, July 21st, rain or shine. Admission is $5.00 per person over 12 years of age. Anyone interested in pulling can check out www.ennismoreshamrockfestival.com to view the classes and registration times. Pulls start at 12 noon. Bleacher seating, Ennismore Girls Hockey fund raising BBQ and a licensed refreshment tent are available track-side.

For more information check out www.ennismoreshamrockfestival.com to view photos, schedule info, and/or our sponsorship program; or contact the Township of Selwyn at 705-292-9507 ext. 243.

Farm to Table Food Tours

One of the last summer’s success stories will be hitting Downtown Peterborough again this June.

The Farm to Table Peterborough Downtown Culinary Tour will be operating from June until September – and trying to continue a streak of sold out events celebrating the shops and restaurants of the Downtown core.

The weekly tours, which visit six downtown businesses each week, showcase local boutique food stores and downtown restaurants, highlighting small batch, artisan food production and  local/seasonal cooking. They run from 1pm to roughly 4pm each Wednesday, leaving from the Peterborough Downtown Farmers’ Market.

Each venue provides generous samples of their products – including some wine and beer samples.

“Last year was pretty fantastic,” smiles Owner/Tour Operator, Donald Fraser. “It took off immediately, with both patrons and businesses eager to climb on board. By the end of the summer, the vast majority of bookings were a result of word of mouth.”

Reviews have been universally positive.

“Raves,” glows Fraser. “In fact, most people come up and thank me individually after the event. Several people have come back for second tours. The word of mouth – the buzz – has been fantastic.”

The reason for its success?

“Really, it is the business owners and chefs who have made these tours so popular,” he admits. “We have so many incredibly talented business people downtown. And they are all characters – all so good at capturing the attention of patrons and tour participants. These people are artists. They are educators. They are showmen and showwomen. And they have been absolutely wowing their audiences. It’s been a genuine pleasure to watch them do their stuff and sample their incredible foods.”

The tour has been particularly successful in showcasing Downtown Peterborough.

“It’s been some great direct marketing for all of the businesses on board,” explains Fraser. “We’re introducing new customers to restaurants and shops across the core and letting chefs and owners wow them with their talent, personalities, and incredible foods. We know that many of these patrons are going to come back. We also know that they are going to tell friends, families, and colleagues about their experiences. Add this to the media outreach and social media outreach, and you have thousands of people being introduced to these businesses.”

The tour has attracted a wide array of participants.

“What has been incredible is the diversity of people coming out,” says Fraser. “We’ve had cottagers, people from communities outside of Peterborough – Lakefield, Bridgenorth, Young’s Point, Ennismore, Millbrook – groups of people from local workplaces, retirees, students… You name it. So many of these people have spent time in the downtown without ever frequenting these businesses. And so many of them are now vowing to return to these great shops and restaurants.”

The success of the tours has led to valuable partnerships with the GPAEDC, Peterborough Tourism, the Peterborough Chamber of Commerce, and the DBIA.

This year Fraser promises to add more tours to the roster – doing some special evening events, some new regional trips, and even some East City tours.

For more information on the tour, including schedules, please visit www.ptbolocalfoods.ca or call Farm to Table Peterborough at 705-977-0604.

Picture: theroseman.net

Make sure you view the windows of Queen St. merchants.  Other people will also be out and about in period costumes.  Everyone is encouraged to dress up.

TVA will have a tent near the Police station, with Archivist and Historian Elwood Jones available to sign his books.  Dr. Jones is still interested in whether someone in 1875 was promoting a utopia in Lakefield.  He would be glad to talk about his efforts and receive feedback or leads. Other events include the Chocolate Rabbit hosting demonstrations of rug hooking on their lawn, Victorian children’s games being played outside the Stuff store and people visiting  Christ Church Museum.

Trent Valley Archives, sponsor of this event, is a well-known and active organization which strives to bring history to life by telling the stories of people and events in the area.  They organize bus and walking tours, pub crawls, bike tours, pageants and writing workshops to promote the preservation, identification and care of archives in five counties. If you would like to know more about TVA, please go to their website, www.trentvalleyarchives.com, visit at 567 Carnegie Ave, Peterborough, ON, or call Heather at 705-745-4404.

“Worth A Thousand Words”

I was searching for something the other day, you know, an item I put away for safe keeping but forgot where I put it? Don’t laugh, we have all done it.

While rummaging through a drawer I came across an old photo album and began slowly turning the pages, all the pictures were from the late 1940s up to around 1958 or so. Each photo brought back another memory, another story and admittedly, even a tear or two. I have no idea what I was looking for originally because I poured a cup of coffee, sat down and for the next hour relived a decade of my life.

I smiled at a photo of my mother’s parents, mimi and pipi, they always reminded me of the American Gothic, the man and woman farmers with the pitchfork, only older. Even when I was a child they looked old, but that is the way grandparents are supposed to look isn’t it? I only knew them to live in the one house in the country, a row of chicken coops out back I swear were erected from old orange crates, and a couple of goats. I can remember vividly trying to ride the goats, being chased by the roosters and refusing to eat my pipi’s home made head cheese. Oh my, it looked like a blob of jelly with tiny hairs sticking out. Gross!  My mother’s brothers and sisters gathered at that house, someone banged on the piano, two or three played guitars or a fiddle and it was always a hootenanny on Saturday afternoons into the night. The coats were piled on the bed and that is where I awoke when it was time to go home. A photo that must have been taken around 1939-40 of my uncle Leo with a lamp shade on his head, can you believe people actually did that?

We often spent our vacation at Waupoos, a village just outside Picton, Ontario. The fishing was always good and the perch plentiful. I know the photo inset of my mother and wife will make Kay a tad upset with me but I can still hear their laughter from the day that picture was taken way back in 1956. We had just finished dinner and the girls were looking forward to getting in a bit of fishing. Dad chose to stay in the cabin so I agreed to take them out, of course I did not mind even though it would entail baiting both their hooks and taking any fish they caught off their line. Mom and Kay donned the hideous red checkered shirts to ward off any chill and their “lucky” straw hats and we set out in the boat. It wasn’t long before Kay landed a fish and while I was re baiting her hook mom caught one, I was like a top spinning from one side to the other taking off one fish and threading a piece of worm on a hook then to other side doing the same over and over again. The more fish they caught the louder their laughter became; they were having the time of their lives. One small problem, they were hauling in rock bass and though I wanted to toss them all back, mom and Kay insisted I keep every one. I knew what dad would say when we came ashore with a boat load of rock bass. The sun was going down and I kept suggesting it was time to go in but they wanted no part of it until I finally, …and mercifully for me, announced we were out of worms, their giggling and chuckling still echoing across the lake. As I cruised up to the dock dad met us and asked what all the laughter was about and then he saw the fish, “what the h… are you doing with all those rock bass?” Just about word for word I thought he would say.

Well dad and I dutifully cleaned every one of those rock bass and the next day we had a great meal of fresh fish, potatoes fried in onions and pepper, French bread smeared with dairy butter and an ice cold bottle of beer. That one photo brought back all those memories as if it was yesterday.

As I flipped each photo page over, every picture flooded my mind with a new and wonderful memory. We have all had trials and tribulations but most snap shots were taken during a happy occasion, I urge you to ferret out that old album from the closet or basement and sit back and enjoy, I am sure like me you will be reminded with appreciation the many blessing we have been fortunate to receive in our lives.

epigram@nexicom.net

Warn them about what, exactly?

Before you get all helicopter on me, let me say that I get it. I’m a mom. I worry about my daughter even when I know she is safe and sound, tucked up in her bed. Worrying is ubiquitous for any parent and there is nothing wrong with that until the worrying turns in to action that could actually hurt someone.

I live in fear that someone will lure my daughter away one day: part of that is because I grew up with that very thing playing out close to home. I went to school with Alison Parrott and for the want of true running abilities; I would have been part of the same track team that she was on. In case you don’t remember the story, her killer posed as a photographer wanting to take pictures of the team; Alison was lured away from home under this ruse, raped and strangled. That event is ever present in my mind and I will never, ever be able to send Nikki anywhere without having it cross my mind. Ever.

So, I hear you. The guy sitting on a bench by himself watching kids play is creepy. He seems more than out of place; his presence seems vaguely threatening. But other than sitting on a bench without a kid of his own at the playground, he hasn’t actually done anything.

I actually have no objection to the fact that the woman took the picture – even though it is an invasion of his privacy, she would at least be able to provide it to police. Nor would I have objection to her posting a statement to her Facebook page or other website that she saw a guy at XYZ park looking a little suspicious and parents should be aware.

However, posting his picture online and it going viral enough to have caught the attention of mainstream media is one step too far and could, according to a lawyer interviewed for the story, be actionable. Defamation of character and slander, to start with.

What would you do?

• Would you take the picture? (I would have).
• Would you post it online? (I would not have. At least, I think I wouldn’t).

I always try to remember that what happened to Alison is statistically unusual. Kids are FAR more likely to be harmed by someone they actually know: a friend of the family, a distant relative. That doesn’t lessen my worries but it does put them in perspective a little. Our worries for our kids will never end, nor should they, but I can’t help thinking since this story aired that we could all try a little harder to keep them in perspective; before someone’s life is ruined who did nothing but sit on a park bench.

A version of this post appears at http://www.sendmetoparis.wordpress.com 

The Jane Furber Clinic was officially unveiled at an event on April 26. Jane Furber made a sizable bequest to the MCHC and this clinic is named in her honour and her memory.
The new clinic will be open to visitors, seasonal residents, students and anyone who does not have a local family physician.

Providing this new service for our local community and visitors is one of the original goals of the MCHC.
The clinic will be staffed by a physician and nurse practitioners. It will provide weekday, weekend and evening hours.

The lead physician will be Dr. James Shipley, who, with his wife Colleen, lives in the area. He is a skilled ER physician, anesthesiologist and other medical specialties. He has practiced at Lakeridge Health (Oshawa) and Lindsay, and also participates in third world medical trips at least annually. He also led a volunteer medical/dental trip to Guyana, South Africa, in September 2012.

The facility will be a family practice and urgent care clinic. It will also partner with other tenants of the health centre including ultrasound, x-ray, physiotherapy and lab services. Pre-booked appointments and same-day appointments will be available. The goal is to have the clinic open on Saturday, May 18. The clinic phone number (effective May 13) will be (705) 651-5000.

MCHC is a new concept in medical facilities which is managed by a not-for-profit corporation in response to the shortage of physicians and healthcare services for Selwyn and Dour-Dummer townships and associated areas.

WELCOME: We would like to welcome Ivan GARBUTT and Will QUINTON to the SECP team! Thanks for wanting to dedicate your time to the community! We are excited to have you on board.

PEDAL FOR HOPE TOUR 2013: We would like to wish the PEDAL FOR HOPE team good luck on their 2013 tour! We would like to recognize the officers from the Peterborough County OPP, Peterborough-Lakefield Community Police Service, RCMP, former NHL player John Druce and their support team for dedicating so much time to such an amazing cause! The team visited Chemong Public and St. Martin’s School on April 24^thand 25^th ; and our local kids did us proud again this year! They raised money to have their heads shaved or ponytails cut off so the hair can be made into wigs for kids battling cancer. THANK-YOU to all of our awesome kids; and to both schools for supporting this great cause! ALL monies raised goes directly to Pediatric Cancer Research. This year’s tour will end on May 11^th at Adam Scott Collegiate; so please come out and join the celebration

THANK YOU!

BATTLE IN THE SADDLE: We would like to thank each and every volunteer for “battling the saddle” on April 5^th and 6^th at Lansdowne Place Mall! You guys did an excellent job at keeping the bike going for 24 hours! This was the kick-off event for the PEDAL FOR HOPE Tour 2013.

KMs FOR CARE: Thanks to the SECP volunteers and OPP auxiliary officers led by Sgt Gerry Smith who assisted with the April 21^st KMS FOR CARE Half Marathon! The 3rd annual event was once again a success! Thank you for assisting with providing a safe environment for the runners, joggers, and walkers!

UPCOMING EVENTS

CAR SEATS: The date for the next car seat clinic has not yet been set. Please keep an eye on the windows at the Bridgenorth Community Policing Office and check our website (www.secp.ca) for the date. Our apologies for any inconvenience this may be causing you. We understand that babies can’t wait for the next car seat clinic or grandchildren are coming to stay before the next clinic; so if you need your car seat installed or inspected, you can leave a message by calling 705-292-8748 or visit our website and send us an email. Our Assistant Coordinator will contact you about making arrangements to meet one of our certified technicians who will take care of your car seat request.

ANNUAL PANCAKE BREAKFAST: Mark your calendar! On Sunday May 26th, the Selwyn Fire Department will be hosting their annual pancake breakfast at the Bridgenorth Fire Hall. A great place to come for Sunday breakfast! Be sure to visit the Emergency Services displays that will include the O.P.P. & SE Community Policing – see you there!

“LOCK IT or LOSE IT / SEATBELTS & DISTRACTED DRIVING: This month our volunteers will be conducting a “Lock It or Lose It” blitz as well as a seatbelt and distracted drivers survey. Our volunteers will be leaving a “report card” on vehicles that have valuable items in plain view, windows down, and doors unlocked. This report card is a reminder to keep your valuables out of sight and your vehicle secured at all times. No valuable is worth losing! Our volunteers will also be conducting surveys on distracted drivers and drivers that are not buckled up. Please remember to buckle up and keep all distractions away from your reach. A phone call, roaming through your iPod or eating your lunch behind the wheel is NOT worth it! “Keep Your Hands On The Wheel and Your Eyes On The Road”! A phone call, roaming through your iPod or eating your lunch behind the wheel is NOT worth it!

SOAP BOX DERBY: It’s that time of the year again! The annual Soap Box Derby will be held on June 15^th 2013 on Gore St. in Bridgenorth! Make sure you bring your young ones out for this fun and exciting event! The cart will be provided – the kids just need to bring a helmet. Keep an eye out for further detail!

NOTES:

PLEASURE CRAFT OPERATORS CARD (PCOC): The 2013 boating season is about to get underway; and the Peterborough County OPP Marine Unit will begin patrolling the waterways. It is mandatory that every power boater operator be in possession of his/her Pleasure Craft Operators Card. The PCOC is required by any power boater regardless of age, size of boat or engine horsepower. If you still haven’t got your PCOC, you can leave a message at 705-292-8748 or send an email via our website www.secp.ca.The PCOC exam can be written at the Bridgenorth Community Policing Office (826 Ward St). Inquiries or to book an exam, call 705-292-8748 or send an email via our website. SE Community Policing is a proud Affiliate of BOATsmart! CANADA.

ROAD WATCH: Just a reminder that the ROAD WATCH program is in effect 365 days of the year. The program allows the public to confidentially report aggressive driving behaviour. Concerned citizens can pick up forms at our Community Policing Office in Bridgenorth as well as at the local libraries and the municipal office. You can fill out the form and deposit it in any of the drop-off boxes; or you can also visit the ROADWATCH Web site at www.roadwatch.ca to report an unsafe driver. IMPORTANT NOTE: ROAD WATCH is NOT a means of reporting a driver that you are currently witnessing as possibly being impaired or is demonstrating aggressive driving that could be putting other drivers on the road in immediate danger – CALL 911 immediately and let the police handle the situation. Capture the licence plate # and report!

WANT TO VOLUNTEER? If you are interested in joining the SECP team, please contact our chairperson Anita HAYES at 705-930-4790 or at ahayes1@sympatico.ca. You can learn more about what we do and our volunteers at www.secp.ca. Join a volunteer team that cares about keeping our community safe!