June - OSCA

Father’s Day Gifts
from Mother Nature
THE
OSCAR
The Ottawa South Community Association Review
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The Community Voice
YEAR 41, No.6
JUNE 2013
80’s PARTY
TOTALLY RAD
By Brenda Lee
On Saturday, April 27th the 80’s were
alive and well in Old Ottawa South
as OSCA’s Back to the 80’s Party
was in full swing. This party was the
kick off to a year of celebrating the
35th anniversary of the Firehall.
The Firehall was filled with an
assortment of people sporting teased
hair, mullets, green and blue eyeshadow, shoulder pads, acid wash
jeans, Madonna gloves, leggings etc.
It was wonderful how much people
really committed to the costumes,
to the point that Michael Jackson’s
clone arrived wearing a full red
leather suit and Afro!
The music rocked the house and
the accompanying video screen
was amazing. It was hard to decide
whether to dance or just watch those
classic videos. The dance floor was
crowded all night and many people
commented that they were afraid to
leave the dance floor to eat or use
the bathroom in case they missed a
favourite song!
There was food, for those willing
to take a break from dancing. Milanos Pizza on Sunnyside provided
some delicious pizzas and Cedar’s
provided veggie plates. Also on hand
were some truly 80’s inspired cakes
from Colleen Forer at Yummy Cookies. One cake was a Pac Man game
and one was a Rubik’s cube. Contact
Colleen at info@yummycookies.ca
to get an original cake of your own!
Quinn’s was once again kind
enough to bring the beer, their own
ABC beer from the Ashton Brewing
Company. Thanks to Quinn and Lisa
for bartending all-night and keeping
those dancers well hydrated. Try an
ABC beer at either Quinn’s, Patty’s
Pub or Taylor’s Genuine. I recommend the Harvest, but that is my
personal preference.
Photos are a must at an event like
this and we were lucky to get a great
photo booth from Ottawa Mojo
Photo Booth. ( www.ottawamojo.
ca) Partygoers took photos and could
add props as well…but many chose
not to, their costumes were already
perfection! check out the OSCA website at www.oldottawasouth.ca to see
these amazing photos.
When people were tired of dancing
and needed another 80’s break, they
could try out the Atari game that featured Pac Man and asteroids, watch
the classic movie Ferris Bueller’s
Day Off or try their hand at Trivial
Pursuit in the back lounge. Thanks to
Darcy Middaugh for setting up this
80’s inspired get away!
Of course with all the costumes
and dancing, there had to be prizes.
Best costume prizes, best dancing
prizes, best Thriller dance prizes
etc were handed out. Thanks to
birdy&bug, Bridgehead, Boomerang,
Cedars, Framed, the Mayfair Theatre,
the Mud Oven, Shoppers Drug Mart,
Starbucks, Stella Luna for donating
our prizes.
I graduated high school in 1987
and this party was indeed a blast
PHOTOS BY CHRISTY SAVAGE
from the past. It felt a bit too familiar
to tease my hair and put on that teal
eye shadow, not to mention dance
around to ACDC and Madonna! It
was a great night and I think many
echo my feeling that it was one of the
best dance parties I have been to in a
long while and I hope we get to do it
again soon.
Events like this can’t happen without volunteers or a planning committee.
Thanks to our committee of Christy
Savage, Dinos Dafniotis, Jacqueline
Littlewood, Julia Danis, Brenda Lee,
Gabriela Gref -Innes , Rebekka Roy,
Alex Tallim, Bess Fraser, and Darcy
Middaugh.
Also thanks to our many volunteers, including Adam Neville,
Megan Strahl, Kerry Duffy, Roman
Duffy, Daphne Dumbrille, Christo-
pher Heilmann, Matt House, Deryn
Crockett and Jeannine Beauregard,
Diane Allingham and family, MarcAndre Roy, Marie Henessey, Justin
To, Heather Martin, Rena Saikaley,
Melissa Allingham, and Julian. I
hope we haven’t forgotten anyone!
Please do accept our apologies if we
have and mention it so we can thank
you in the next OSCAR! Thank you
to everyone who helped out to make
such a great evening!
If you would like to join the Special Events Committee or have an
event idea that you would like to see
at the Firehall, please contact Christy
Savage at osca@oldottawasouth.
ca. Volunteers are always welcome,
loved, cherished, adored…you get
the picture.
COMMUNITY CALENDAR
Sat & Sun, June 1 and 2
Doors Open Ottawa
Sun, June 2, 15:30-16:30
Biodome consultation, Brewer Pool
Tues, June 4, 18:30
Fri, June 7, 19:30
Documentary Do The Math, Sunnyside
Library
Spectrolite Ensemble, Southminster United
Sat, June 8, 12:00-16:00
Street Carnival, Sunnyside Wesleyan
Sun, June 9, 10:00-16:00
OSCA Windsor Park Art Show
Sun, June 9, 16:00
Words and Music at Trinity Anglican
Old Ottawa South Traffic Survey deadline
Community Cup, Brewer
Fri, June 21
Sat, June 30 9:00 - 17:00
To add events or see the latest listings, go to the online calendar at www.oldottawasouth.ca
Page 2
THE OSCAR
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JUNE 2013
Tree-Planting Along Bronson Avenue
PHOTO BY BY CAROL ENGLISH
By Kelly Quinn
Noah Cossais and Tessa
Quinn-Crook, both 6 years
old, beamed, wide-eyed,
when told that one day, the
strip of land along Bronson
between Sunnyside and
Colonel By Drive will be a
little forest, and that if they
have children, they might
bring them there and say, “I
remember when this was just
an empty field, but I helped
build this forest.”
The two children were
among about 40 tree-planters
who turned out on the wet
and gloomy morning of May
11 to plant trees and pick up
garbage as part of the Bridgeto-Bridge Community Refor-
r sharing community!
Join our ca
ire de l’autopartage avec nous !
Venez fa
estation Project. The group,
led by Declan Hill and Noel
Lomer, has been steadily
adding trees to this space for
several years. In the past, the
group has planted mainly
spruces and pines, but this
spring, crabapples were the
big focus. The red and white
crabapples will, in time, form
a patriotic spring display, fitting for this entry point to
the capital.
Despite the weather, this
was the highest turnout
yet for the group, which
plants trees in the hopes
of blocking the sight - and
as much as possible the
sound and pollution - of
traffic on Bronson Avenue
from our neighbourhood.
Many of the participants
describe their motivation in terms of both the
environment and beautification. Rew McCrimmon said, “As the asphalt
expands, we have to but-
tress it with green.” “Green,
red, and white!” interjected
Christine Mylks. Rew continued: “We’re transforming a
neglected and derelict space,
and it’s really important that
it’s a community project.”
That community feeling
was very much in evidence.
In addition to planting trees,
the group made short work
of cleanup, collecting five
large bags of garbage, some
of it apparently litter from
cars parking along Bronson
Place, but some of it apparently dumped in the marshy
area at the heart of the green
space. It was wet and dirty
work, but spirits were high.
This spring also marked the
first fund-raising drive for
the group; generous neighbourhood donors contributed
enough money to cover trees
and supplies for this planting,
and a surplus to carry forward to maintenance and the
fall planting.
Melissa MacLean’s description of the project
encapsulates the global
significance of local efforts
like this: “This is the week
that we passed 400 parts per
million carbon dioxide in our
air, levels that we haven’t
had since prehistoric times,
and tree planting is one of
the things that we can do to
address this. Too few of our
elected officials are taking
action, so we’re doing our
part.” But she also pointed
to the very personal significance too: “I want my kids to
feel hopeful.” For the many
children in attendance, and
their adult team-members
too, the event provided hope
indeed: embodied in the trees
themselves, whose growth
will be eagerly watched in
years to come, but also in
the power of a community to
work together.
www.vrtucar.com
Expert shots
“Heads of State” or “Head of Class”.
613-238-5600 I jim@cochranephoto.com I www.cochranephoto.com
Noel Lomer demonstrating tree-planting techniques
PHOTO BY BY CAROL ENGLISH
THE OSCAR
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Page 3
JUNE 2013
THE
OSCAR
260 Sunnyside Ave, Ottawa Ontario, K1S 0R7
www.OldOttawaSouth.ca/oscar
CONTRIBUTIONS
oscar@oldottawasouth.ca
Editor: Brendan McCoy
oscar@oldottawasouth.ca
Layout and Design Editor: Bess Fraser
Copy Editor: Michael Thibault
Distribution Manager: Larry Ostler
larryostler@gmail.com
Business Manager: Susanne Ledbetter
ledbetter@sympatico.ca
Advertising Manager: Gayle Weitzman
oscarads@oldottawasouth.ca
OSCAR is printed by Winchester Print
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(not classy ads)
Volunteer Proofreaders: Lida Towstiak, Maura Giuliani, Mary
Low, Scott Valentine, Roger Williams
The OSCAR is a community paper paid for entirely by advertising.
It is published by the Old Ottawa South Community Association Inc.
(OSCA). Distribution is free to all Old Ottawa South homes and businesses and selected locations in Old Ottawa South, the Glebe and Billings Bridge. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily of The OSCAR or OSCA. The editor retains the right to edit and
include articles submitted for publication.
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The OSCAR thanks the following people who brought us
to your door this month:
ZONE A1: Kathy Krywicki (Coordinator), Mary Jo Lynch, Kim Barclay, Élie
Cantin Nantel, Wendy Robbins, Jim and Carrol Robb, Becky Sasaki, Kevin
and Stephanie Williams, Christy Griffin.
ZONE B1: Ross Imrie (Coordinator), Family Gref- Innes, Family Fegan,
the Montgomery family, Laurie Morrison, Susanne Ledbetter, Torin &
Konstantine Assal.
ZONE B2: Craig Piche (Coordinator), Pat Eakins, Hayley Atkinson, Leslie
Roston, Patrick Hinton, Lydia Oak, Sandra Garland and John Callan & Diana
Carr.
ZONE C1: Laura Johnson (Coordinator), the Williams family, Josh
Rahaman, Jesper Lindeberg, Dallin-O’Grady family, Declan & Darcy McCoy,
Bruce Grant, and the Woroniuk-Ryan family.
ZONE C2: Craig Piche (Coordinator), Alan McCullough, Charles and Phillip
Kijek, Kit Jenkin, Michel and Christina Bridgeman, Anne Coyle, Melissa
Johnson.
ZONE D1: Mary Hill (Coordinator), Emily Keys, the Lascelles family, Gail
Stewart, Gabe Teramura, Oliver Waddington, Franklin-Flack family, the
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Chernushenko, Jacqueline Littlewood, The Rand family, Aidan and Willem
Ray, the Stewart family, and Mary Hill.
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Hutchinson, Steve Adamson, the Sanger/O’Neil family, Robert Trotter.
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Hunter family, Brodkin-Haas family, Allan Paul, Christina Bradley, Caroline
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family, Ellen Bailie, Paloma and Liliana Ruiz, Peter Kemp, Kelly Haggart
and Taiyan Roberts, Goutte family (Joshua, Leo and Alina), Walter and
Robbie Engert.
ZONE F2: Pierre Guevremont (Coordinator), Paulette Theriault,
Ryan Zurakowski, Susan McMaster, Paige Raymond, Judy and Pierre
Chamberland, Valerie Dancause.
ZONE G: Bernie Zeisig(Coordinator), Claudia and Estelle BourlonAlbarracin, David Lum, Cindy MacLoghlin, Hannah and Emily Blackwell,
Robin and Luke Eriksson.
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To book an OSCAR ad
call Gayle 730-1058
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The Old Firehall
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WHAT’S THAT NUMBER?
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Page 4
THE OSCAR
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JUNE 2013
CHRISTY’S CORNER
Changes and Special Events
By Christy Savage
Changes at OSCA
Last month OSCA held its AGM and
ushered in our new 2013-2014 Board.
While we do have many Board members who have remained with us, we
also have a few new Board members.
I would like to take this opportunity
to introduce you to, and welcome,
the OSCA Board. Our new members
are: Colin Beattie, Nick Galletti, Neil
McCormick, Mona Nandy and Greg
Strahl. Returning Board members
are: Ian Beck-MacNeil, Katie Black,
Graham Deline, Gwen Gall, Linda
Hancock, Michael Jenkin, Isla Jordan, Mike Lascelles, Steve Mennill,
Guy Souliere, Muthanna Subbaiah,
Emilie Taman and Don Westwood.
Retirement of Michael Jenkin
OSCA President
By now many of you may know
that Michael Jenkin, OSCA’s President since 2002 (and an active Board
member for several years before
that), has announced his retirement
as OSCA’s President. While he will
remain on the Board and continue
to offer his much needed expertise,
knowledge and guidance in the
coming years, he will be very much
missed as President.
I would like to extend my thanks to
Michael for guiding me through my
first year as the Executive Director of
OSCA. He has been a rich resource
for learning and a strong support in
my new job. It has largely been as a
result of his commitment, enthusiasm and passion for the community
as well as the work of OSCA, that I
have come to see and appreciate Old
Ottawa South and OSCA’s role in
supporting the community. We are
fortunate to be given the opportunity
to continue to have Michael’s guidance and knowledge available to the
Board in the coming years.
In honour of Michael’s dedication and hard work, as well as his
commitment to the renovation of
the Firehall, the main hall was, upon
its re-opening, officially named the
‘Michael Jenkin Hall’. The final
procedures for the naming of the hall
have been put in place and we expect
to have the official plaque installed
in the coming months. This is a small
token of OSCA’s appreciation for all
of Michael’s work and contribution
over the years.
Has it been one year?
June marks the end of my first year
as the Executive Director of OSCA.
It seems like both yesterday and
years ago that I joined OSCA and
was warmly welcomed not only by
the association but the wider community. While it has been a very
Thanks to OSCAR’s
many volunteer writers
and distributors for
helping get the news
to you!
The OSCAR is a self-supporting newspaper,
paid for entirely by advertising, and reliant on
volunteer contributors and distributors.
Thanks to the Dairy Queen for
contributing to our community through
its support of the many
OSCAR volunteers.
busy year and many wonderful new
projects and initiatives remain to be
implemented (which is exciting), I
am beginning to feel more and more
like I am home. I want to extend my
thanks to those who have made the
transition a smooth one, and I look
forward to the coming years and the
various ways OSCA envisions it’s
growth.
Special Events and a reminder to
Stay Tuned
On April 27th OSCA launched our
35th anniversary with a fun filled
‘Back to the 80’s Dance”. For a
detailed and fun outline of that event
please feel free to read the article by
Brenda Lee - Chair of the Special
Events Committee - in this month’s
OSCAR as well as on the website. I
would like to personally congratulate,
and thank, the newly formed Special
Events Committee for their vision
and teamwork in making all of this
happen. They are a wonderful group
and I’m looking forward to many
more events we have planned. Please
stay tuned.
I’d also like to extend a special
thank you to Brenda Lee. When I
joined OSCA there was not, to be
completely honest, much of a Special
Events Committee. We have been
fortunate to have Brenda work tirelessly, despite the lack of a Special
Events Committee and subsequent
support, to run a number of events
for OSCA: Fall Fest, Shop your
Local Talent, Holiday Movies at the
Mayfair and the upcoming 2nd year
of our June 9th ‘Art in the Park’ at
Windsor Park. Without a chair of
the Special Events Committee, and
no one on the Board to take it on,
Brenda agreed to act as our Chair for
this year and until we can find a new
Chair. We couldn’t have managed
to put together our recent ‘Back to
the 80’s Dance’ or upcoming events,
without her leadership and guidance.
Thank you Brenda for all you do for
OSCA and the community.
I shamelessly promote the Special
Events Committee each month, and
as I said, this is a wonderful group to
work with. With that said, if anyone
wishes to join you are more than welcome. Please contact me at osca@
oldottawasouth.ca.
Brochure
Don’t forget to look at our Summer
2013 Brochure, included in the June
OSCAR to find out what exciting
programs we have at the Firehall!
OSCA Windsor Park Art Show
By Brenda Lee
OSCA is proud to present the second
annual OSCA Windsor Park Art Show
on June 9th, from 10 a.m. till 4 p.m. at
Windsor Park.
Come and enjoy live music, visit
and shop with your area artists and
artisans and enjoy a lovely day in
Windsor Park.
We plan to be in the soccer field
area again this year unless the heat
is as unbearable as it was last year,
in which case we will shelter in the
shade of the trees.
Ashton Brewing Company (ABC
Beer, found at Quinn’s, Patty’s Pub
and Taylor’s Genuine) proudly cosponsors with OSCA two local musicians. The Firehall’s own Darcy Middaugh opens the festival from 11:30
a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and award winning
John Allaire will play from 1 p.m. till
3 p.m. John Allaire is well known in
Ottawa and around the world and is
the winner of the American Songwriter Association Best Lyricist Award,
and Toronto Independent Music
Awards Top Live Music Performer
2009. John also hosts the Allaire
Show every Saturday afternoon from
3-5 at Quinn’s as well as being found
at many other area venues. Check out
his website at www.johnallaire.com.
This is a great chance to check out
what your local artists have to offer
and to Support Local! Also a great opportunity to get some unique Father’s
Day presents.
Really where else can you find hand
made pottery, watercolour paintings,
cookies, cakes, traditional Indian
food, stained glass, jewelry, etc, in
one setting, while you stroll through
the park on a sunny day?
Thanks to Christopher Heilmann for
providing the artwork for our poster
and to Rebekka Roy for designing the
poster! Christopher will be amoung
the many artists at the show.
A complete list of vendors will be
available after May 24th at www.oldottawasouth.ca or our facebook page.
Free screening of the documentary
Do The Math
Dairy Queen, 1272 Bank Street
738-7146
Tuesday, June 4, 6:30 PM
Ottawa Public Library - Sunnyside Branch
Sponsored by OSCA and the OPL
THE OSCAR
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Page 5
JUNE 2013
OSCA PRESIDENT’S REPORT
Update and the Future
By Linda Hancock
The future is bright for the Ottawa
South Community Association
(OSCA). This year we celebrate 35
years of OSCA’s involvement in Old
Ottawa South. Since 1978, OSCA
has been running programming out of
the Old Firehall – the same year that
OSCA officially incorporated as a
not for profit organization. Since that
time, OSCA has been busy with programming but also with representing,
and bringing together, the residents
of our community in so many important ways.
I would like to thank all of the
volunteers and staff who have
made such important contributions
to OSCA over the past 35 years.
OSCA would not be where it is today
without a lot of hard work, volunteer
hours and determination on the part
of so many. So...a very big THANK
YOU!
On behalf of the Board, I would
like to say a special thank you to our
Past-President, Michael Jenkin, for
his leadership for more than a decade. Under Michael’s leadership, the
Old Firehall was extensively renovated. Since the opening of the new
centre in 2010, our programming has
increased in scope and scale from
revenues of about $350,000 to close
to $1 million today.
With significant growth in a short
period of time, it is of critical importance that we, as an organization,
are managing all that we do in the
most efficient and effective manner.
In order to do so, the Board began a
Strategic Planning Process this past
year. This process will help us to
define our future vision – our mission
statement, priorities and goals. Once
done, we will be able to assess what
we currently do and address any gaps
and opportunities. As part of this
process, we felt that it was important
to solicit input from the community.
We were very pleased that over 200
people, representing over 5% of
households in OOS, took the time to
complete our Vision Survey and pro-
vide us with valuable insight. Over
the summer months the Strategic
Planning Group will be delving into
this much further as we begin to draft
a document that will guide our future.
As we plan for the future, we will
continue to deal with current priorities. We will soon begin negotiating a Partnership Agreement with
the City of Ottawa – essentially a
document that will outline respective
roles and responsibilities for planning, developing and implementing
programming in our community. We
will continue to communicate with
residents of OOS via the OSCAR and
our Website with a view to expanding our efforts, and our membership,
through a cohesive communications
strategy. We will continue to run
our programs, activities and special
events and implement changes where
we see the need. Last and, certainly,
not least, we will continue to work in
the very challenging area of intensification and development in our much
sought after neighbourhood.
I am confident that our Board is
ready to take on these challenges.
At the recent AGM, the new Board
was voted in by the membership.
We have an amazing array of experienced and new Board members ready
to go to work on behalf of OOS. At
our recent Board meeting, your new
Executive was elected. In addition
to myself, our Executive Committee
includes Emilie Taman, Vice-President, Steve Mennill, Treasurer, Greg
Strahl, Secretary, Ian Beck-MacNeil,
Programme Committee Chair and
Michael Jenkin, Past President. I
very much look forward to working
with the Executive and the Board as
a whole as we work toward OSCAs
future!
Thank You and Farewell to former OSCA President Michael Jenkin
By Lisa Drouillard
Some of you may know that our
long-serving President of the Ottawa
South Community Association will
be stepping down this year after fourteen years of service to this Board
and to our neighborhood. Michael
Jenkin has been at the centre of many
efforts to preserve the best of Old
Ottawa South, and to make it an even
better community in which to live.
For myself as a Board Member, and a
student of Michael’s generous professional mentorship and friendship,
Michael is as solid in his principles
and core values as the keystones of
our churches and halls; he’s also as
innovative and progressive as our
most elegant new enterprises.
Many colleagues from the OSCA
Board and its committees or Firehall
staff will have had their own impressions and lessons from Michael
Jenkin, but I can draw only from my
own experiences and those of my
closest Board colleagues. Michael
was a stranger to me when he effectively recruited me to the Community Association Board. Sitting
in on a City Council meeting where
Michael was presenting an articulate
and well researched case to save the
Sunnyside Library (which his wife
Phyllis had earlier fought to have
renovated), the case for taking hold
of the best things in Old Ottawa
South and building them was made
clearly. That City Council listened
in that instance is the starting point
of the impact of that meeting: for me
and for a group of new recruits to the
OSCA Board, it was a demonstra-
tion of the impact of a small group of
informed neighbours.When I joined,
I was one member of a series of
cohorts of recruits to the Board over
more than a decade with Michael as
President. Michael managed to lead
from one issue or crisis to the next,
from the redevelopment of the Saint
Margaret Mary School site to Lansdowne Park, while always finding
a way to capture and channel the
energy of the arguments around these
issues. Michael served on the OSCA
Board since 1999 and was an active
member of OSWatch (the zoning and
development committee), served as
Vice-President and then President.
In engaging the community on urban
development issues Michael refereed
heated and passionate debates among
neighbours, always making his own
views known. This, after all, is his
neighbourhood, too! But especially
on difficult, divisive issues, he strived
to maintain his role as a fair-minded
and neutral chair.
Under Michael’s leadership, OSCA
in its role in rebuilding and reinvigorating the Firehall has tripled in
size and has become an increasingly
complex business. Perhaps what our
President will be celebrated for the
most is his leadership in generating serious public investment in our
community. Michael led the Firehall
Redevelopment Committee for years,
dedicating countless hours juggled
within the schedule of a demanding
senior management job in the public
service, to ensure not only that the
redevelopment happened, but that
it be built beautifully, and shaped in
response to the needs of the community. I remember the night of the final
announcement of the plans and the
funding to support them from the city
(which matched the massive, local
fundraising efforts undertaken for
this initiative). A member of the community asked boldly if this was the
best we could have done, and should
OSCA not have fought for something
better. Michael’s quiet and reassuring
response helped to quell the rising
fit of rage that might have otherwise
overcome me, as I was struck by this
demonstration of what it takes to lead
for results: you have to leave your
ego at the door.
During Michael’s tenure, both the
Firehall and our public library branch
benefited from extensive renovations,
representing in total about $5 million in investment. It is difficult to
imagine that these investments would
have happened without Michael’s
dogged determination and leadership
in a community organizing, activism
and fund raising. The Firehall is now,
more than ever, a substantial provider
of programs to the community, and
OSCA carries out a range of other
functions: it publishes a well read
newspaper and website; it is a hub
for a rich social and cultural life both
through a great number of special
events at the Firehall and around
Old Ottawa South; it negotiates with
elected and non-elected government
officials to further local causes; and,
it acts as forum for community discussion and a broker among differing
interests. Most community groups
are lucky if they find the energy to do
only a couple of those things well.
Michael might have accepted the
re-opening of the renovated Community Centre as his swan song,
and stepped down having made an
extraordinary contribution to OOS,
but there were some major pieces to
this puzzle that he seemed to want to
ensure were in place. Programming
activities within the centre have now
maximized every inch and new ideas
and opportunities are presented every
day.
We have experienced a significant change of the guard in terms of
Firehall staff, with the retirement last
year of a long time executive director and City staff member. Michael
led the process to hire a new full time
executive director, Christy Savage,
who is helping transform OSCA into
an even larger and more professional
organization. The Board has also
seen a significant renewal with highly
qualified and engaged new members
taking on the torch. In short, Michael
waited to step down only when the
Firehall was rebuilt on the inside too.
It is hardly possible for OOS
residents to thank Michael Jenkin
enough for the work he has done that
has affected us for the better, and I
can’t imagine Michael waiting for
such an ovation. If ever there was a
man who gave credence to the saying
that good work is its own reward, it
is Michael. But I will thank him for
his personal generosity, leadership
and many good laughs over extended
post-board meetings at the pub: for
Michael is the best of teachers and a
great friend to OOS, as much as he is
a builder.
Page 6
THE OSCAR
l
JUNE 2013
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
The OSCAR welcomes letters on subjects of interest to the community or in response to previous articles. All letters must disclose the name of the writer, as well as the address and phone
number. Letters may be edited for length, clarity, and libelous statements. The opinions of the writers are not necessarily those of the newspaper or its editor. Email your letters to oscar@
oldottawasouth.ca
Donald Leffer’s article on 167
Aylmer in the May OSCAR
Dear Editor:
Mr. Leffer’s attempt to play down
the negative impact of 167 Aylmer
is pretty arbitrary and subjective.
Someone else might just as well
have called it discrimination if we
generalize the behaviour of a few
good students to the entire group.
Neighbours are told that these
apartments will house well-behaved
students, indistinguishable from
normal tenants. I realize some
of this is people reacting from
positive experiences.
And yes, it is possible that this
apartment will end up peaceful and
tranquil as some believe. But none of
this justifies generalized conclusions
about an entire group of people.
Everybody knows how students
really behave, and automatically
associating certain behaviours
(like being good tenants) with
certain groups of people is sheer
discrimination.
(Don, nice try, but the neighbours of
167 Aylmer are getting the shaft!)
Wolf Illing
What is a “rural city” Mayor
Watson?
Dear Editor:
With regard to the Mayor’s Report in
your May issue.
What is a “rural city”? It’s a
Conversions and Conversations
By Janine Debanné
A group of concerned community
members gathered at the Fire Hall on
Monday May 13th, and spoke for two
hours with the architect and developer of 167 Aylmer, Robert Martin
and Rakan Abu-Shaar. Their project
transforms a small family house
into a four-unit apartment building
containing 18 bedrooms, and builds
farther forward and much deeper
into the lot than anything nearby.
The conversation was earnest, even
moving at times, as residents expressed their frustrations and worries
and posed questions about how this
building will operate. How can the
comings and goings of a group of
people six times larger than the average occupancy load of neighboring
houses, on a tight lot that shares its
driveway with another house, possibly not interfere with daily life on
that block? -- residents asked. How
does this project compare to the other
4-units conversions of large historical
homes on Aylmer Avenue, where, due
to fewer bedrooms, total occupancies do not exceed seven residents on
average? The architect and developer
were understanding and professional.
At times their answers did not sit
well -- they explained unconvincingly that eighteen tenants will seamlessly negotiate a shared driveway
and squeeze between two back-toback parked cars to park bicycles and
dispose of kitchen refuse day to day
and through the seasons, for example
-- but they were spoken with seeming
sincerity and conviction. Their logic
did not always make sense to the
community, such as when defending
the new building’s comparative size,
they stated that now residents are
aware that they too can place additions just as high and long on their
own houses.
At the heart of the matter, how-
contradiction in terms. Yet Mayor
Watson, in his Report in your May
issue, calls Ottawa without irony
“the largest rural city in the country.”
Well, he’s certainly right about the
large part: with an area of 2760
square kilometres, Ottawa is bigger
than lots of member-states of the
United Nations, let alone major cities
of the world. And as for the rural
part, the city’s own website says that
about 92% of Ottawa is rural. So
we live in a municipality that really
makes no sense.
This isn’t just a matter of mild
ridicule, unfortunately. It makes for a
governing body – City Council – that
is dysfunctional, because the citizens
of this “city” are wildly different in
their attitudes and interests. Farmers
(and we have a lot of farms – 1267 in
2006) can have little in common, in
local government terms, with condo
dwellers. And the same can be said of
inhabitants of villages like Osgoode
and of urban neighborhoods like Old
Ottawa South.
I don’t know what the solution to
this problem is. Perhaps some kind
of devolution of powers from City
Council might be made to work, with
representative bodies for the truly
urban and truly rural areas of Ottawa.
But that is complicated and unlikely
anytime soon. So neighborhoods
like Old Ottawa South (and, to be
fair, villages like Osgoode) will have
always to be on guard against City
policies that are detrimental to their
interests.
ever, is the delicate question of urban
pattern and neighborhood character,
the very issue that motivated the City
of Ottawa’s sudden moratorium on
house conversion permits (which
was initiated by our own Councillor David Chernushenko). Indeed, if
neighborhood balance tips in favour
of transient housing, families will
depart, and over time, the City will
be left with a problematic neighborhood that no longer generates stable
tax revenues. There are numerous
examples of such neighborhoods
near universities in Canada and the
US, and most would agree it would
not be a good thing for OOS to go
that route. The mix of generations,
students and families, the characteristic porches and trees, are what
makes this area beautiful and casually liveable. And it is good for cities
to possess such neighborhoods.
In the last issue of OSCAR, Donald
Leffers reflected on the themes of
prejudice and exclusion, and students’ right to the city, and invited
167 Aylmer opponents to examine
their conscience. And the argument,
built on Henry Lefebvre’s cogent
criticism of capitalist urban politics
and call for the citizen to “access”
the city, is of course a worthy one,
and one that many OOS residents are
sympathetic to. Built on an unfortunate quote in a newspaper article,
the essay misses the point by failing to recognize that neighborhood
opposition to 167 Aylmer had to do
with urban form and density, not
social preferences or a disdain for
an integral part of this community:
students. Additionally, the fabric
of this part of Ottawa, built as a
streetcar suburb from 1900 onward,
is already comparatively high. The
houses are, on average, small, and
distances between them minimal. In
the main, people here have chosen
to “live small” on one hand, and mix
with students on the other. To reiterate a point made by Gordon Stokoe
in his excellent article, if more Ottawa neighborhoods could achieve
the density of OOS, the amalgamated city’s sprawl problems would
be largely solved. Leffers’ argument
aims to be noble, but is misdirected.
Aggravating community frustration was the City’s vague definition
of what constitutes a house “conversion.” In this case, the former house
was all but demolished, its outer
walls retained only so that the project
could qualify as a “house conversion” rather than be considered “new
construction.” This is clever because
conversions of houses can be done
without variances and may hold up
to four units, whereas the bylaw
limits new constructions to three
units. Neighbours understandably felt
somewhat ridiculed by a construction process that saw an old house
Colin Beattie
Continued on page 7
THE OSCAR
l
Page 7
JUNE 2013
DEVELOPMENT
Continued from pg 6
deconstructed and subsumed inside an
entirely new building.
There is also the hotly debated nomenclature question. Are these house
conversions “bunkhouses” or apartment dwellings? Any individual may
view the plans for developments at the
City of Ottawa, even projects that do
not go through site plan control. The
procedure is called “view and release”
and costs $68, and the application must
be done in person at the City. The applicant is then given a viewing appointment where they can study the drawing
set and decide what the layouts imply.
Taking 167 Aylmer as an example,
the layouts for four stacked apartment units (basement and ground
units contain four bedrooms, second
and third floor contain five bedrooms)
are professionally executed, but they
are unquestionably aimed at transient
renters. On the permit set submitted to
the City, each plan places in sequence
a large open room (housing living-dining-kitchen activities) facing Aylmer
Avenue; two shower-sink-toilet rooms,
and, depending on the floor, four or
five small bedrooms, each with a closet; the units are “self-contained” with
no outdoor spaces. The doubling of
bathrooms and the provision of laundry
areas certainly are thoughtful moves,
and will make the act of sharing with
up to four roommates much smoother.
The absence of bathtubs (the architect
has introduced some in response to
comments), of seasonal storage (for
a tenant who might own a kayak, for
example) or such spaces as stroller
parking, and the high ratio of bedrooms to living spaces, indicate that the
target market are groups of unrelated
adults. And there is nothing wrong with
responding to this group’s need for
affordable dwelling as a business plan,
but then, why not be more overt about
this fact, and solve design questions
like that of bicycle parking much more
conveniently and gracefully? (A large
Traffic Updates
By Winnie Pietrykowski
Close to one hundred Old Ottawa
South (OOS) residents attended two
Public Meetings on Traffic Issues at
the Sunnyside Public Library and the
Firehall in early May. Topics of interest included traffic-calming measures
on Bank at Aylmer and Sunnyside,
speed tables along Riverdale, problem
turns on Sunnyside between Bank and
Riverdale where visibility is poor, the
duration of parking hours, improved
parking signage, and the absence of
ladder crosswalks at busy intersections
like Cameron and Riverdale.
The healthy turnout to both of these
meetings contributed to a lively and interesting exchange among neighbours,
City staff, and our City Councillor,
David Chernushenko, on traffic issues
specific to the Riverdale Avenue Traffic
Study and the Old Ottawa South Traffic Survey.
The OOS Traffic Survey is focused
“bike parking stoop” on Aylmer would
have made great sense, and could have
provided a playful porch-like element
on the streetscape).
The answer is that this business
pro-forma relies on the highest number of bedrooms possible, and hence,
on maximum build-out. And indeed,
this maximum build-out produces the
nicest layouts on the inside with what
is left of square footage not dedicated
to bedrooms. Therein lies the contradiction: economic viability and the
more generous site planning that sound
rental apartment design requires. But
this takes us into another much deeper
problem, that of the degradation of the
public realm in late capitalism. Dutch
architect Rem Koolhaas has articulated
this condition with the descriptive term
“junk space” – in a nutshell “the fallout
of modernization,” or, all the spaces
and building dictated by commercial
pressures that do not seem to leave
significant traces, as building did just
a few decades ago. Current economic
structures render the production of
quality affordable housing an almost
impossible task. Still, at 167 Aylmer,
there might have been other ways to
make a viable project that would have
struck a better compromise between
the developer’s aims and neighborhood identity. Mixing apartment types,
like at the Carlyle apartment building
where families and students are equally
likely to rent, might have been possible. Rents at 167 Aylmer will probably
be between $2500 and $2800, stated
the developer. Naturally, it will be
easier for four or five adult participants
to make that rent than for a family
(since a five year old isn’t generally in
a position to chip in for the rent). The
architect is certainly devoting considerable time and effort into the building’s
exterior appearance, but with regards
to massing, his hands are tied.
The developers purchased the property and implemented a pro-forma that
could succeed there based on current
zoning bylaw and location. The City
might have weighed in before issu-
ing the permit, and not sided with the
developer, for example, on the issue of
the non-compliant driveway width, but
chose not to. For nearby residents, the
author included, the irrevocable alteration of the urban pattern – the interruption of spatial and visual connectivity
both along Aylmer Avenue porches and
in the rear yards - has been difficult to
accept. So too was the fact that City
zoning bylaw did the community no
favors. By requiring new construction
to set no further back than three meters
from the street, the whole building
was de facto required push out in front
of the other houses (The old house
sat about 4.5 meters back, but due to
the proposed new third floor, the old
facade was bumped into “new construction” bylaw). A variance would
have avoided this, but entailed costs
and delays, and would have opened the
project to public input. The permissible
rear yard set back is at present 25%
of lot depth, meaning almost 75% lot
coverage (taking into account the minimum front yard set back of 1.5 meters).
This is a huge amount of building for
a neighborhood defined by the “perimeter porch – green centre” pattern.
The rule, save for a few exceptions, in
no way reflects existing neighborhood
massing. Indeed, not many home owners would choose to exploit the generous rear yard set back allowance, but
when a design is adding five bedrooms
to a floor plate, it comes in handy.
Such problems with the bylaw will
hopefully be corrected before the moratorium is lifted. In adjusting the bylaw
so as to better safeguard neighborhood
character, renters and owners alike will
be able to enjoy a greater degree of
predictability and constancy about the
built environment and community in
which they chose to dwell and invest.
And no less importantly, disruptive and
time-consuming conflicts between residents, developers and architects will
be avoided. Perhaps even more: the
relationship between residents and the
“infill industry” might even become a
constructive and creative one in neigh-
on alleviating the anticipated increase
in day-to-day traffic that will be generated by Lansdowne. To complete this
survey visit OSCA’s web site at www.
oldottawasouth.ca . The Survey closes
Friday, June 21st.
The traffic issues identified in the
Survey reflect comments and proposals made by OOS residents in recent
studies, petitions, and public meetings
as well as several broader recommendations included in the Glebe Traffic
Survey in early 2013. With the opening
of Lansdowne there will be new retail,
entertainment and sports facilities, 238
new condos, and frequent small and
medium-sized events. The OOS Traffic
Survey is an important opportunity to
help prepare for change & renewal.
Let us know what you think. Visit
www.oldottawasouth.ca
Traffic issues created by less frequent but larger events at Lansdowne
will be addressed a little further down
the road by the Lansdowne Transportation Advisory Committee, a city-wide
committee chaired by David Chernushenko, with representatives from
affected communities, businesses, and
City staff. The results from the OOS
Traffic Survey will be presented at this
committee in late June.
As outlined in the May issue of
OSCAR, the Riverdale Avenue Traffic
Study will address some major traffic
concerns east of Bank and will focus
on the Riverdale corridor between
Bank Street and Echo Drive, including Sunnyside Avenue between Bank
Street and Riverdale. For more information on the Riverdale Avenue Study
please visit the City of Ottawa’s web
site at ottawa.ca/riverdaleavenue.
Your comments to both the Riverdale
Study and the OOS Traffic Survey are
more than welcome. The volume of
responses matters; it lends credibility
to the concerns at stake.
borhoods like OOS. There is room for
evolution in this neighborhood, and,
as difficult as it can be, change is part
of life. But with thoughtful zoning and
cooperation, it is possible to weave
new forms and new uses of space into
the existing fabric more gently than has
recently been the tendency. And hopefully, beautiful landscapes and good
architecture will accompany them.
Postscript
The author has recently learned from
the architect that he has made revisions
to the interior layouts in response to
the May 17th meeting. The feasibility of these changes is presently being
examined.
Janine Debanné is an Associate Professor at the Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism at Carleton University, and resides on Aylmer Avenue.
The OOS Traffic Survey
Let us know what you
think
Visit www.
oldottawasouth.ca
Page 8
THE OSCAR
LIVING LIVES
Sue Holloway
Sue Holloway is Commodore of the Rideau Canoe Club.
PHOTO BY TOM ALFOLDI
By Paige Raymond Kovach
On a rainy spring morning, Sue Holloway looks through the windows of
the Rideau Canoe Club at Mooney’s
Bay. Cross-country skiing season is
over, and now she turns her attention
to her other love, kayaking.
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noe Club, she often holds meetings
on the water paddling beside Louise
Hine-Schmidt, the RCC’s Paddling
Director. They paddle up river and
talk business, while the paddle back
to the clubhouse is for “the workout”.
Ms. Holloway is a former Olympic
athlete who won silver and bronze in
sprint kayak in the 1984 Los Angles
Olympics. She was also the first
woman in the world to compete in
both the Summer and Winter Olympics (cross-country skiing).
“We’re lucky in Ottawa we don’t
have to share the water. Every water
sport has its space. Rowers are on the
Ottawa River, water skiers are above
the next set of locks, and we’re here,”
said Ms. Holloway.
She explains that rowers look backwards to where they’ve been, while
canoeists and kayakers look ahead to
where they are going.
Ms. Holloway trained at Simon
Fraser University on Burnaby Lake
in the late 1970s.
One foggy morning a men’s 8
nearly capsized her and her two training partners. “It was foggy and the
fog dampens sound, and we didn’t
hear them coming up behind us,” Ms.
Holloway said.
Ms. Holloway recruited Elisabeth
Arnold and her two younger sisters
to join the Rideau Canoe Club for
something to do in the cross-country
skiing off-season. Both the Holloway and Arnold families were avid
cross-country skiers, before Nakkertok existed, and were part of the old
Ottawa Ski Club.
Ms. Holloway and Ms. Arnold both
competed on the canoe/kayak national team, and raced for the Rideau
Canoe Club in doubles and fours.
“I’m four years younger than Sue,
l
JUNE 2013
so I was competing as a junior when
she was a senior.” Later they became training partners. “Sue was a
great training partner. She was older
and ahead of me in terms of performance,” said Ms. Arnold, former Ottawa City Councillor. “Our histories
went back so long, we were roommates for part of the time at university, and we were not only team mates
but we were almost sisters,” said Ms.
Arnold.
When Ms. Holloway was young,
her mother enrolled her in all sorts
of sports to keep her and her brother
busy. “Everything I do is because of
the social aspect,” she said.
Ms. Holloway was a judoka for a
time. She and Tina Takahashi were
sometimes the only females at the
Takahashi judo dojo.
“I’ve known Sue since I was about
five years old,” said Ms. Takahashi,
judoka, Olympic judo coach, and the
first to ever win gold for Canada in
an international judo competition.
“Her mother enrolled her and her
brother Chris to supplement their
training in the mid-late 60’s when my
father was still in the Royal Canadian
Air Force and had a judo club at the
Uplands Air Base. Judo was good for
their coordination and balance and
they excelled in cross-country skiing
too.”
“She’s a bit older than me and I
remember her helping me tie my belt
and watch out for me when we went
to out of town judo tournaments. Sue
attained her brown belt and I suspect
that had she stuck with judo, she
probably would’ve gone to the Olympics in that too if women’s judo had
been put in the Olympics earlier. Sue
was always smiling and very assertive,” said Ms. Takahashi.
Although most of her life is filled
with volunteer work, Ms. Holloway
makes her living as a motivational
speaker and event planner. She’s currently the event planner for Ottawa’s
Gold Medal Plates, a culinary competition for Ottawa’s top chefs. The
event also raises money for Olympic
athletes.
“I see it as a sporting event,” said
Ms. Holloway. “As a coach I want to
create a positive environment for the
chefs to do their best.” Eight local
chefs will compete in Ottawa’s Gold
Medal Plates on November 18th at
the National Arts Centre.
Jamie Stunt, chef at Oz Café, was
national silver medalist in last year’s
competition. He paired Tibetan yak
meat with Ashton Somerset Special, specially brewed by the Ashton
Brewing Company for the competition.
In the winter months, Sue Holloway coaches cross-country skiing at
Nakkertok. Her family helped found
the club. “With little kids, don’t go
out for long. Go to have fun,” said
Continued on page 9
THE OSCAR
l
Page 9
JUNE 2013
LIVING LIVES
Continued from page 8
Ms. Holloway. “We don’t give young
skiers poles – better for them to learn
their balance. We play games like
one-ski soccer.”
She also gave an inspirational talk
to some of Hopewell’s grade five students this February when they spent
the day at Nakkertok.
Kelsey Robin, Old Ottawa South
mom of two boys, is also a coach at
Nakkertok. “Sue Holloway knows
kids. Her messages are strong and
make the kids stronger. She wants
them to believe in themselves and
she knows how to tailor her message
to suit the child.”
“I try to figure out who they are
and help them learn those lessons. I
try to find those coachable moments:
What did you learn when you fell?
Maybe your ski caught an edge. How
can you move your body so it doesn’t
happen again?” said Ms. Holloway.
Sue Holloway has been active
her whole life and she intends to be
active for the rest of it. “Dragging
your butt along is not quality of life.
However the life of a high performance athlete is quite extreme, and
can be unhealthy as well. Balance is
the key.”
Ms. Holloway encourages parents
to “be a role model for your kids,
have an active lifestyle. Expose them
to a lot of different sports so they can
pick something that they like,” said
Ms. Holloway. “Play, be outside with
your kids, help them develop their
physical literacy.”
“You want to create a healthy
lifestyle. Competition is not for
everyone, but with the right coach
it can be. You can discover yourself
through competition.”
“Sue reached the top rung of
athletic performance. She has given
back so much to both sports,” said
Ms. Arnold. “She’s a very outgoing
and social person who is also very
competitive, so it’s great she found
something she loves that she’s also
good at.”
“Ask yourself what does this life
give you? Not how much it costs,”
said Ms. Holloway. “Do what you
love. Then you’ll stay motivated.”
Farewell from Dave Ho
Rideau Canoe Club 101
The Rideau Canoe Club sits on the
edge of Mooney’s Bay, across the
lock from Hog’s Back Falls, where
the Rideau River and the Rideau Canal split off to carry on in their own
directions towards the Ottawa River.
The Rideau Canoe Club was founded in 1902. The first clubhouse was
built on cantilevers hovering above
the canal at Fifth and the Driveway at
the site of the present day Canal Ritz.
During the Second World War, the
city decided to keep water in the canal to be able to put out fires in case
the city was bombed. But in March
1944, the clubhouse collapsed into
the canal when the spring ice shifted
and broke the cantilevers.
After the war, the club found its
current location at the edge of the
wilderness. In the fifties, one of
the board members, an accountant,
built the new clubhouse with cinder
blocks. “Right on clay, so you can
imagine what happened,” said Sue
Holloway, Rideau Canoe Club’s
Commodore. “The boys and girls
change rooms faced each other, and
there was a hole in the wall. And
if you had to flush you had to get a
bucket of water from the bay first.”
After lobbying by the members of
the Rideau Canoe Club, the city built
a better clubhouse in the 1980s. Interest in canoe, kayak and dragon boat
racing grew until again the club organized to get the current clubhouse
built, echoing the architecture of the
very first clubhouse.
“Now that we had a beautiful
exterior, we wanted to make sure the
interior is as beautiful. Our goal is
to host and win the 2015 National
Championship,” said Ms. Holloway.
So she spearheaded the hiring of
the right coach. In 2011, Mike Robinson, who she says is one of the best
technical coaches in the country, was
hired to head the coaching staff. His
team includes former National Team
member Ian Mortimer, Diana Deek,
and Wade Farquharson. “No other
club has as much technical expertise
as we do,” said Ms. Holloway.
Rideau Canoe Club offers Canoe
Kids summer camp to introduce kids
aged 7-12 to canoeing, kayaking,
water safety, field sports, as well as
competitive games and activities.
All participants must be competent
swimmers. There are also ongoing
sprint programs and recreation programs available for teens and adults.
See www.rideaucanoeclub.ca or call
613-225-5546 for more details.
Sell For Maximum 3.75% Commission Rate
Selling Since 1984
613-230-8888
Barry Humphrey
Sales Representative
613-296-6060 Direct
barryhumphrey@sympatico.ca
VIEW MY WEBSITE:
Dave Ho at the winter Carnival
I knew this day would come. I just
didn’t know that it would come so
quickly. As of July 1st, I will no longer be doing programs at the Firehall.
These past 20 years have been memorable and exhilarating at the same
time. The Firehall has been a fabulous
place to work. I have worked at many
City of Ottawa community centres
and Old Ottawa South has been by far
the best centre to work at. I consider
myself a “gym rat” and that’s why I
loved running all the children’s sports
programs at the Firehall. I will especially miss doing the summer camps
this year. I haven’t missed a summer
camp at the Firehall since 2009. During that year, I was at the Glebe C.C.
coordinating the Voyageurs camp (610 years old).
I saw the kids in the Old Ottawa
South area grow up in front of my
own eyes. The kids that were in the
pre-school summer camps (Every
Thing But The Kitchen Sink) are now
afterschool counsellors and instructors. The kids that I towered over
12 years ago are now looking down
www.BarryHumphrey.ca
at me. Throughout all these years, I
have met so many wonderful people. I
can’t even imagine naming everyone,
so I won’t because I will surely miss
someone and I don’t want that. The
Firehall itself has transformed into a
marvelous meeting place for friends
and neighbours. I just wish there were
more parking spaces for the staff. I do
want to thank Pat for letting me park
my car in her driveway. Thanks Pat.
Oh ya, there is one person I would
like to mention. Dinos Dafniotis, the
Program Worker at the Firehall has
been there since the very beginning.
He has inspired me all these years and
has been a great friend. The Firehall
is very lucky to have Dinos because
he is the one person who works long
hours and gets very little recognition. Thanks Dinos!!!
I wish everyone the best of luck in
their future. I will try to stop by the
Firehall whenever I can. Thanks!
Yours truly,
Dave Ho
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Page 10
THE OSCAR
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JUNE 2013
LOCAL BUSINESS
Stylist Sami is a fixture on Bank St. and a big fan of OOS
the city and he doesn’t think
it’s changed much in three
decades. What about the upscale nature of the place?
“I don’t see it that way.
Okay, housing prices went
up – because the market
went up. But rich or poor,
people like this area the way
it is. Sure, they’re renovating, but they love it here and
don’t want to change things.
And they don’t like when
people call it the Glebe.”
His favorite spot is sitting
in the shop’s south corner
window – a great view of
Bank St. One customer suggests if you want to know
anything about OOS ask
Sami: “He knows everyone and he pays attention.”
Another customer just likes
the salon owner’s life story:
“And he often cuts my
bangs for free.”
Sami and his daughter Dianna.
PHOTOS BY TRACY MOREY
By Tracy Morey
He owns the second oldest
business between the bridges.
He knows the neighbourhood
and he loves it.
Sami Abikhalil was new to
Canada more than 30 years
ago when he started at Modern Hair Styling and Esthetics. He liked the neighbourhood from the beginning: “I
had good experiences and
everyone was supportive.”
One of his customers taught
him English. The man would
come daily and the two
would take turns buying coffee for the language lesson.
“After I started here, I
never felt like an immigrant.”
Still the same
Sami calls OOS a town in
Leaving a war
The Sami saga goes back
to a Beirut neighbourhood
(about as far from the Lebanese capital as OOS is to
downtown Ottawa, he notes).
He didn’t like school that
much and as a teen he started
helping in hair salons. At age
16, he went full-time.
“I liked it, I still like it. It’s
my hobby now.”
Volunteering for Fair Trade in OOS
By Teilo Moore
Since 2007, Old Ottawa South
residents have welcomed Fair Trade
into their homes and their lives. Ten
Thousand Villages has been proud to
be a part of this business community
for several years – but in a unique
way. As a non-profit organization,
Allergy Season is here…
See one of our Pharmacists about
treatment options available to relieve
your sneezing, runny nose, nasal
congestion and itchy watery eyes!
We now carry the vaccine
Zostavax®. If you are 50 and older
and have not received the Shingles
vaccine, ask your doctor for a
prescription today!
Join us in the Beauty Boutique
June 2nd-8th for our week long sun
care event with Vichy®. Daily
draws and giveaways to be won!
1080 Bank Street
613-526-1800
Open 8-10pm 7 days a week!
the store relies on local volunteers to
support its mission to promote Fair
Trade in Canada.
“The people that I encounter when
I am working - the managers, my
fellow volunteers and the customers
- are all wonderful to be around, and
they are what keep me coming back
week after week. It feels as though
we have a strong camaraderie, all of
us joined by our commitment to fair
trade. The store is such a friendly
place, and I think it is a privilege
that I get to be a part of such a
caring community,” says Courtney
Lindsay, an Old Ottawa South resident and store volunteer.
Ten Thousand Villages began in
1946, after a woman named Edna
Ruth Byler returned home from a
mission trip with Mennonite Central
Committee (MCC). She had seen
the incredible skill required to create local handicrafts in Puerto Rico,
and was convinced that by selling
them in her community, she could
help alleviate the artisans’ poverty.
She bought several handicrafts
herself, and took them home, where
she sold them out of the back of
her car at no profit for herself. This
continued year after year, eventually
growing into the organization that
Ten Thousand Villages is today.
“I have learned a lot about fair
It was 1979 when Sami’s
father suggested he leave
Lebanon.
“The war was getting vicious. I had a family. And
my wife Hala wanted out.”
Sami’s brother lived in London, Ontario and sponsored
him.
London did not appeal, so
the Abikhalil family moved
within months to Ottawa and
Sami worked at a salon on
Hunt Club. Modern Hairstyling had already been a salon
for 25 years when the owner
asked Sam to run it for four
months. Eventually, in 1981
Sami bought out the owner.
It’s been six-day weeks
ever since and now plans are
for Sami’s daughter Dianna
to eventually take over Modern Hair Styling. He didn’t
particularly want his children
to follow in his trade, “but
then I have also been bringing her here since she was
three.”
Driven by art
Dianna doesn’t think being
a toddler at the salon had a
big impact. She was more
interested in interior design.
“Both my parents are artistic
(her mother Hala is a seamstress) and I’ve always been
into art.” She studied interior
trade in my time at Ten Thousand
Villages, but I have also learned a
lot about people. Before I began
volunteering, I didn’t realize how
interested many people are in making
choices that consider people around
the globe. It is so easy to get caught
up in the small part of the world that
we see every day, and it can be difficult to remember that our actions
have a much farther reach than we
are sometimes aware. Working at Ten
Thousand Villages has shown me that
many people are trying to become
more aware of the effects we have on
a global level, and that is such a great
thing to see happening.” – Courtney
Lindsay
Communities helping communities
around the globe: that’s the inspiring
mission of Ten Thousand Villages,
and one that resonates with many
people here in the Old Ottawa South
community. Over thirty people volunteer regularly at the store on Bank
Street – an incredible number, given
the unglamorous role of volunteer
sales associate. But they all consider
this work an important part of their
community giving back to the world.
“I volunteer at Ten Thousand
Villages for many reasons. First,
I strongly support the store’s mission to provide artisans around the
world with an opportunity to sell
design and cooking and then
worked in an office, “until
my sister said: stop fighting
it.”
Dianna worked at a few
salons across town, “I always
liked trying new things with
my hair, it’s the color that I
love.” The thought of taking
over the salon is “daunting”,
but “like everything else
you’ve got to truck away.”
Her sister Aline is an accountant, brother Charble is
in the construction business
and brother Toni is working
in Lebanon.
Chat room
Sami isn’t likely to retire
full-time. Partly because the
hair styling business is a social one. “I like chatting with
people and doing hair. I have
this strong personality. I’m
open and say what I want. I
like to create something. In
this job each customer has
a different personality and
character and that’s what I
love.”
Perhaps the appeal of Modern Hair Styling is that it is a
social salon as well as a hair
salon. “People can sit, relax
and listen to soft music,”
says Sami, “and have a great
conversation.”
their products and earn a fair income.
It’s a great opportunity to help affect change and improve people’s
lives. Secondly, I’m happy to support a unique, locally owned retail
business in my neighbourhood. By
acting locally and volunteering at the
store, I’m helping to make a positive
impact in over 35 countries and I get
to meet new people and chat with
friends and neighbours when they
visit the store,” says Gerald Bailie,
a keyholder volunteer at Ten Thousand Villages and Old Ottawa South
resident.
Recently, community volunteers
have taken on even more responsibility in the store, by becoming what are
called “keyholder” volunteers. These
dedicated volunteers open and close
the store, taking care of the everyday
business of running the store, and
allowing it to continue to support
artisans around the world as a notfor-profit organization. Old Ottawa
South is showing that not all aspects
of globalization need to be harmful.
Instead, communities can respect
one another, helping to sustain each
others’ livelihoods. However, without the dedication of volunteers like
Gerald and Courtney, this would not
be possible.
THE OSCAR
l
Page 11
JUNE 2013
The Island in the Middle of Ottawa
By Gail Stewart
When Colonel By built the Rideau
Canal, he simultaneously but serendipitously created an island at the
northern end. Bounded by the Rideau
River on one side and the Rideau Canal on the other, this island sits today
in the middle of the city of Ottawa.
Starting at Hog’s Back Falls on the
Rideau River the island curves north
to end about eight kilometres distant
at the Ottawa River. At that point the
canal drops steeply through a series
of locks to the Ottawa River. Slightly
more than a kilometre to the east, the
Rideau River descends like a curtain
(Fr. rideau) into the Ottawa, forming
Rideau Falls.
Surprisingly, given its influence
on Ottawa traffic patterns, the island
itself seems not to be well-recognized
as an environmental, social and
geographic feature of Ottawa. Even
among the island’s own resident
human communities it remains, it
seems, unnamed and their shared
inhabitation of it goes largely unmentioned.
In early days the island area, Al-
gonquin territory, was largely forest
and swamp. When Colonel By began
his work, human settlement by newcomers was mainly near the Ottawa
River. Today the island itself is the
site of intensive human habitation of
the same kind as surrounds it in the
larger city of Ottawa.
The south end of the island, at
Hog’s Back Falls, begins with a
narrow strip of land and a parkway,
Colonel By Drive (which itself
then runs through the city along the
Canal). The island then opens into a
wider area on which Carleton University is situated. Two residential
districts, Old Ottawa South and Old
Ottawa East, the latter including St.
Paul University, now successively
occupy the island, followed by an
older area, Sandy Hill, containing a
residential district, the University of
Ottawa, and a major shopping mall.
Across a busy commercial street
(Rideau Street) is Lowertown, at the
northern end of the island. A historic district of Ottawa, it contains a
market area, an old residential district
and several national institutions
(including a gallery, a mint, and the
Canadian foreign office) before the
Volunteers Needed
for Scouts and Cubs
By Michael Thibault, Group
Commissioner 17th Southminster Scouting Group
If you like the outdoors and like to
help kids reach their potential, the
17th Southminster Beaver Colony,
Cub Pack and Scout Troop need
you. We are looking for leaders to
help with weekly programming and
occasional weekend outings. 17th
Southminster has been providing
fun and adventure in Old Ottawa
South for 80 years. Come join the
tradition and bring your own love of
adventure, building, education and
community to the group. No experience necessary, training and support
is provided!
The Beaver Colony meets Wednesday night for boys and girls aged 5
to 7. Their motto is Sharing Sharing Sharing and they enjoy making
new friends, learning new games
and crafts and learning about nature.
Based on previous years’ registra-
tion numbers, we are considering a
second Beaver Colony to meet on
Tuesday nights.
The Cub Pack meets Monday
nights and is made up of boys and
girls aged 8-10. The motto is Do
Your Best and that is the emphasis
as we teach the kids new skills and
introduce them to new experiences in
the city and in the woods.
Our Scout Troop’s motto is Be
Prepared. These boys and girls, aged
11-13, are challenged to expand on
their experiences in Cubs and try to
plan ahead, work as a team, and take
more responsibility for the success of
their projects. Scouts meet on Tuesday evenings.
If you would like to volunteer to
help with the Cubs or Scouts, or in
a more administrative role with the
Group Committee, please contact our
Registrar at southminsterscouts@
rogers.com, or check out the Scouts
Canada website at http://www.scouts.
ca/ca/volunteer.
tions. (Historically too, as one local
writer reminds us and many gardeners know, the Ottawa area in general
“still wants to be a forest.”)
All in all the island, with the air
flowing over it, the waters around its
shores and its own many inhabitants
and visitors, may be conceived as
an ecology -- an island community
in the middle of Ottawa. It is thus
interesting to consider how various
animals may now reach or leave
the island. While birds and many
insects may fly, the waterways pose
an obstacle for these other creatures
(barring their swimming, crossing the
ice in winter or using the bridges).
This raises some interesting questions. While our island finches may
have the same beaks as other finches
in the Ottawa area and the island’s
dogs and cats are probably largely
imported over the bridges, are the
island squirrels perhaps evolving differently from other Ottawa squirrels?
And what of its other inhabitants?
island itself terminates at the Ottawa
River. Throughout the island there
are schools, churches, embassies,
small businesses -- and roads.
The island today can be reached
in the summer by boat and in the
winter by crossing the frozen waterways. It can also be accessed across
some twenty bridges which currently
connect it to mainland Ottawa. From
north to south, over the canal, the
bridges are Sapper’s (Plaza) Bridge,
Mackenzie King, Laurier, Corktown
Footbridge, Queensway, Pretoria,
Bank and Bronson. The Rideau River
bridges are Sussex Drive, Minto,
St. Patrick, Cummings, Hurdman,
Transitway, George McIlraith, Billings, Dunbar, O-Train, Heron Road
and Hog’s Back Road, (the latter two
crossing both the river and the canal).
Additionally two bridges cross the
Ottawa River from the island, to
Gatineau Quebec: the Alexandra
Bridge and the Macdonald Cartier.
While the island may be seen
as an urban area containing green
spaces, it is also possible and perhaps
more attuned to current perceptions
to conceive it inversely, as natural
space containing human construc-
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Page 12
THE OSCAR
LOCAL LANDSCAPING
Front Yards Bring Us Together
By Jay Ladell
June is a great month to launch this
gardening column since this is when
people spend a lot of time out in their
gardens and outdoor living spaces.
As a landscape designer, installer
and owner of Ladell Landscaping &
Gardens, I am excited about writing
specifically for Old Ottawa South
residents. Over the coming months
I will share my knowledge and my
15 years of garden and landscaping
experience.
This can be an interactive learning space, with your participation.
Readers are invited to send me ideas
for topics. Some topics will be geared
for both beginners, who are eager to
start - but not quite sure where - and
topics for seasoned gardeners, who
are ready to tackle a new phase of
their garden.
When people ask me why I enjoy
creating living greenscapes, I tell
them it is because of the connection
I feel to the natural world. I spent
many days in the Gatineau Park as
a boy. Our family often escaped for
weekend camping, for hiking adventures and relaxing afternoons at the
beach. This park is full of stunning
natural features, unique plants and
wildlife. That’s why every visit there
renews my soul.
Today, I bring the park’s essence
to people’s yards. Ottawa’s urban
yards can be flat as a pancake. By
adding gentle slopes, natural stones
and plants, along with water features,
my clients get a piece of the Gatineau
Park on their property.
I truly love the creative process
of sculpting the landscape and have
always enjoyed the concept of transforming ideas into reality. I began
creating art as a teen, studying fine
art and photography. I experimented
with texture and light to capture stilllife images.
Switching from still-life art to landscaping was a natural progression
as it allows me to create living art.
I now work with organic elements
that are tangible and dynamic. Each
element brings something different to the garden, plants bring life,
stone anchors the landscape, wood
brings texture and function and water
add joyous sound. A well-designed
outdoor space is rejuvenating, calming and brings people together with
nature.
Old Ottawa South is a strong community that draws people and nature
together. The neighbourhood has unparalleled natural elements: Windsor
and Brewer parks, the Rideau River,
the canal and the mature tree-lined
streets. It makes sense to incorporate
these natural features into your front
yard.
Front yards are becoming places
where people interact. Adding
semi-private sitting areas to your
front yards can transform them into
informal courtyards, places that link
your home with the community.
More residents now sit on their front
porches, just as former residents did
back when these homes were first
built. They chat with neighbours and
greet folks passing by.
Creating natural front courtyards is
easy as long as you start with a good
design plan. Even if your front yard
is small, you can still add natural features. Just by placing a boulder and
few plants, you transform how you
relate to your yard.
When you enter a great garden,
you can see people completely
change. They go back into that early
ancestral mind of ours, nurtured at
a very fundamental level. And this
can be done even in a public front
yard. Front yard courtyards provide
visual interest, relaxation and mental
stimulation. Imagine how welcoming it would
be if you added a front garden bursting with life, in place of the flat, typical lawn. Add plants with texture and
colour, or a path with a sense of entry
that invites visitors to your door. If
space permits, you can build a hidden
reading nook surrounded by plants.
For those without front porches, try
adding a bench shaded by flowering
shrubs.
To do this it’s crucial to understand
the needs of the plants and what’s
going to work where. Plants change
season to season, they grow, they
l
JUNE 2013
bloom, they interact with their environment.
Take the serviceberry shrub. This
one shrub completely transforms its
surroundings throughout the seasons.
In spring, it blooms for two weeks
with a beautiful white cascade of
flowers. Edible red berries appear
in summer, and small leaves give a
dapple shade when the shrub matures. In fall, you get amazing orange
and red leaf colour.
You might think that it’s less work
just to have lawn, but I have some
clients who put in just an hour a
month into their garden, maybe less.
You can eliminate ninety percent of
weeds by mulching.
Having a professional involved
to do the back-end work can really
make life easier, such as getting
things set up right in the first place.
This allows you to relax and enjoy
your garden.
Summer has arrived; it’s time to
create some beauty!
Send your topic ideas to oscar@
landscapeottawa.com or visit: www.
landscapeottaw.com
Jay Ladell is an award-winning
landscape designer, industry certified- installer, member of Landscape
Ontario and owner of Ladell Landscaping & Gardens.
PHOTO BY PETER WELLS
Windsor Pups Spring Clean Up – 16 years Running
By Peter Wells
I am not one for enthusiastic explicatives but to anyone who walked
through the park on Saturday afternoon it was pretty impressive. A
great crew showed up on a spectacular spring morning and by noon the
deed was done. Saplings had been
cleared along the riverbank from
Bank to Main, brush cleared, garbage removed dog waste (very little)
removed, the many areas including
the pool, tennis courts and play areas
raked, the sand cleared/leveled and
the asphalt swept.
The Linda Thom, Windsor and
Brighton Beach parks are a case
study in a community that works.
They are well used and gorgeous because of the people who enjoy them.
They are a focus for our community
of adults, parents, kids, swans, ducks
and perhaps the occasional mutt.
Each year we put the word out and
“they just come.” Shovels, rakes,
clippers & bags in hand. The coffee,
Timbits and treats have little to do
with it. Ok well, perhaps just a bit.
There were piles of cut saplings,
broken branches throughout the
park. I would guess at over 60 bags
of compost, and at least 20 bags of
waste which the city will pick up.
This year we even had a crew head
out to Bank & Sunnyside to remove
litter from the street & parking
areas. Local businesses have been
approached on this new expanded
initiative, and we are considering
having a larger community wide
clean up effort each spring. Thanks
to Georgina Hunter for driving this.
Thanks to Linda Thom for managing the troops in the south end and
Gary Lum for guiding the clearing of underbrush along the river.
Thanks to the City, Wag Cafe, Global
Pet Foods, Tim Horton’s and Tracy
Arnett for kicking in everything from
food, to compost, and compostable
poop bags in support of the effort.
It is a pretty great community and
if you are interested I would suggest
you join the Windsor Pups group on
Facebook. It is a good interactive
way to get the hot scoop on news of
interest to park users. Thanks again
to all, and see you in the park.
THE OSCAR
l
Page 13
JUNE 2013
COMMUNITY GARDEN
Consultation on Biodome Garden
A preliminary schematic of the biodome with a ten foot radius, the doorway and base to be
added. Graphic by Kaveh Baradaran
Brewer Park Community
from 3:30pm to 4:30pm in
By Michael Oster
Garden invites you to attend
the Brewer Pool meeting
a community consultation
room. Capital Ward Councilon the Biodome Garden
lor David Chernushenko has
Project on Sunday, June 2,
been invited to attend, and
all members of the public are
welcome.
The Biodome Garden is an
innovative project of Brewer
Park Community Garden that
will address food security
in Ottawa by extending our
growing season. Other benefits will include communitybuilding, diet and health, and
educational programming.
During the meeting, we will
describe the proposed Biodome Garden and answer any
questions you may have.
The Biodome Garden is
one of four projects supported by the Neighbourhood
Connection Office at the
City of Ottawa, with groundbreaking planned for summer
2013 and completion in fall/
winter 2013.
Brewer Park Community
Garden is a non-profit community-based organization
that operates a community
garden open to all who live,
work or study in Old Ottawa
South and in neighbouring
areas. For more information,
please visit brewerparkcommunitygarden.weebly.com/
and ottawa.ca/en/neighbourhood-connection-office or
email mostercanada@gmail.
com or guy@ecoace.ca
Coming Up, Season Two, at Brewer Park Community Garden!
By Allison Kemp
There are big plans for the Community Garden this coming season, and
we want to give you a taste of the
action to come! This year, we’ve got
plans to grow even bigger. We are
planning to build more garden boxes,
to construct a Biodome Garden, a
garden shed, and to expand on our
Children’s Garden and Donations
Plots programming.
This spring, we had over 45 local
Old Ottawa South residents, students, and families apply for garden
boxes – up from 18 plot gardeners
last year. Most of those applicants
will be getting a plot, thanks to the
Ontario Trillium Foundation, Just
Food Ottawa through the Community Garden Development Fund,
and the City of Ottawa, which have
provided us with enough funding to
build 35 more garden boxes! Those
garden boxes, which are used for
personal plots, the children’s garden
and donations plots, will double the
size of our current garden and will
more or less complete the growth our
garden, as originally planned.
This summer, the Children’s Garden will be quite active with children
discovering the wonders of growing
their own food. We will be partnering with Westboro Academy, Capital
Day Care, Nathalie’s Home Day
Care, Astolot Educational Centre,
and the Great River School.
Also for the children, we have a
sand box (located in the shade, beneath a tree), and we are planning to
put in a swing set. We also have bird
feeders set up for folks to watch and
listen to the birds, and for the birds to
watch and listen to us (and hopefully
to eat some of the insects that may
enjoy munching on our plants).
Our donations plots program will
be partnering again this year again
with the St. Margaret Mary’s Church
“In From the Cold” Program, and
new this year, we will be partnering
with Centretown Community Health
Centre, and South-East Ottawa Community Health Centre which have
found families that will benefit from
our garden.
We have also been approved for
funding from the Ottawa Better
Neighbourhoods Program for a pilot
project to develop a biodome garden
- the first of it’s kind in Ottawa! Like
a greenhouse, the biodome would
give us an extended growing season,
as well as serve as a demonstration,
education and research station, for
gardeners, community members, and
local schools.
This project will offer the public
unique hands-on opportunities to
learn not only about the basics of
growing organic vegetables locally,
but also about how the biodome
structure works, the benefits of companion planting, and the purpose of
using aquaculture (we will have fish
in the biodome) in growing food.
We hope you will come on down,
bring your kids, your grandparents,
your friends, your dog, and/or your
favorite book and spend some time
at the garden this summer. Also, stay
tuned! We will be organizing picnic
evenings and other social events at
the garden (details to come, and will
be posted on our website).
We have many opportunities to get
involved with garden building and
maintenance activities, the Biodome
Project, donations plot volunteer
gardeners, social events planning,
garden programming, and more! We
are also hoping to hire two summer
students to help with the design,
building, and maintenance of the garden plots, the biodome garden, and a
garden shed; as well as to provide us
with horticultural advice.
If you’d like to get involved, or for
more information, you can telephone
us locally at 343-883-7967, or email
Community
Consultation on the
Biodome Garden
Project on
Sunday, June 2, from
3:30pm to 4:30pm
Brewer Pool
meeting room.
us at brewergarden@gmail.com .
You can also find news and updates
on our website: http://brewerparkcommunitygarden.weebly.com/, and
we are also on Facebook and Twitter.
Page 14
THE OSCAR
l
JUNE 2013
TUNDRA REVIEW
By Chris Whitehead
With the summer just around the
corner - and with it the brutal and
torturously humid heat that drives
so many out of the city and to their
cottages (unlike, poor woeful me,
forever trapped in the sweltering
city, sigh) - some of you may have
heard whispers (or, really, just read
the sign in the window) that Tundra
has more to offer than just our new
monthly membership with its limitless borrowing. The rumours are true!
In response to suggestions that we
create some middle-ground for the
occasional TV and Film watchers in
the neighbourhood, and in anticipation of the often hectic and unpredictable schedules that summer brings
with it, Tundra has introduced the
Three-Day-Pass. We began tentatively offering the pass in May, and while
we’re still ironing out some of the
unexpected bumps, it’s been exceptionally well received. So if you’ve
been sitting out in the cold waiting
for us to offer up an alternate option
to our popular monthly membership,
you need wait no longer. Now, on to
telling you what to watch...
Having spent the last month reading extensively (to the point where I
found myself sleeping an inordinate
amount from the sheer volume of
mental exercise I forced upon myself)
I find myself in the awkward position of having nothing new to review.
Although, as a side note, I do urge
readers of fantasy novels to check out
“The Name of the Wind” by Patrick
Rothfuss and “Perdido Street Station”
by China Meiville - both exceptionally well-written and crafted novels.
Not that I didn’t watch anything, but
really most of the stuff I saw was
at best mildly entertaining without
being bad enough to trash-talk and
thereby unload my worldly bitterness
on, nor good enough to ramble and
gush praise over. “Jack Reacher” was
entertaining enough, but Tom Cruise
was...well, Tom Cruise. “Broken
City” was interesting but would have
made a better television series (especially if it had still had that cast).
“Gangster Squad” was amusing, but
it’s basically “The Untouchables” set
in Los Angeles. “The Squad” was a
well-made Colombian horror-thriller,
but apparently no one who reads my
reviews actually likes horror films
(which saddens me greatly inside).
The only film I would steadfastly
insist is good is the European actiondrama “Special Forces” which is
gripping, intelligent, moving and
with some very well executed action
sequences.
With nothing new to rave or rant
about I ran through the various
requests people have of me: what are
some good family films (not going to
happen), romances (seriously?), historical dramas set in late renaissance
Rome (umm...no offence, but let’s
not get so specific), there were others,
none of which I can remember at this
time. However, one of the interesting
side effects of the new monthly membership and its unlimited borrowing
has been an increased demand for
TV series, and specifically for series
people can “get into.” To that end, I
have before me two lists, the first is
based on inquires (i.e. “Is it worth the
time to watch X?”) and the second
is filled with shows that I simply
enjoyed enough to recommend.
First, for those who keep wondering:
“Lost” - Six seasons of strangeness
and a disappointing ending should
not dissuade you from exploring
an otherwise fascinating world and
story. This show IS worth watching, it’s got some great twists and
turns and is generally well written,
although it does decline in quality
over time. “Battlestar Galactica”
- umm, well, yeah, really bad ending...starting to see a trend (I believe
I’ve pointed it out more than once
with regard to the film industry), but
the show IS entertaining enough to
work your way through, there’s a lot
of intelligent content and engaging
ideas that make it time well wasted.
“The X-Files” - well, this is a little
bit problematic: in some respects it
really doesn’t survive the passage of
time well, it never quite gets beyond
its one-story-per-episode structure
but it tries desperately to develop an
over-arching conspiracy that always
feels soft - watch it, but I suggest
that between each season you watch
something else. “The Wire” - best
NEW PATIENTS WELCOME
Dr Pierre Isabelle
Dr Mathieu Tremblay
TV series ever made, flat out, if you
haven’t watched it yet then you damn
well better have a good reason. I
think that covers the shows that I
get asked the about most often...now
to suggest some shows I’ve really
enjoyed - and all with at least five
seasons available!
“Burn Notice” - one of the first
shows produced by the USA network, “Burn Notice” embodies their
model of mixing a light sense of humour with a clever story and interesting characters (other shows from the
network, all of which I’ve enjoyed,
include “Fairly Legal”, “Suits”,
“Royal Pains” and “Glades”). This
show follows an ex-spy who is stuck
(literally not allowed to leave, or
else) in Miami trying to figure out
who “burned” him, and while biding
his time he ends up using his spycraft
to do odd-jobs for people in need (it’s
a little like “MacGyver” meets “Magnum PI”). There’s a lot of depth to
the show, the stories are exceedingly
fun to watch and the characters are
absolutely wonderful (wow, I really
hate having to be so bombastic about
things). For pure entertainment value
I have yet to encounter a better show.
“Fringe” - Another series from JJ
Abrams (the creator of “Lost” and
“Alias”), this one just finished its
fifth and final season. Very much in
the vein of “The X-Files” with its
conspiracies and covert investigations, “Fringe” has a much better
flow to it and far more interesting
twists (due in large part to a better
understanding of the possible implications of modern science). The first
season is the weakest, in part because
it takes its time developing the world
and building the story-lines instead of
just plunging the viewer straight in,
but this was a intelligent, occasionally disturbing, and always interesting show.
“NCIS” - So far we have nine
seasons, with two more in the works,
so there’s certainly plenty of this
show to watch. On the surface this
series began as a standard procedural
crime-drama and over time developed into something of a crime-thriller-espionage-conspiracy-drama-withcomedic-moments hybrid. It’s fairly
unbelievable in many respects (the
technology, the unprofessionalism)
but the stories are entertaining and
the characters are likeable - especially the stoic Jethro Gibbs, who is
probably one of my favourite characters of all time - and importantly the
show has a really unusual charismatic
charm to it.
“The Shield” - Following a group
of corrupt cops in LA, this is a gritty,
visceral show that embraces the
violence of its focus with a certain
twisted relish. There are some really
disturbing events over the course of
the show, and the story that unfolds
can occasionally border on the absurd, but the characters are incredibly
well-acted, and there is a certain indulgence that watching this show will
satisfy. Not for the easily offended,
but certainly a wild ride.
“Supernatural” - By the time the
seventh seasons rolls around this
show has offered up fascinating
alternate mythologies of everything
from vampires to demons to angels
to the things that came before. This
is one of the most creative shows on
TV, and probably one of the least
appreciated (though it does have
a strong enough following on the
CW that it keeps getting renewed...
WOOHOO!!). It follows two brothers (each fascinatingly dysfunctional
in their own way) who hunt down
the various things that go bump in
the night, and become increasingly
entangled in events well beyond their
ability to deal with, and yet somehow
prevail... or barely survive while
ending up horribly psychologically
scarred. The show has managed to
blend a sense of the heroic and epic
with the cynical ennui and apathetic
pathos of the modern era (yes, I’m
being wordy) while maintaining a
dark a sense of humour. The writing
is, frankly, impressive, and for anyone with a strong creative impulse I
cannot recommend this show enough.
Reviews courtesy of Chris at Tundra
Moving Pictures, your local purveyor
of fine films and television series,
located at 435 Sunnyside @ Seneca.
Needed OSCAR
Deliverer
For the route South side of Avenue Road between Bristol Avenue and Glenview Avenue (17 papers) the block.
GLEBE DENTAL CENTRE
FIFTH AVENUE COURT-EVENING APPOINTMENTS
OPEN MONDAY-FRIDAY
For appointments call 613-234-6405
call: 613-327-9080
or email: larryostler@gmail.com
THE OSCAR
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Page 15
JUNE 2013
COMPUTER TRICKS AND TIPS
The Infuriating Subject of Printers – Part 2
By Malcolm and John Harding of Compu-Home
In our last column we began to
explore the subject of printers and
some of the bewildering decisions
and frustrations when they break
down or can’t perform as you had
originally hoped. It is truly sad to see
the huge number of relatively new
machines that are on their way to
recycling or, worse, the landfill. We
hope that these two columns can ease
the printer pain.
Cartridges – a Key Factor
Traditionally, the manufacturer’s
own cartridges are of very high quality, and are also quite expensive. The
store where you bought your printer
will be happy to sell them to you
and you might sometimes find that a
set of cartridges totals more than the
original price of the printer.
There is a huge price range in ink
or toner cartridges and one reason for
this is the popularity of that particular model. Availability and price of
the cartridge should be an important
factor in the purchase decision of the
printer when you first go shopping.
Many manufacturers sell extracapacity cartridges for a bit higher
price, and if you know that you
have some big jobs coming up these
premium cartridges might be a good
choice, for the sake of the price and
convenience. On the other hand,
inkjet cartridges are notorious for
drying up and clogging before they
are empty, especially if the printer is
idle for an extended period. It’s pretty
frustrating to have to throw away an
extra-capacity cartridge that has only
been used for a small fraction of its
life.
Cartridges for some printer models (both inkjets and lasers) can be
reloaded, and if yours falls in that
category, you might wish to give this
strategy a try – we get mixed reports.
There are kiosks in many malls
around the city where you can either
leave your cartridge for reloading, or
you can simply drop off your empty
cartridge and buy one that has been
reloaded and sealed, ready for use.
Remanufactured cartridges are another choice. In Ottawa, Envirolaser,
Capital Cartridge and Qualtec are just
three of several companies that will
take back your empty cartridge and
sell you a replacement that they have
inspected, cleaned and refilled. It is
mostly laser cartridges that are available this way, but you can make some
calls or check online to see where to
find your inkjet model too.
Another significant saving (depending on model) is third-party
cartridges. Some stores sell a “house
brand” of cartridge for quite a bit
less than the original name brand.
We also have excellent experience in
buying clone cartridges online with
a significant saving, from Amazon.
ca. The service is quick and reliable,
shipping is inexpensive or free, and
the product is guaranteed.
We can’t leave the subject of
cartridges without pointing out one
of the cheesiest practices in the
entire retail technology business: the
so-called “starter” cartridge that is
about one-third full, and comes with
all new printers. Every manufacturer
OOS Resident Gets Jubilee Medal
Irena Bell
PHOTO BY KEITH BELL
By Kathy Krywicki
On April 16, 2013, Irena Bell was
presented with the Queen’s Diamond
Jubilee Medal by Senator Raynell
Andreychuk in a ceremony on Parlia-
ment Hill.
“It is with great pride that I
awarded Irena the Queen Elizabeth
II Diamond Jubilee Medal. Her record of community service and her
dedication to issues of importance
to Canada and our community is
remarkable,” stated Senator Raynell
Andreychuk. “Irena has been, and
continues to be, one of our community’s unsung heroes who deserves
to be recognized.”
Since her work with the Multilingual Biblioservice Division of the
National Library of Canada, and at
the University of Ottawa as Coordinator for the Chair of Ukrainian
Studies, Irena’s community activities include producing and hosting
the weekly Ukrainian radio program in Ottawa (CHIN, 97.9 FM).
She previously hosted the Ottawa
‘Ukrainian Profile’ TV program on
Rogers TV. Irena continues to be
active in Ukrainian and other community activities and is a long-time
resident of Old Ottawa South.
Congratulations, Irena!
does this, unfortunately, and so you
can’t escape. You might just as well
bite the bullet and pick up a replacement cartridge at the same time
(although not necessarily at the same
store) when you buy your printer in
the first place.
Repairs?
In a nutshell, repairs probably ain’t
happenin’. We have found that the
shops in town that advertise printer
repairs are primarily oriented toward the high end commercial level
machines that cost thousands to buy
and are therefore probably worth
hundreds to repair. It simply doesn’t
make sense to pay a technician’s
hourly rate to fix an inexpensive device, especially when nobody could
reasonably expect to stock that massive number of tiny delicate parts for
all the different models.
There are a few practices that users
can follow to avoid the dreaded paper
jam which, in turn, often leads to a
permanent breakdown: Don’t reuse paper. Don’t add a new stack of
paper on top of the last few remaining sheets in the paper tray. We have
found that 24 lb. paper is a bit more
substantial and less likely to jam than
the more common 20 lb. Finally,
despite the fact that a paper jam is
guaranteed to happen at the precise
moment that you are behind a frantic
deadline, it is vital to clear it slowly
and carefully. Imagine that you are
a surgeon repairing a butterfly wing,
because the parts are just about that
fragile.
. . . So Which One Should I
Choose?
In the end, we have sacrificed
a great number of words without
actually coming out and telling you
which printer to buy. That would
only happen after an extensive personal interview that would identify
your printing needs, which would
then lead to the device that you or
your business should consider. An
interesting approach to this process
is called the Configurator, from the
TopTenReviews website; just go to
http://tinyurl.com/bn7yetq and follow
the prompts. You may not necessarily find the printer that you will rush
out and buy this afternoon, but there
is very worthwhile food for thought
and guidance on the subject along the
way.
Do You really Have to Print This?
We would be remiss not to nag
you at this point about the massive
amount of printing that is actually
unnecessary. Computers really shine
when it comes to filing – let them do
their job, so that you can save money
and plastic molecules, as well as
trees.
Have a look at our blog, at www.
compuhomeottawa.wordpress.com
for an archive of our columns and
other tech-related articles. There is a
space right after each blog item for
you to make comments and suggestions, and ask questions. We hope you
will visit our blog soon or call us at
613-731-5954 to share your opinions
or suggest subjects for future columns.
Page 16
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JUNE 2013
M.P.’S REPORT
Protecting the Ottawa River
By Paul Dewar, MP
Our rivers are an important
part of what makes our city
and our country so unique.
They have served as major
transportation routes for our
entire history. They provide
us with clean drinking water,
and they are vital habitat for
wildlife.
But the Ottawa River is
threatened by our collective
environmental footprint.
Each time it rains, raw
sewage and rainwater flow
into the Ottawa River – 545
million litres in 2011 alone.
This leads to lower levels of
oxygen, chokes tributaries
with sediment and debris and
introduces carcinogens and
heavy metals to the river and
leads to high levels of bacteria that pose a risk to human
health.
On top of this, the Conservative government used
the budget bill of 2012 to
strip the protection under the
Navigable Waters Protection
Act from most of the Ottawa
River’s tributaries, including the Gatineau, the Missisippi, the Nation and the
Madawaska. The Environment Minister also blocked
community efforts to add the
Ottawa River to the Canadian
Heritage River System even
after John Baird, the minister
responsible for the National
Capital Region, unequivocally stated in Parliament that
he supported the move.
We deserve better, and so
does the Ottawa River. That’s
why on Earth Day this year, I
stood next to Ecology Ottawa
president Graham Saul to
call for a renewal of federal
support for the Ottawa river
through three straightforward, achievable initiatives.
Heritage River Status
First, I introduced a motion
calling on the government
to work with the provinces,
municipalities, First Nations
and communities along the
river to designate the Ottawa
River as a heritage river. This
designation would lead to the
creation of a joint federalprovincial management plan
for the river that would help
ensure sustainable use and
better cooperation between
all levels of government.
This motion has the full
support of all six of my New
Democrat colleagues whose
ridings border the river, from
Charlie Angus in TimminsJames Bay to Milène Freeman in Argenteuil-PapineauMirabel. It’s the kind of
initiative that all local MPs
can get behind.
Protection for Tributaries
Second, I am working with
my New Democrat colleague
and the Official Opposition’s
critic for the Environment,
Megan Leslie, on a national
campaign to restore the
protections under the Navigable Waters Protection Act
to rivers across the country
removed by the Conservative Government in 2012.
This would include restoring protections to most of
the Ottawa’s tributaries,
and restoring more thorough impact assessments
of proposed development
along our rivers.
Federal Support for Sewage Infrastructure Upgrades
The City of Ottawa’s $250
million Ottawa River Action
Plan would go a long way
to preventing huge outflows
of sewage from flowing
into the river each time it
rains. But the city can’t go
it alone without federal and
provincial support. While
the federal government has
provided funding for the first
two phases, the critical third
phase of the project remains
to be completed. It would see
Combined Sewer Overflow
Tunnels built to transport
and store the sewage and
overflows until they can be
processed.
Ecology Ottawa and other
groups like the Ottawa Riverkeeper continue to work hard
on this issue. Seven thousand
residents have signed their
petition to call for a halt to
dumping sewage into the
river and for federal and provincial support. I encourage
you to support this initiative
by signing the petition learning more about the river at
ecologyottawa.ca.
New Democrats have consistently called on the federal
government to support muchneeded infrastructure renewal
in Canadian cities. Stable
federal funding for this sewage project needs to be a part
of this federal commitment.
I will continue to work with
my colleagues in Parliament
to achieve this goal.
This spring, let’s work together to call on the government to protect our river’s
ecological health so that it
can be there for future generations to use and enjoy.
M.P.P.’S REPORT
A Prosperous and Fair Ottawa Centre
By Yasir Naqvi, MPP
On May 2, the Government of Ontario announced our 2013 Budget that
makes smart investments to strengthen our economy, helps create jobs for
youth and takes action to eliminate
the deficit by 2017-18.
Pre-budget consultations in Ottawa
Yasir Naqvi, MPP
Ottawa Centre
Here to help you!
Community Office
109 Catherine Street
Ottawa ON K2P 0P4
T: 613-722-6414 | F: 613-722-6703
ynaqvi.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org
www.yasirnaqvimpp.ca
fb facebook.com/yasirnaqvimpp
tw @yasir_naqvi
ensured that the 2013 Budget reflects
our community’s priorities. Our engagement included a jobs roundtable
with Premier Kathleen Wynne and
an interactive telephone town hall
with Finance Minister Charles Sousa.
In addition, I hosted a consultation
in Ottawa Centre on March 23, held
meetings with community stakeholders and visited residents door-to-door.
I am pleased to see that many of the
ideas and suggestions generated from
these conversations are reflected in
the Budget.
The central theme of this budget
is A Fair & Prosperous Ontario. Our
province’s economic performance
and social fabric become even stronger when everyone has the opportunity to succeed. A fair society means
everyone has access to high-quality
public services that support their
well-being and capacity to contribute
to the economy.
The most important thing we can
do to secure Ontario’s prosperity is
to eliminate the deficit – so deficit
reduction has been, and will continue
to be, our priority. This plan is working. The deficit for 2012–13 is now
estimated to be $9.8 billion — a $5
billion improvement compared with
the 2012 Budget forecast. This marks
the fourth year in a row that Ontario
has reported a lower deficit than forecast – the only government in Canada
to achieve this level of success.
Among its key themes, the Budget
proposes to improve access to highquality public services. We want to
make Ontario the healthiest place in
North America to grow up and grow
old by making sure families get the
best health care where and when they
need it. We will achieve this by:
Increasing investment in home and
community care by an additional one
per cent annually over the four per
cent increase announced in the 2012
Budget;
Focusing new investments on
providing care in the community to
increase options available to seniors
to help them stay at home longer,
while supporting those facing mental
health and addictions challenges; and
Reducing home care wait times
for nursing services and improving
personal support services for clients
with complex care needs with a target of providing service within five
days following assessment.
The Budget also contains measures to increase opportunities for all
Ontarians. We want to make it easier
for social assistance recipients to
transition to work by improving their
financial security, helping them deal
with adversity and promoting greater
independence and stability. We will
achieve this by:
Enabling Ontario Works (OW) and
Ontario Disability Support Program
(ODSP) recipients to keep the first
$200 of employment earnings each
month before their benefits are
reduced, helping them gain an initial
foothold in the labour force;
Working with partners to develop
a simpler, more effective and flexible
employment-related benefit structure
Continued on to pg 17
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Page 17
JUNE 2013
COUNCILLOR’S REPORT
Great Bike Cities are Great for Everyone
By David Chernushenko
Being a poet, my predecessor Clive
Doucet often introduced his columns
with a little poetry. Not being a poet,
I don’t.
I am, however, a filmmaker, or
at least I was until elected into this
60-plus-hours-a-week job. Back in
2010, I had just released my film
Powerful: Energy for Everyone.
When asked if I planned to make
more films while serving as councillor, I truthfully said no, as I could not
imagine finding the time and energy.
Well, 18 months later, the creative
itch began. I often carry a camera
with me to photograph and film
things I see in the course of my day.
A camera mounted on my bicycle
helmet lets me (safely) film attributes
of our ward and city to highlight the
good or to draw attention to needed
improvements.
By the summer of 2012, I knew
there would be a next film, and that
it would be about the joys, challenges and benefits of urban cycling.
Cycling vacations in New York City
and Montreal produced lots of material on what those cities are doing
to promote active transportation and
complete streets, with a particular
emphasis on building better cycling
infrastructure.
Back in Ottawa, I captured more
footage and interviewed people
with different perspectives on urban
cycling — families, women, business
owners, etc. I also consulted Ottawa’s
Integrity Commissioner to ensure
that my film wouldn’t pose any
ethical problems. His advice was to
find an independent person or group
to handle fundraising and payments
for editing and other expenses, and
to have that person/group publicly
release the final report on the film’s
financing. Both are being done.
In March, I attended the National
Bike Summit in Washington, D.C.
There, I learned a lot and interviewed more than a dozen people
from across North America, such as
transportation policy expert Ralph
Buehler, co-editor of the book City
Cycling. And I filmed my ride down
Pennsylvania Avenue on the new
lanes that connect the White House
with Capitol Hill.
Following that experience, I had to
agree with New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette SadikKhan, who said: “It’s getting harder
and harder to find an American city
that is not prioritizing cycling… it’s
everywhere!”
It became clear to me that efforts
to make a city better for cycling have
the fortunate consequence of making
the city better for everyone. Hence
the title of my film: Bike City, Great
City.
This spring has been especially
busy in Capital Ward, and it’s been a
challenge to find the time and energy
to complete the film. But, with the
help of creative partners and supportive producers, I’m thrilled to be
able to screen Bike City, Great City
at Capital Vélo Fest on June 1. Now
in its third year, Vélo Fest is a great
event that’s helping to make Ottawa
better and better for cycling (and
everyone else).
Should anyone think a councillor
has better things to do, whether on
the job or in his free time, I would
argue that it’s essential nowadays to
be creative in communicating ideas,
questioning old approaches and offering new solutions. Many people
tweet, blog and are active on other
social media. I choose to use video
because it is visual and evocative,
and because it’s energizing to use the
creative side of my brain and not just
the rational one.
More importantly, the film’s images, ideas and insights are exactly
what Ottawa needs right now as we
grapple with long-term economic and
infrastructure challenges.
Here are a few facts residents, planners and politicians in Ottawa and
other North American cities should
know:
• Many people who would like to
cycle don’t, mostly because they
are afraid of interacting with
traffic.
• Cycling is much safer than
people generally believe, and
good cycling infrastructure
makes it even safer. Just as
importantly, it makes cycling feel
safer.
• Riding the right kind of bike
matters: Mountain bikes and
racing bikes have their place,
but more upright city bikes are
more comfortable, carry cargo,
better protect your clothes and
offer better sight lines and
responsiveness in traffic.
• Most cyclists are also drivers,
and 60 percent of drivers cycle
at least occasionally. There is no
“us and them”, because we are
mostly the same people.
The most cost-effective and
best use of space on roadways,
in descending order: active
transportation (i.e. cycling,
walking), public transit, private
vehicle. More cycling means
more efficient allocation of our
tax dollars.
Despite what many believe, driving
does not pay for itself through
registration fees, gas taxes or tolls.
Roads, parking and bridges are
heavily subsidized through income
and property taxes, which means
cyclists are more likely to be
subsidizing drivers than the other
way around.
•
Councillor David Chernushenko 613580-2487 David.Chernushenko@
Ottawa.ca www.capitalward.ca
In Store PromotIon
to help social assistance recipients
find jobs; and
Continuing to upload social assistance programs from municipalities, ensuring the City of Ottawa can
focus property tax dollars on local
priorities like affordable housing.
As an initial step, the government
is increasing social assistance rates
by one per cent. Single adults on
OW without children will also receive an additional $14 per month.
To support Ontario’s most vulnerable, the Budget proposes to invest
more than $42 million annually in
additional funding to help adults
with developmental disabilities and
their families in urgent need.
The 2013 Budget also proposes
measures to support Ontario’s young
people with programs that help them
move into employment. We are proposing a comprehensive Youth Jobs
Please contact me at my Community
Office at ynaqvi.mpp.co@liberal.ola.
org or 613-722-6414 if you have any
questions.
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Continued from page 16
Strategy with an investment of $295
million over two years. The strategy
would support initiatives to promote
employment opportunities, entrepreneurship and innovation for youth in
Ontario. This includes a Youth Employment Fund to help create 25,000
jobs, and the creation of an Ontario
Youth Entrepreneurship Fund.
The Budget also proposes to make
the gas tax fund permanent –
transferring 2 cents per litre of the
gas tax to municipalities like Ottawa
to help fund OC Transpo.
Ontario’s 2013 Budget will build
a fair and prosperous Ontario for
the benefit of all residents in our
community.
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Page 18
THE OSCAR
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JUNE 2013
CENTRETOWN COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTRE
It Takes an Active Community to Shape Good Health
By Christina Marchant &
Émilie Sartoretto, Centretown Community Health
Centre
Engaged communities are critical
to the success of community health
centres (CHCs).
At the Centretown Community
Health Centre (CCHC), we encourage and welcome community participation. We believe that by playing
an active role, people can help shape
good health and well-being in their
communities.
Because clients and community
members are the experts on their own
community and health needs, we
trust them to determine their own priorities. Together, we identify needs,
set priorities, identify solutions, and
evaluate progress.
With an inclusive and grassroots
approach, community engagement is
an important ongoing process within
community health centres.
In fact, in many ways, it’s built
into our model of care. We take great
pride in our community-governed
approach: CHCs’ elected boards are
made up of community members
from all walks of life. There are so
many other formal and informal ways
“For example, urban
development and its
impacts are issues
that animate
discussions in our
communities.”
for people to get involved – suggesting a new program, volunteering,
filling out our yearly client survey,
telling us about important issues in
your neighbourhood or joining an advocacy committee. It all helps com-
munity health centres stay responsive
and become even more effective in
the work we do.
For example, urban development
and its impacts are issues that animate discussions in our communities. Whether about Lansdowne Park
redevelopment, the Ottawa Moves
Mobility Study, the City of Ottawa’s
pedestrian advocacy group, and numerous other planned and anticipated
developments, people are talking.
That’s not surprising given the
big changes underway in the city.
Over the next 5 years, it’s expected
that densification in urban Ottawa
will result in a population increase –
it’s anticipated that downtown will
count roughly the same number of
people as the town of Almonte.
We take the community’s ideas seriously. In this case, the healthy built
environment checklists – How might
this development affect people’s
health? – are a great example of
how the community and the CCHC
work together.
Brokerage
Glebe Comm / Res Property
Traditional Main Street Zoning
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www.
613.233.2323
OttawaUrbanRealty
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In collaboration with the Social
Planning Council of Ottawa and
many partners, the checklist project’s goal is to develop a simple
and easy-to-use tool that people can
use to consider a health lens within
their analyses of new developments
in their neighbourhoods. It’s being
piloted in urban areas, with an eye
to share more widely across other
urban and suburban neighbourhoods.
Eventually, based on the checklists,
this group hopes to track the overall
health impact of new developments
on communities over time.
Like the healthy development
checklists project highlights, some
exciting initiatives at community
health centres are grassroots and
community driven. The Ottawa
Senior Pride Network’s partnership
with the Centretown CHC is another
great example.
This group came to be through the
hard work and dedication of people
like Cathy Collett, Barry Deeprose
and Marie Robertson, who have
been fighting for gay rights since
the 1970s. The network identified
specific needs for the aging GLBTTQ
communities – especially important
given that there are currently no residential homes or care facilities that
cater to these communities.
To support projects like these,
community health centres make sure
their staff and community leaders
have the tools and expertise needed.
Community health centres across
Ottawa, including the Centretown
Community Health Centre, participated in a capacity building project
to develop facilitation skills. These
trained facilitators can now apply
these training modules – running effective meetings, community engagement, and action planning – in their
communities.
Get involved!
Why not get involved with your
local community health centre?
From sharing an idea for a new
program to joining our board of
directors, we encourage and welcome everyone’s participation!
At this time of year, community
engagement is especially top
of mind as we get ready for our
Annual General Meeting in June.
We’d love to hear from you.
Centretown Community Health
Centre | www.centretownchc.org |
613-233-4443
Want to help pilot the development checklists? Visit http://bit.ly/
healthy_development or contact
Christina at 613-233-4443 x2188.
(With files from Emilie Hayes at
the Somerset West Community
Health Centre.)
THE OSCAR
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JUNE 2013
ABBOTSFORD AT THE GLEBE CENTRE
Opening Doors to Seniors for Generations
By Julie Ireton
When Abbotsford House was built
by Alexander Mutchmor in 1872, it
was surrounded by trees and gardens
and on the outskirts of town. Now,
the historic stone house and senior’s
centre is really in the middle of the
action.
Abbotsford has a front row seat
as Lansdowne Park undergoes its
transformation, but it’s also a hotbed
of activities, workshops, events and
resources for Ottawa seniors.
Abbotsford at The Glebe Centre
has been a community centre for
adults aged 55 plus since 1975,
before that it was a home for elderly
men.
This spring, members and volunteers are once again preparing to
welcome the community inside this
unique home for the annual Doors
Open event on Saturday June 1st and
Sunday June 2nd from 10 am to 4
pm.
“We really want to celebrate our
rich history with the general public as
well as let people know what services
and programs we have on offer,” said
Pat Goyeche, co-ordinator of Community Programs at Abbotsford at
The Glebe Centre.
She’s currently looking for any
memories; pictures or stories neighbours might like to share about the
historic house.
“We have some incredible memorabilia that we will share with the general public, but this year we thought
we should ask for some information
first hand from those who have their
own memories and perhaps photos of
Abbotsford,” said Goyeche.
She says there’s a particular interest in Abbotsford’s famous vegetable
garden.
Abbotsford at the Glebe Centre has
a long history for caring for Ottawa’s
seniors. In the late 1800s, a few
philanthropic-minded people saw the
need to help elderly men in the city.
They created the “Protestant House
of Refuge.” In 1889, the old Mutchmor estate was purchased for $9,000
and the home for the aged was set up.
At that time, Abbotsford House
sat on about two acres with a shed, a
stable, a treed lot and a large garden
where the Glebe Centre’s long-term
facility now sits. Residents worked
in the garden. As the story goes,
the steward in charge believed that
“light, casual labour was good for the
physical well-being of the residents.”
Produce from that garden actually
helped feed the residents of the home
and any surplus was sold to local
grocers.
“It wasn’t an easy life for the men/
inmates who lived here near the turn
of the last century, but I like to think
the men enjoyed the view of the
Lansdowne Park from the porch and
looked forward to the annual exhibition and special occasions such as
Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. We plan to
celebrate Queen Victoria and Queen
Elizabeth Jubilees jointly this year
with a nod to the past in our grand
dining room,” said Goyeche.
These events will feature fine teas
and fresh scones served with stewed
rhubarb and strawberries for sale in
the grand dining room when we open
our doors to Ottawa on June 1st and
2nd.
Doors Open weekend is Saturday
June 1st and Sunday June 2nd from
10 am to 4 pm in Abbotsford! (950
Bank Street)
Werner Ernst Noffke: Ottawa’s Architect by Shannon Ricketts
Book Review
By Janine Debanné
Shannon Ricketts’ monograph on
“Ottawa’s architect” Werner Noffke
is a welcome addition to the literature on Ottawa, and will appeal to
those interested in the history of this
City’s built fabric and architecture.
With this pamphlet-like book, Ricketts presents a body of knowledge
regarding Noffke’s copious production in the Nation’s capital. The work
provides a biography of the German
émigré and a comprehensive inventory of surviving Noffke buildings
in Ottawa, with a description, a
photograph of the exterior and, in
the centre pages of the book, colour
photographs of the interiors of some
of Noffke’s grand homes. The reader
will recognize many of the buildings,
and appreciate the architect’s important role in Ottawa in the first half of
the twentieth century. The author has
included useful location maps and a
site plan of Noffke’s “city-beautiful”
Clemow Avenue development, to aid
those who wish to seek out Noffke’s
works in person.
From our own Firehall to the iconic
Postal Station B at Elgin and Sparks,
Corpus Christi and Immaculata (on
Bronson) Schools, to the handsome
Medical Arts Building on Metcalfe,
to name but a few, Noffke’s buildings have served as anchors for the
lives of Ottawa’s citizens, and some
still do. It has been said that one
could travel from one Noffke building to another their whole life in this
city: be born in a hospital (Noffke
designed a large addition to the old
General Hospital on Bruyère), grow
up in a Noffke house or apartment
building, worship in a church, go to a
school, work in an office building or
laboratory, and be mourned in a funeral home – all designed by Werner
Noffke.
Ricketts explains that, within
Noffke’s eclectic expressions (he
worked in a variety of architectural
idioms, including neo-gothic, Greek
revival, Tudor, and art deco), the
Spanish Colonial revival, inspired
by California architect Irving Gill,
was most characteristic of his work.
But while Gill was radically modern and innovative, Noffke’s works
were, as the author describes them,
“conservative reworkings of established themes.” “This adaptability,”
writes Ricketts, “was undoubtedly
one of the factors in the success of
Noffke’s practice.” His career recalls
that of Albert Kahn in Detroit, where
residential, civic and industrial commissions did not cohere into a single,
uniform expression of modernity,
but instead constitute a happy and
prolific mix of excellently crafted
buildings. Fortunately, Noffke’s general eclecticism was graced with a remarkable facility for creating elegant
facades and rich interior spaces.
The book reveals that, while
private house designs dominated
Noffke’s career, he also designed
many purpose-built apartment buildings, including the Ambassador
Court on Bank near Patterson Creek,
The Athlone on Maclaren Street, the
Charles Kert Apartments on Besserer, and the Holbrook Apartments on
Elgin Street. At the present, when
“house conversions” in our own
OOS neighborhood have brought
about a new form of rental apartment house design, it is instructive
to reflect on the enduring qualities of
Noffke’s apartment house designs.
These buildings were deemed worthy
of the same kind of stone entrances
and details that he designed for much
grander commissions. And due to the
quality of their design and execution, these statements of urbanity in a
young Ottawa continue to contribute
to and mesh with, their surroundings.
The book is clearly organized and
comprehensive, but, unfortunately, it
lacks architectural plans. Examples
of Noffke’s careful and dexterous
planning would have provided interesting insights and lessons on how
humane and elegant spaces might be
created in both the residential and
civic realms of this City, lessons especially valid now that higher densities and less defined forms of spatial
planning have become the rule.
Ricketts’ book contributes to the
ongoing project of raising awareness
on architecture and design in Ottawa.
And is not the first step in elevating discourse on architecture in this
City simply to know more about its
architects? The author is to be commended for her efforts in bringing to
light an architect who pondered the
question of Ottawa’s civic identity
through architecture.
Janine Debanné is an Associate
Professor at the Azrieli School of
Architecture and Urbanism, Carleton
University
Page 20
THE OSCAR
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JUNE 2013
COMMUNITY CUP
Ottawa’s Community Cup Shows Volunteer Power in Action
By Emilia de Somma
Preparations for 2013 edition of the
Community Cup on June 30th have
been well underway for months, and
it’s shaping up to be bigger than ever.
But truth be told, when I think back
to how it all started, I can hardly
believe where we are.
During my first Community Cup
Planning Team meeting, I had my
doubts about how it would all work.
You see, apart from three very dedicated staff with big goals, the Community Cup is driven by volunteers.
From finding sponsorships, to organizing the soccer tournament, kids
zone activities, and dance tent, to
leading nearly 200 day-of volunteers,
every aspect of the event is planned,
coordinated and executed by volunteers. So there we were, a group of
about 50 volunteers, many of whom
were either newcomers to Canada or
had never attended the event before,
being asked to make Community
Cup 2013 a reality. Part-way through
that meeting, perhaps seeing the
bewilderment in my eyes, a returning volunteer turned to me and said
reassuringly, “Don’t worry. I felt just
like you at my first meeting, but it all
comes together in the end. That’s the
magic of this event.”
The magic is twofold
The event itself is a free, family
friendly festival in Brewer Park, this
year taking place on the Canada Day
weekend. Started by the Catholic
Centre for Immigrants, a non-denominational not-for-profit settlement
agency, Community Cup harnesses
soccer and the power of sport to con-
nect people who otherwise might not
interact with diverse communities.
And for newcomers, the benefits of
Community Cup are long-lasting:
newcomers have expressed that this
event has been the point at which
they and their families felt truly welcomed and on their way to integration. Some have said they made new
friends; others made connections that
led to employment opportunities.
At the core though, the building of
social connections and the Community Cup’s magic both start during the
event planning stage. Volunteers on
the planning committee are split into
teams that focus on a particular planning task or subject area, putting their
skills to work, and acquiring new
ones, as they work towards a mutual
goal. And month by month, the event
takes shape, becoming something
that is more than the sum of its parts.
It’s a process that exemplifies volunteerism, achieving as a team, and
building community.
On June 30th, we hope the Old
Ottawa South community will join
ours, as we take in all the festivities of Community Cup 2013. Come
down to Brewer Park to enjoy soccer,
many demonstration sports, the dance
stage, Farmers’ Market fare, and a
Citizenship Reaffirmation Ceremony.
What better way to get in the Canada
Day spirit, and help celebrate our
welcoming communities and the
power of volunteerism?
Admission is free! Registration for
the 7-on-7 recreational soccer tournament is open until June 12th, 2013.
Visit www.communitycup.ca for
more information
Wheels, Deals, and Stompin’ Heels:
The Spring Sale and Cleanup at Hopewell Public School
By Kate Jaimet
The line stretched forty people deep,
as eager buyers waited for the doors
to open at Hopewell Avenue Public
School’s annual Spring Fling sale on
Saturday, May 11.
“It was fast and furious at the
beginning,” said Maggie Fawcett,
the volunteer in charge of selling
bikes and other wheeled vehicles.
“We opened the doors at 9:30 and a
whoosh of people swooped in and
scooped up the bikes.”
Meanwhile, at the table selling
perennial plants and hanging baskets,
volunteers Jennifer Small, Samiah
Ibrahim and Jocelyn Jenkins hustled
hostas and peddled pansies.
“I can talk to you up and down.
Shade, sun, bring it on! I’ve got you
covered,” said Small, who is also
the president of the school’s Parent
Council.
By the time the event wrapped
up at 11:30 a.m., sales of plants and
wheeled vehicles – including bikes,
trikes, strollers and skateboards – had
raised $1121.00 toward revitalization of Hopewell’s primary-age
schoolyard. As well, volunteers in
Hopewell’s annual spring cleanup
had cleared the schoolyards of litter
and added fresh topsoil and mulch to
the flowerbeds outside the school.
“We just came to dig stuff,” commented hardworking Junior Kindergartener Derek Michael Hall, as
he stood atop a pile of mulch in the
elementary schoolyard.
The ever-popular annual event,
dubbed the “Spring Fling,” combined
the talents of approximately fifty
volunteers who either staffed the
sales tables in the Hopewell parking
garage, or wielded rakes and shovels
in the yards.
“It’s good they’ve combined all
sorts of events, because it brings
people out with all sorts of interests,”
said volunteer Claudia Sanmartin,
who doled out Tim Horton’s coffee
and donuts to yardworkers.
In charge of the yard cleanup was
Hopewell dad Mike Waddington,
who sits on the Parent Council’s
External Environment Committee (a
fancy name for the playground committee, he explained). Since the yard
cleanup was registered with the City
of Ottawa’s Cleanup the Capital initiative, the city donated a cubic yard
of mulch for the flower beds, with
first priority given to the city-owned
beds along Bank Street. As well,
the Ottawa-Carleton District School
Board donated approximately a cubic
yard of topsoil, which volunteers like
Colin Harkness helped spread on
flowerbeds beside the school along
Hopewell Avenue and Bank Street.
“We’ve got bikes and plants and
blisters,” Harkness remarked.
Perennials for the plant sale were
mainly donated by retired Kindergarten teacher Merri Legris and
by Hopewell grandmother Brenda
Small, with a few donations brought
in by other Hopewell parents.
For the bike sale, about 70
wheeled vehicles were brought in
by Hopewell parents. The sellers
retained 75 % of the sticker price,
while 25% went to the school, although some sellers opted to donate
the entire proceeds to Hopewell.
Four-year-old Felix Johnson got his
first two-wheeler at the sale, a Supercycle that was perfect, he explained,
“because I can put my feets down on
the ground when I want to stop.”
Although money raised from the
sale in past years has sometimes been
donated to other schools in need,
this year Hopewell will budget the
money to replace dying ash trees in
the primary yard, Small explained.
Five ash trees provide the only shade
in the yard used by children in grades
one to three, and although the trees
have been vaccinated against the
deadly emerald ash borer beetle, “two
of them look like they’re not going to
make it.”
Small said replacing each ash could
cost as much as $5000, since it will
involve ripping up the concrete and
asphalt surrounding the tree, and
replanting a different species.
The Parent Council is also hoping
to replace the small play structure in
the primary yard, which at 25 years
old is nearing the end of its lifespan.
“Now is the time to start getting
some money together so we can
move forward,” Small said.
THE OSCAR
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Page 21
JUNE 2013
Hopewell PS Spring Sale & Cleanup
Above - Sisters Mira Clark, 9, (left) and Lily Clark, 10, (right) shovel topsoil
Top Left - Thomas Stromberg, 10, transports mulch to the flowerbeds on Bank
Middle Left - Melissa Johnson (left) buys a bike, and Daphne Dumbrille
pumps up the tire.
Bottom Left - Bella Torunski, 11, shows off her Sting Ray chopper bike.
PHOTOS BY KATE JAIMET
Time to play
in the sunshine
May not be exactly as shown. www.cochranephoto.com
Bike along the canal,
stroll through the parks
or lounge by a pool.
Get outside.
Make your own
fashion statements.
www.theclothessecret.com
Mon. - Wed.: 10 - 5:30 • Thurs. & Fri.: 10 - 7 • Sat.: 10 - 5 • Sun.: 12 - 4
613-730-9039 1136 Bank Street (1 1/2 blocks south of Sunnyside) Ottawa ON K1S 3X6
Page 22
THE OSCAR
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•
•
•
•
•
JUNE 2013
Block Parties
in Old Ottawa South
Key Steps
for a
Successful
Block Party
•
•
l
What better way to spend a summer day than planning and hosting your
own block party in Old Ottawa South. It’s a great time to relax and
catch up the neighbours on your street, enjoy good home cooked food
and share stories about living in the hood.
And the kids will love the opportunity to let loose playing all sorts of
games and biking up and down on a car-free street until the setting sun.
What is a block party? A block party is a neighbourhood event in which
residents in Old Ottawa South get together to hold a social gathering on
their street. Parties can be held on weekends and holidays. The street
can be closed off to traffic during the party.
The following is your step-by-step guide to a successful block party in
Old Ottawa South based on how Hopewell Avenue residents plan and
put on their annual block party.
Set-up a committee and select your coordinator(s) for the event.
Create an invitation flyer prior to sending an application to the
city.
Deliver the flyer to all the neighbours notifying everyone about
the intent of the party.
Connect with neighbours who may have concerns about the party
and address their issues if possible.
Submit an application for your block party to the city one month
in advance of the party. See Sample 2.
Permits are free of charge, and the city will provide the street barricades.
Once the application is submitted, the city will send you a waiver
to complete and submit plus instructions about picking up and
dropping off the street barricades.
A week before the party confirm that all arrangements for the
party are in place.
k
Six Weeks to One
Month Before
•
•
•
•
•
•
Drop off the invitation flyers to all the neighbours.
Make sure to ask people to bring their own chairs and table.
Reserve equipment you need to rent (tables, tents, sound
system, etc).
For fun, book and arrange for some local entertainment such
as poets, singers, dancers, etc....
Submit your application to the city.
Review the city’s Noise By-Law to make sure your event
complies with it.
j
Three
Months
Before
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Form your Block Party Committee.
Hold a planning meeting.
Decide who will be the main contact or coordinator, responsible for sending out invitations and taking RSVPs.
Assign responsibilities for:
• Publicity
• Activities & entertainment
• Music
• Permit applications
• MC for talent show * Clean-up
Survey the neighbourhood to select the date for the party.
Plan your finances for the party and set a budget.
Apply for any permits you will need to host the event.
Decide how the food will be handled. Will the Committee:
• Ask everyone to bring a main course and drinks for their own family, and a side
dish to share?
• Ask people to bring their own dishes?
• Serve alcoholic beverages If so, they must be served on someone’s property.
l
One Week Before
•
•
•
•
Publicize the party by stapling posters to street posts and delivering a one page flyer to every house on the block.
The flyer should have a reminder to bring a chair, table, dishes,
utensils, potluck dish etc.
If you have your neighbour’s email address, send them a reminder.
Confirm arrangements for barricades, entertainment, food,
refreshments, tents, tables and any other equipment that will be
rented or borrowed.
THE OSCAR
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Page 23
JUNE 2013
Download the full Block Party Guide at www.OldOtttawaSouth.ca
DAY OF THE PARTY
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•
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•
•
•
m
Pick up and set up the street barricades.
Arrange a long table for the potluck.
Set up the BBQ”s
Set up lights and decorations.
Make some name tags
Pick up and set up a PA system for announcements, music, singers, etc from
the Ottawa Folklore Centre.
Be green - put out a couple of blue, black and greebins.
Get a couple of containers of soapy water to clean dishes.
Create some chair circles.
Designate where the alcoholic beverages are to be located.
Designate who will look after anything that’s leftover or forgotten after the
party.
Other Resources
•
•
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Rental of PA System Old Ottawa South residents can rent a PA system
from the Ottawa Folklore Centre www.ottawafolklore.com
Hopewell Block Party Website
http://hopewellspectacle.weebly.com/index.html
Savy Mom’s Street Party Guide
http://www.savvymom.ca
Party Supplies
Airbounce Amusements www.airbounce.com
Chez Lili Party Rentals www.chezlilipartyrentals.ca
Circus Delights www.circus-delights.ca
Cody Party Centre www.codypartyottawasouth.com
Download the full Guide pdf at www.OldOtttawaSouth.ca
How to Plan a
Block Party
Guide
•
•
•
•
After the Party
•
•
•
•
•
Developed & Written By
Guy Souliere
Advisors: Chris & Heather
Barrett, Isla Jordan, Danielle
Rolfe and Ed Kucerak
Special Thanks to the Residents
of Hopewell Avenue
This special OSCAR page
designed by Bess Fraser
9
JUNE
n
Join forces with your neighbours to clean up.
Get kids to help clean up!
Send thank-yous to sponsors, donors and anyone else
who helped make the event a success.
Meet to evaluate the event’s success and things that
might be improved.
Set a date for next year’s party!
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More information about planning a block party can
be found on the City of Ottawa’s website.
Planning a Block Party
http://toolkit.crimepreventionottawa.ca/pg_PlanABlockParty.php
Guide for Hosting an Event
http://ottawa.ca/en/node/268382/index.html
Application, barricades & permits contact
Pertrina Bonia, City of Ottawa, 613 580-2424
ext.28164
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Page 24
THE OSCAR
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JUNE 2013
THE OTTAWA TENNIS AND
LAWN BOWLING CLUB
Your cottage in the city
• 18 Premium Clay Tennis Courts (12 lit) • Fabulous Swimming Pool
• 10 Beach Volleyball Courts
• Fully Licensed Café
• Clubhouse and Fantastic Atmosphere! • Facility Rentals and Corporate Events
SUMMER CA MPS
REGISTER ONLINE @ www.otlbc.com
O U R C A FÉ IS O PEN TO TH E PU BLI C
HOURS OF
OPERATION
JOIN US FOR A MEAL AND A DRINK
FROM THE BEST BALCONY IN THE CITY.
Monday to Friday
Saturday
Sunday
CAFÉ HOURS
BAR HOURS
9:00 am - 10:00 pm
9:00 am - 5:00 pm
9:00 am - 8:00 pm
11:00 am - 11:00 pm
11:00 am - 6:30 pm
11:00 am - 9:30 pm
MENU HIGHLIGHTS
Weekday soup, sandwich or salad specials
Wednesdays Pub Nights
Thursdays Pasta Night
Delicious Friday Night BBQs 5:00-9:00 pm
Check our website for the daily specials!!!
Great wine list and Locally-brewed Beau’s, Kichesippi and Mill Street on tap
Book a Corporate Lunch, Special Occasion Dinner, Wedding, Anniversary, Birthday Party
Club can be reserved on Saturdays for private functions
176 Cameron Ave (next to Brewer Park)
613-730-7207
THE OSCAR
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Page 25
JUNE 2013
OTTAWA TENNIS AND LAWN BOWLING CLUB
Summer Tennis Camp at the Ottawa Tennis and Lawn Bowling Club
By Janet Uren
“It’s amazing. Lots of people in the
neighbourhood don’t even know that
the club is here, at the quiet end of
Cameron Avenue, and that it’s one
of the largest and oldest tennis clubs
in Canada,” says Peter Sutcliffe,
president of the Board of Directors of
the Ottawa Tennis and Lawn Bowling Club. The club was founded in
four hours a day – combined with
swimming and other sports – such
as volleyball and soccer – as well as
nutritious lunches included in the fee.
The camp is headed by an impressive young woman, Jennifer Williams, a certified professional coach.
“We are so fortunate to have someone as highly qualified as Jennifer
Williams working for us as camp
coordinator this year,” says Sutcliffe.
nifer Williams agrees. “I hadn’t been
here a month and already everyone
knew my birthday.”
Williams – certified as a Tennis Canada Club Pro 1 – comes to
OTLBC with a national and international competitive history and an
impressive record of coaching. “I
moved around a lot when I was a kid,
to the Caribbean and the States. Later
on, I attended boarding school in Ed-
monton, which is where I competed
at the junior level, and I have been
back there to teach tennis for the last
eight months.”
Williams also has lived and gone
to school in Ottawa, and she has
recent experience with other clubs in
the area, where she has coached and
supervised camps for young players at the Ottawa Athletic Club, the
Ottawa New Edinburgh Club and at
Linden Lea.
The camp coordinator is also
experienced with Progressive Tennis,
which she has applied as a professional camp director at the Kingston
Tennis Club. She has seen first-hand
the efficacy of Progressive Tennis in
bringing young players along more
quickly and is looking forward to introducing it at OTLBC. “The idea is
that we size everything appropriately
– the court, the raquet, the ball. A
larger, more inflated ball moves and
bounces more slowly, and it’s more
visible. The kids can manage it, and
as they improve the ball gets smaller
and harder. It all hinges on age and
height.”
Continued on page 26
The OTLBC is a historic club. Before the flood control measures were built along the river spring meant flooding.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF CANADA CA21251
1881 and, to judge from the sound of
tennis balls thwacking away on clay
courts and the sound of laughter and
music coming from the patio, it is
still going strong.
OTLBC, a green enclave in
the heart of Ottawa South, has
a wonderful setting for one of
Canada’s oldest and largest
tennis clubs.
If tennis is going to continue into
another generation, not as the sport
of the elite, but as a normal part of
“As a seasonal club, open nearly six
months a year, we obviously can’t
offer full-time employment. But believe me: with someone as excellent
as Jennifer Williams coordinating the
camp this year, we’ll be working very
hard to persuade her to come back
next summer.”
It may not be a hard sell. Sutcliffe
goes on to say that OTLBC has
things to offer that those big new
athletic centres, operating 12 months
a year and sitting in their suburban
parking lots, would give a lot to
emulate. “This club has more than a
PHOTO BY PAUL SUTCLIFFE
summer for everyone, young tennis
players need special nurturing. That
is part of the mandate of the OTLBC
Summer Camp program, which offers a mix of serious tennis instruction for players from 5 to 14 – a full
fantastic green setting. It is oriented
to its community and has an old,
established culture of sociability and
welcome.”
“This is the friendliest place,” Jen-
Page 26
THE OSCAR
l
JUNE 2013
OTTAWA TENNIS AND LAWN BOWLING CLUB
Blame it on Rio comes to the OTLBC
By Kate Jaimet and Jenny
Mitchell
Blame it on the bikini-clad Brazilian dancers. Blame it on the bossa
nova groove of the band. Blame it on
Brazil’s national cocktail: the caipirinha. What the heck, just Blame it
on Rio as you party the night away at
the Ottawa Tennis and Lawn Bowling Club’s summer kickoff bash and
fundraiser, Saturday June 15.
Every summer the OTLBC (the
Ottawa Tennis and Lawn Bowling
Club) hosts an annual fundraising
event to support the capital fund –
that’s the fund that supports renovations to the clubhouse and the courts,
such as improving court lighting,
rebuilding courts, and revitalizing
the club house. As many Old Ottawa
South residents already know, keep-
Continued from page 25
The camp coordinator – with
Tennis Canada Club Pro
1-certification – has also shone
as a national and international
tennis competitor.
Jennifer has lots of ideas on how to
build on the successes of the past at
OTLBC, especially with an enhanced
focus on tennis. At one level, summer
camps are a way for working parents to ensure that their children are
safe and happy during the summer
holidays. That’s why OTLBC offers
before- and after-care for kids enrolled in the camps (free for members
and affordable for others). However,
Williams’ experience is that parents
also want their children to get into
the habit of a healthy lifestyle. To
that end, the club offers nutritious
lunches with fresh fruit and vegetables as well as an active timetable.
As a bonus, the children can take Red
Cross swimming lessons right after
camp ends at 3:30 pm.
But parents also want their children
to learn a challenging sport, such as
tennis, which they can play for the
rest of their lives. “I am determined
to achieve a 95 percent success
rate with the kids,” says Williams,
“meaning that by the end of a week’s
camp, every beginner will be able to
rally with an adult or another camper.
That’s why we’ve added another hour
of court time, bringing the total up to
four hours a day.”
Williams is not alone in running
the camp, and OTLBC offers a
maximum ratio of 8 tennis players to
1 counsellor. “We have a great group
of enthusiastic young counsellors
who have benefitted from really good
in-house training. The advantage of
training them ourselves is that they
will be thoroughly versed in Progressive methods.”
ing a 120-year-old building in tip-top
shape can be expensive!
“The people and the businesses
in the Old Ottawa South Community have been so supportive of our
club and our fundraising events,”
says Sue Widyaratne, Chair of the
OTLBC Fundraising Committee.
“Not only do they come and enjoy
what the club has to offer, they also
donate, buy tickets and sponsor our
events. The money that we make
from our events goes towards capital
improvements. And I am so happy
to say that over the past three years
since the fund was set up, we have
accumulated about $35,000. Thanks
to the support of our members and
the community, we are now in a
position to actually make some of
the improvements that we have been
wanting to do.”
OTLBC offers campers 4
hours of tennis a day – as
much as any other club in
Ottawa – as well as FREE
before- and aftercare for
members.
Then there is the sense of belonging. OTLBC is a club long before it
is a business, and children who spend
part of their summer there benefit
from a sense of community that
corporations simply cannot achieve.
Every club has its culture. Here, it’s
all about sociability.
“The magic of this club,” says Sutcliffe, “is that it dates back to what
I call the grand old age of the great
tennis clubs. Toronto has two such
clubs. Montreal has one. They are
similar, except that this club doesn’t
have the snobbery. It’s a welcoming
place.” That friendliness is something
that attracts members – 1,000 or so –
from all over the city, though many
come from the neighbourhood, arriving on foot or by bicycle.
Time and a deeply ingrained sense
of community give the club a high
degree of continuity, and even after
the inevitable closing in winter, staff
are anxious to return if they possibly can. “I don’t even have to post
most of the jobs,” says club manager,
Maria Pierre-Noel. “Our Café Front
of House manager and head lifeguard
are both in their fourth year. Our
tennis professional has worked at the
club for over five years. Some front
desk staff have been at the club for
three years in a row.”
The three-season character of
the club does present management
with certain challenges, and winter
takes its toll on an unheated building. Many hands make light work,
however. “The staff love the club
just as much as the members,” says
Pierre-Noel, “and former staff start
calling in April, offering to volunteer
as workers during the opening up.”
But back to the Blame it on Rio
party on June 15th. Doors will be
open at 7 p.m. for club members and
non-club members alike. You’ll be
welcomed into the festively-decorated party room with complimentary wine tasting by Stoney Ridge.
Enjoy delicious appetizers by Pelican
Fishery & Grill, Carmen’s Veranda
and the Green Door Restaurant, and a
special dessert by Stella Luna.
The Free Association Jazz Band,
back after a successful gig at last
year’s Summer Sizzler party, will
raise the heat with bossa nova
rhythms, while the OTLBC’s fine
bartending staff mixes up caipirinhas,
the national cocktail of Brazil.
And loosen up and get ready for
the late show, when the chicaboom
dancers take to the stage in sequined
bikinis and feathered headdresses.
The Ottawa Tennis Club is
a seasonal club – not a yearround business – but many
staff are eager to return.
Peter Sutcliffe – who is a former
Quebec junior champion – joined the
club in 1993. Now, as president of
the Board of Directors and club pro,
he is in a good position to compare
OTLBC to other Canadian clubs.
“This is a large club, as tennis clubs
go, and it has fantastic facilities. It
has a beautiful old clubhouse, beautiful clay courts. Of course, tennis is
the reason we’re here, but it’s also
a social club with a restaurant and
patio overlooking the courts. This is
where we host club events, Mother’s
Day, for example. And we are also
cater more and more events from
the outside because people want to
celebrate their weddings or birthdays
in this beautiful place.”
These talented dancers just might be
the “must see” event of the tennis
season!
No need to travel to the Rio Olympics, as the tropics come to Ottawa
thanks to presenting sponsor and
former club member Rob Marland of
Royal Lepage Performance Realty;
and gold sponsors Designs by MCM
and Mark S. Borts, Insurance &
Financial Services, both members of
the Club.
Tickets are limited to 120 and at
only $50 each, they’re bound to sell
out. Tickets will be available online
at otlbc.com, or in person at the club
- 176 Cameron Street (beside Brewer
Park).
So get out your dancing shoes,
bring your appetite, book the date
and Blame it on Rio!
neighbourhood.
The OTLBC is obviously doing
something right, and the membership
is growing in response. The demographic is also changing, according to Sutcliffe. “It’s moving more
towards young families, which the
club serves with a range of facilities
such as volleyball and the pool, and,
of course, we have our tennis clinics
and summer camps.”
The beauty of joining the summer
camp is that, once children come to
know the club, they begin to treat it
as their home and to look forward to
all kinds of youth-oriented activities
– including tennis clinics, swimming
lessons, Friday night barbecues with
the family, the “Let’s Play” tennis
program for kids on Sundays and the
Red Ball tournaments, especially for
kids.
For children, time spent at OTLBC
is a little like a summer at the cot-
The café is open to the public seven days a week.
PHOTO BY PAUL SUTCLIFFE
Everything at the club – the pool,
the tennis and beach volleyball
courts, the café, the summer tennis camp – is run by a small core of
professional staff. And, because it is a
club, operations are supported at the
management level by a much larger
corps of really dedicated volunteers,
many coming from the surrounding
tage, with all the joy of sunlight,
swimming, fresh air and the company
of other kids. It’s more, however. It’s
an opportunity for them to grow in
health, develop their tennis skills and
enjoy a sense of belonging to one
of Ottawa’s oldest and most distinguished clubs.
THE OSCAR
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Page 27
JUNE 2013
AFTER THOUGHTS
Relating to Oneself
By Richard Ostrofsky
We don’t usually think about our relationships with ourselves. We think
and try to present ourselves as coherent individuals, internally unified and
keeping our promises and agreements
with others. Such coherence and
integrity are not givens. We put a lot
of effort into teaching our children to
behave and present themselves this
way.
By the time they are grown up,
they (we) have forgotten all the
hassling and learning that went
into these social skills. We take our
individuality for granted, and use
the so-called ‘intentional stance’ to
understand one another’s choices and
intentions as outcomes of coherent
beliefs and desires. We form reasonable expectations about each other –
fall into and fullfil our various social
roles – as unitary, self-consistent
beings. Society depends on our doing
so, and falls apart when too many of
us can’t.
Yet it is a big mistake to take even
our own integrity for granted – never
mind the integrity of others. Not only
did it take a lot of effort to learn,
not only is it rather fragile, but it is
always something of a fiction. We
are often ‘double-minded.’ We often
feel ourselves being pulled in several
different directions. It makes sense,
therefore, to speak of one’s inner
committee – of the different interests and voices in one’s own head.
It makes sense to think about the
relationships amongst those committee members, and about the quality
of those relationships: Between the
voice of temptation and the voice of
responsibility, for example, or between competing temptations and responsibilities. Are these relationships
amicable even in their disagreement,
or are they deeply hostile? Do they
bicker, or have they learned to argue
reasonably when they disagree? Better still, have they learned the arts of
dialogue?
The New Age people spent a lot
energy and ink on this inner committee notion: “getting in touch with
your inner committee,” making peace
within it, and consulting with it to
advantage. You can find much of this
discourse on the Web. My interest
is rather different. I want to ask how
people learn to relate to themselves
in the first place? What influences,
pressures, experiences shape the selfrelationship that we develop? I’m
inclined to take our inner conflictedness, and the problem of learning to
live with it, for granted. What interests me is the reflexivity or recursivity of human consciousness: what we
find or focus on when think about
ourselves, the self-love or self-hate,
self-preoccupation or selflessness that
colors everything we do. It is a huge
subject, one I can scarcely do justice
to in this short column. But I would
like at least to draw your attention to
some of the questions and possibilities involved.
The biggest question, I think, with
the most far-reaching consequences
may be our relationship to our own
bodies. We spend about the first year
of our lives gaining enough motor
control to stand up and walk, and
then another year or more before
we can feed ourselves neatly with
utensils and handle the facilities of
a playground. We learn whether we
are boys or girls and begin construct
male or female identities accordingly. We learn whether we have tall
bodies or short ones, strong or weak
ones, bodies that attract others or not,
and so on and on. Human bodies are
certainly not all alike, and people are
certainly not equally at home and
comfortable in the bodies they have.
‘Physical education’ in our schools
could mean a lot more than it does.
Scattered over a number of arts and
sports and scientific disciplines,
there’s a lot of knowledge about the
use and care of the body that would
be well worth teaching to our children, and keeping up as adults.
Then there are numerous questions of our relationship to aspects
of our lives that finally add up to and
comprise our very ‘selves,’ (whatever
exactly does it mean to have or be
an ‘identity’ and a ‘self’): How do
Your neighbourhood
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we relate to the givens of our lives
– e.g. to our family backgrounds
and our circumstances? Our parents
may have been loving or indifferent,
educated or ignorant, rich or poor,
etc. We may or may not have grown
up with siblings – and if we did, must
have occupied a certain position in
the family and its internal politics.
All this will have made a difference
in the adults that we became. The
possibilities and combinations are
endless.
More questions: How do we relate
to situations of danger, and to our
own vulnerability and mortality? Are
we daring or fearful – perhaps too
much at either extreme. How do we
handle our desires and impulses? Can
we postpone gratification when it is
worthwhile to do so? How do we relate to the bare fact of passing time?
How do we relate to our sexual
needs and orientations? Men and
women probably do so differently,
but a lot depends on temperament
also. Some people crave frequent
sex; some turn their lovemaking
into an art form or a science; some
are indifferent or actively disgusted
and repelled by the whole business.
A similar point can be made for any
other of our other appetites. Certainly
about food and drink, which can be
art forms, rich social occasions or
mere routines of body maintenance,
or abused through addiction or gluttony. Even breathing can be practiced
as a science, in the way that yogis do.
How we relate to our own personalities, tastes and predispositions?
How do we present ourselves to our
families and friends and colleagues
– and to strangers on the road or
street? How do we relate to our own
life histories and to the choices made
along the way? Finally, these are all
questions not just about our social
identities – about the self that we
present to others – but about the inner
self that we maintain for ourselves.
There really is no end to such questions. The ones I’ve listed here are
just a sampling.
The concept of an ‘inner committee’ suggests that some or
many of these relations-to-self may
be handled in different ways by the
same individual. Yet there is strong
pressure from the outside world for a
stable consensus on that committee.
Everyone wants to know who you
are, and whether they can count on
you. They expect you to take responsibility for your promises and choices
as if they had been unanimous. Nobody cares about our inner conflicts
– but it is important that we ourselves
be aware and accepting of them.
For each of us, there is an over-all
relationship to self that gets sketched
or outlined in most children by about
the age of four. This is not to say that
no further development occurs after
that. Plainly, four-year-olds are not
finished human beings. But I do believe that the foundations, at least the
central issues, of future character and
identity are mostly in place by that
age. Am I well and reliably nourished
– physically, mentally and socially?
Am I loved? Am I safe? Am I important? Will my dignity be infringed?
Will my autonomy be thwarted? Am
I ridden by shame or guilt or fear or
rage? Or am I free to bump around
in the world, and see what there is to
see here, and enjoy the processes of
living? Such expectations are formed
young, framed and expressed not verbally but, first of all, in our relations
with ourselves.
Richard Ostrofsky’s Second Thoughts
bookstore was a hub of conversation
and contemplation in Old Ottawa
South for many years. He continues
to contribute to the OSCAR from
afar and would welcome feedback
or conversation about his articles
at reostrofsky@gmail.com. Further
essays and ruminations can be found
at www.secthoughts.com.
Page 28
THE OSCAR
l
JUNE 2013
OCDSB TRUSTEE’S REPORT
By Rob Campbell
Budget
As I write this column, budget season
is upon us again. Provincial funding
envelopes were announced start of
May, the staff budget was provided
to the public and Trustees May 15th
this week, we have up to two public
delegation nights scheduled, a couple
of nights of debate, including any
amendments, and then passage midJune. The draft budget is up on our
web site for your review as well. If
you have any suggestions on improving it then please let me know.
As always, the draft staff budget
makes for interesting reading. A
budget is an important expression of
a Board’s priorities and the narrative
provided by one, implicit or explicit,
can be fascinating, and a potentially
endless source of valuable and principled debate too, though of course
one has to be practical as well.
Our board has been accumulating
surpluses for some years now due
to cautious, and one might suggest
clearly overly cautious, budgeting. As a result, we now have about
$43m in surplus built up just sitting
there. Frankly, this is more than a bit
embarrassing as only some of this is
needed for smooth functioning and
any surprises, and it is all taxpayer
money disbursed in order to support
students. The past three years, we
have been trying to stop accumulating surpluses with planned deficit
budgets, but the surpluses continue to
be greater than our planned deficits
and the total continues to grow. I
have joked that if we do not take serious steps to correct we will never dig
ourselves out of this surplus hole!
In part these surpluses grow due to
an at least partially understandable
super-abundance of caution by our
staff in both budget estimating and
in-year spending, but also in part to
increased surprise mid-year grants
(and meddling) by the Provincial
government, and also now due to
increased financial oversight exerted
by the Board of Trustees itself. About
two years ago, I got a technical motion through which placed a limit on
how much money staff could swim
between budget lines in between
board-voted budgets without coming back to Board. In my view, it had
become an unfortunate practice to
regularly bring in high (‘cautious’)
departmental estimates at budget
time, get the budget passed, inevitably find across departments they did
not need the money allocated, and
then go allocate significant millions
in ways not actually reviewed by the
Board.
As a result in part of this new
technical leash, sharper pens now
prevail with respect to departmental
estimates, and any significant unspent
funds (i.e. not penny ante amounts)
now instead must return to general
surplus for reallocation, or for special
in-year recommendation by staff to
OCSB TRUSTEE’S REPORT
Putting Students First
By Kathy Ablett, OCSB
Trustee
Corpus Christi
During Education Week at Corpus
Christi we celebrated many
interesting and fun events including
a Muffin Breakfast, Kindergarten
Science Day, Open House in
Classrooms, and a Bike Rodeo. I
hope many of you were able to attend
and participate in these excellent
events.
A very successful Jump Rope
the board. This tightened ship also
has fueled the build up of surplus
then. Changing the culture entirely
will take time but with the current
budget we are starting to see more
reasonable and precise initial estimates, as part of our ‘attack on the
surplus’.
This budget, we are planning to use
up $14m of the surplus in an effort
to deal with it. I broadly support the
increased investments in English as
a Second Language and in Special
Education. However, I still wonder if
we might be inappropriately overspending in some areas and underspending in others. I wonder as well
why after several years we continue
to sit on a static $700K designated
for special education training of staff
apparently with no plans to ever
spend it. And, there are other questions.
Equity Accountability re Poverty
I have filed a motion which, if
passed, will require the District to
publicly report annually on how well
or not we are weakening the connection between poverty and student outcome. It is scheduled to be debated in
coming days.
Ensuring socioeconomically equity
of educational outcome is absolutely core to mission with respect
to publicly funded education, and
yet no school board in Ontario yet
reports out on this key basis. Boards
standardly report on equity gaps by
for Heart fundraiser took place on
Friday, May 10th and, again this year,
the Grade 6 students made hundreds
of sandwiches for Shepherds of Good
Hope. These events are true examples
of living by our spiritual theme ‘By
Our Works We Show Our Faith’.
Immaculata High School
Education Week at Immaculata was
a very busy time. I had the pleasure
of interviewing graduates for
bursaries and I am so proud of these
young individuals graduating from
our system.
Several events took place such as
the Food Fest, the play ‘13’, and a
wonderful spaghetti dinner served
by the Knights of Columbus. What
a great sense of community we
celebrated during Catholic Education
Week.
Student Chosen for Ministry of
Education Council
Immaculata High School student
Danielle Lanouette has been chosen
to represent the First Nations, Métis,
Inuit (FNMI) voice as a member
of the Minister’s Student Advisory
Council (MSAC). Students on
this council meet the Minister of
Education on several occasions
gender, by special education status
(non-gifted), and by ESL status, but
not by poverty. And while there may
be expected to be some internal correlation across such measures, they
are not singly or collectively a proxy
for poverty. I hope that we will agree
to lead Provincially yet again in this
domain as well then.
I expect that, with such a directive in place, over time, we will see
somewhat altered patterns of training
and other investments as we strive
to improve this major new reportable. Further, this should be entirely
aligned with, and help strengthen and
further, our efforts to improve average graduation rate and other District
student achievement measures.
If you have a suggestion or a concern, then please contact me via
rob@ocdsbzone9.ca or at 323-7803.
Meeting and document info available
at www.ocdsb.ca
throughout the year to discuss
provincial perspectives in education.
The Ottawa Catholic School Board
is very proud that Danielle has been
chosen to be part of this council for
the 2013-2014 school year.
Budget News
The Board anticipates finalizing the
budget at the Board Meeting of June
11th. Please watch the Board website
for further details.
As summer fast approaches …I
would like to take this opportunity
to wish each of you a safe and
restful summer. Best wishes to
those students who head off to post
secondary education and the working
community. I wish you all every
success!
If, at any time, I can be of assistance
to you please do not hesitate to call
me at 613-526-9512.
THE OSCAR
l
Page 29
JUNE 2013
Tree Poetry Series Celebrates Prize-winning Poetry
By Colin Morton
Writer and Poet Mary Lee Bragg
PHOTO BY PEARL PIRIE
Old Ottawa South writer Mary Lee
Bragg is the winner of the Tree Poetry Chapbook Contest, a competition
held each year by the city’s most established literary reading series. Tree
Press will publish a small collection,
a chapbook, of the winner’s poems.
Readers may recall that a couple of
years ago Mary Lee Bragg conducted
a series of interviews for OSCAR
with several of the neighborhood’s
authors, including Elizabeth Hay and
Mary Borsky. Mary Lee is a fiction
writer herself, having published a
novel in 2004, but has more recently
turned to poetry, with publications in
several journals and anthologies as
well as the chapbook How Women
Work in 2010. Her prize-winning
collection, Winter Music, was highly
praised by the judge, Toronto poet
Matthew Tierney:
Beginning with the ode “Winter
Saga”—where a squirrel crossing
snow “swims with four splayed feet,
/ sculls with its tail”—the poet shows
a deft touch with the painful particulars of the cold north, a “deep blue, /
with outer space behind it.” There’s
a constant battle in these poems
between an inner tranquility and an
outer chaos, a fight to make sense
of an ambivalent world that leaks in
through our best defences. “Nothing
Southside Thanks Community For Another Fruitful Year
By Paige Raymond Kovach
It has been a busy year at Southside
Preschool. The trees of knowledge in
every classroom are full of the signs
that our children have acquired new
abilities and forged lasting friendships.
Their friendships have extended
outside of Southside’s walls.
This spring the children in the After
School Program organized a penny
drive to raise money to help other
local children. They counted and
rolled $183.49, with just over $112 in
pennies alone! The children quickly
learned a lot about coins, and that
two rolls of pennies equal a dollar.
Some of the money raised purchased 10 aprons for a special
education class, which participates
in cooking classes in Renfrew. The
Southside children personalized each
apron and added their own “helping
hands” handprints.
“The children were so excited
about their aprons that they all tried
them on right away. We’ve had a
couple of baking classes since, and
they are all very proud to be wearing the aprons with their names on
them,” said Kate, the Renfrew Special Education Teacher.
The penny drive funds also
stretched to buy a gift bag of books
from Kaleidoscope, and some out-
door fun items - bubbles and sidewalk chalk -- for the Board of Education kindergarten class at the Ottawa
Inuit Children’s Centre in Vanier.
For those families still looking for
a welcoming, fun environment for
their young and school-aged children
in the fall, there are still spaces at
Southside in the Nursery School for
children aged 21/2 and three as well
as for the After School Program for
the 2013-2014 school year. For more
details please visit www.southsidepreschool.ca.
Important dates in June
June 7 – PA day for Hopewell
June 25 – Last day for Nursery
The OOS Traffic Survey
Let us know what you think
Visit www.oldottawasouth.ca
Joan’s Bench Reminder: Please Join Us!
By Susan McMaster
Plans are proceeding apace for a bench
by the Rideau River to honour our longtime OOS friend and neighbour Joan
O’Callaghan, who passed away last June.
Living on Belmont Avenue just steps from
the water for most of her 82 years, Joan
loved to sit out on her front porch and chat
with passersby. As Joan’s sister Geraldine
wrote on hearing of the proposal, “Joan
enjoyed life to the fullest, and I truly feel
a bench near the Rideau is not only a very
special honour but a marvellous idea.”
For more details, see the December 2012
OSCAR (p. 33) at oldottawasouth.ca. The
city has agreed to support a bench for Joan,
and helped chose a spot, and we now just
need to gather sufficient funds to go ahead
(the total cost will be about $3000). Further
contributions are very welcome, by mail,
internet or in person, made out to “Joan’s
Bench”, Community Plan 3248 5208542,
through Joan’s bank, the TD Bank at 1158
Bank (at Glen), Ottawa ON K1S 3X8.
Please also send an email with your full
name and address to jmfleming55@rogers.
com when you make your donation so we
can invite you to the Celebration Sit-Down!
Joan, we’re waiting to sit with you!!
“Joanie” and 2-year-old Beatrice in 2012
PHOTO BY GREER NURSE
says luck / like lightning,” begins the
poem “Good Luck,” and whether it’s
a soldier in Kandahar, a revolutionary in Portugal, or a friend for whom
life and love disasterizes, one can
never predict whether you’ll survive
the strike or not. In the meantime,
intimates the poet, let your heart and
mind rove, listen closely, and learn
to “cherish your fears.” A thoughtful,
subtle collection. The contest winner was announced
at the Tree reading at SAW Gallery
on April 9. Design, editing and printing of Mary Lee Bragg’s winning
chapbook will follow later this year.
School and Annual Southside Barbecue at 5:30 p.m. at Brewer Park.
Joanne promises friendly skies. Families are encouraged to bring their
own drinks. Please look for sign-up
sheets for potluck foods on the notice
boards outside the classrooms soon.
June 27 – Last day for Kinders and
After School Program
On behalf of Southside Board,
staff and children we thank you for
another wonderful school year and
look forward to sharing your summer
holiday tales when Southside reopens
on September 3, 2013.
Page 30
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JUNE 2013
HEALTH AND WELLNESS
Open House for National Naturopathic Medicine Week
and diseases. As distinct from primary medicine (techniques – medication, surgery, radiation and other
Western therapies), according to Dr.
Brian Goldman, MD, CBC’s “house
doctor”, naturopathic medicine tries
to address the root causes of illness
based on a body’s own ability to heal
itself. A variety of techniques include
physical exercises, massage, acupuncture; life style counselling, nutrition and botanical medicine. Doctors
of naturopathic medicine (ND) are
trained at their own college and are
licensed and regulated in some provinces, as in Ontario.
A study published in Canadian Medical Association Journal
(29/4/2013) by a team led by Dr.
Dugald Seely of Ottawa Hospital
Research Institute, “Naturopathic
Medicine for Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease: A Randomised
Clinical Trial,” found that among 246
Canadian postal workers, enrolled
in a year-long study, those who
received routine medical care plus
naturopathic medicine reduced their
2002, said, “I want to help people
with injuries as unobtrusively as possible”. Educated at University of Ottawa, New York Chiropractic College
and in Montreal in kinesiology, he
uses manual muscle testing to identify causes of back pain or tendonitis.
He has a state of art “Flexion Distraction Table”. The patient lies on
his or back while the table vibrates
and relieves pressure from joints and
muscles. He also provides instrument-based therapy for patients who
don’t like manual therapy, as well as
laser therapy for healing tissues.
Mireille Fanous, educated in Europe and Toronto, perfectly bilingual
(English and French) said, “We shine
in non-acute situations such as diabetes, gastro-intestinal issues, allergies
and auto-immune conditions”. She
is involved in dealing with all types
of addictions using acupuncture. “I
usually like to work with a medical
doctor for the good of the patient”
she added. Mireille works on stress
reduction using relaxation and imagery techniques. Dr. Guy also deals
Dr. Karim Guirguis, DC and his state-of-the-art instruments
PHOTO ASHWIN SHINGADIA
By Ashwin Shingadia
An enjoyable and educational
afternoon at the Sunrise Wellness
Centre’s open house, May 9, offered
wine, juices, and healthy foods and a
chance to visit and talk individually
with co-founders Dr. Vivienne Guy,
ND, and Dr. Karim Guirguis, DC; as
well as with their colleagues, Mireille
Fanous, ND, Razi Farahani, psychotherapist, Erika Dupuis, esthetician
and Sarah Vlasblom who repre-
sented the skin care line of Eminence
products. Patients, visitors and
members of the public sauntered in,
milling around, talking and asking
questions. The Centre is located at
suite 104-2211 Riverside Drive, just
north of Billings Bridge Shopping
Centre.
Why naturopathic medicine?
Naturopathic medicine is a system
of primary health care that promotes
wellness and prevention of illness
Karim Guirguis, Erika Dupuis, Vivienne Guy, Mireille Fanous and
Razi Farahani
PHOTO ASHWIN SHINGADIA
risk of heart disease by 17%. Those
with doctor care alone showed little
or no improvement. Blood pressure
and cholesterol were tested regularly.
Heart diseases are the second highest causes of death in Canada. Dr
Goldman found the results to be
impressive. He speculated that the
“entire basket” of naturopathic
treatments made the difference.
Doctors don’t have time, while
the naturopaths spent four hours
counselling each patient and
monitoring the “regime” being
followed.
What can the Centre do?
Dr. Guirguis a pioneer of the
Sunrise Wellness Centre since
with stress. Educated in Toronto, she
said, “I work with a lot people who
are on the edge of burnout, sometimes on pharmaceuticals”. Many
of her patients are executive women
from businesses, from the civil
service, and the Hill. After five years
at her clinic on Kilborne, when her
lease ran out, she joined the Sunshine
Wellness Centre in 2012, bringing
with her the Eminence line of skin
care products. Razi Farahani, psychotherapist, also a licensed hypnotherapist, taught disabled children in the
public school system. He uses art and
Gestalt therapy techniques to treat
stress, anxiety and PTSD.
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JUNE 2013
What is Lyme disease and how to prevent it?
By
Dr. Marie Matheson
BSc., LAc., ND
As warmer weather begins to
draw us outside, you should
be aware of the risk of tick
bites. While it’s smart to
be vigilant against ticks
year-round, I advise to take
extra precautions in warmer
months (April through
September) when ticks are
most active. Ticks feed on
blood. Immature ticks – so
small in the larval stage that
they can barely be seen – up
to nymphs and adults, all
need blood to fuel them to
their next life phase. And if
they’ve drawn blood from an
infected source before biting
a human, they can spread
Lyme disease.
While Lyme is an illness
caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, ticks may
also carry other infections
that may be transmitted with
the bite including Ehrlichiosis, Rocky Mountain Spotted
Fever, Babesia and Bartonella. Borrelia burgdorferi
has been reported in parts of
Europe, Asia, Australia, and
throughout much of North
America. Lyme disease in humans
can have serious symptoms
and complications if left untreated. These include chills,
bulls eye rash (fact buster:
only 30% of patient’s get
this), fever, headache, muscle
and joint pain, neurological
and cardiac manifestations.
Fortunately, there are several actions you can take to
prevent tick bites and reduce
your risk of tick-borne disease. Here are some suggestions:
Protect Yourself from Tick
Bites
Know where ticks thrive.
Ticks live in moist, humid
environments, particularly
near wooded or grassy areas.
On trails, even around the
house, ticks hang on the
ends of taller grass waiting
to come in contact with their
next host. Always walk in
the center of trails to avoid
the side grass.
Cover up! Wear light
colored clothes (to see ticks),
a long sleeve shirt and long
pants, tucked into your socks
to keep ticks off of your skin.
LOCAL SCIENCE
Hormones
By Regina Palamar
Behind every bad mood,
sad emotion or untimely
face pimple, is a hormone.
Hormones are what Simon
Cowell is to the American
Idol contestant, what Regina
George is to Caddy Heron
and what Biff Tannen is to
Marty McFly. Hormones
are bullies who always seem
to have it in for us. Nobody
likes a bully, but we always
forget that they are central
characters that play very
important roles. Without Biff
Tannen, Marty McFly would
never have become a hero,
and as much as nobody likes
Simon Cowell, he efficiently
weeds out the good singers
from the ones who should
stick to their day jobs. Similarly, hormones play a critical
role in keeping our bodies
running smoothly.
Hormones are part of
what is called the endocrine
system, a complex network
of cells that work together to
regulate a wide variety of our
bodily functions such as our
hunger, growth, and reproduction.
When a cell in one part of
your body needs to commu-
nicate with a cell in another
part of your body, it releases
a hormone. This hormone
will travel through the bloodstream from one cell to the
other, relaying information
and stimulating certain types
of cellular activity. It’s kind
of like a smoke signal except
instead of using smoke from
a fire, to communicate a message, your body uses hormones. For example, when
you get frightened the cells in
your adrenal gland sound
the alarm by releasing a
hormone called epinephrine which travels to other
cells in your body and
stimulates your fight or
flight response.
Dr. Vance Trudeau, a
professor of endocrinology at the University
of Ottawa and life-long
hormone enthusiast,
thinks he and his team
of researchers have
discovered a brand new
hormone and they are
calling it Secretoneurin.
Dr. Trudeau believes that
Secretoneurin is involved
in the reproductive
process, as it appears to
influence the release of
another hormone called
Check your body for ticks
after being outdoors, even
in your own yard. Bathe or
shower as soon as possible
after coming indoors (preferably within two hours) to
wash off and more easily
find ticks that are crawling
on you. Use a hand-held or
full-length mirror to view
all parts of your body and
remove any tick you find.
Take special care to check
these parts of your body for
ticks: under the arms; in and
around the ears; belly button;
back of the knees; and in and
around all head and body
hair.
Check your clothing and
pets for ticks. Ticks are often
carried into the house on
clothing and pets. Any ticks
you find should be removed.
Placing clothes into a dryer
on high heat effectively kills
ticks.
Modify your landscaping:
Keep patios, play areas and
playground equipment away
from shrubs, bushes, and
other vegetation. Regularly
remove leaf piles and clear
tall grasses and brush around
your home.
Discourage deer. Ticks
love to feed on deer and
birds. Both play a major role
in aiding ticks’ geographic
distribution. In fact, Health
Canada warns that surveillance has identified migratory birds that have brought
tick-carrying Lyme disease
to non-endemic parts of
the country. By removing
plants that attract deer and
constructing physical barriers that discourage deer from
entering your yard, you can
prevent ticks from spreading
near your home.
Leutinizing hormone (LH),
a big player on the reproductive scene. Secretoneurin
is released from a cluster of
cells in the brain where it
travels to a different part of
the brain, and tells another
cluster of cells to release LH.
LH then travels all the way
to the ovaries and politely
informs them that it is time
to release an egg and make a
baby already!
The neat thing about Se-
cretoneurin is that it is found
in many different animals
from fish to mammals, which
means that its role in reproduction doesn’t just have implications on us humans. Of
course, a lot of research still
needs to be done to answer
questions like, how exactly
does Secretoneurin relay its
message to the target cells
and can it be used in medical
settings to improve fertility?
Hormones are involved
What to Do If You’ve Been
Bitten by a Tick
Remove an attached tick
using fine-tipped tweezers
or tick remover (purchased
at most pet stores) at the
surface of the skin as soon
as you notice it. Do not use
a match to burn it. If tweezers are not available, use a
tissue to protect your fingers
as exposure to ticks fluids
may lead to transmission of
disease.
Seek immediate medical treatment regardless of
how long the tick has been
attached, the bacteria can
penetrate the blood stream
within minutes. Prompt use
of antibiotics should be taken
as soon as possible, following ILADS guidelines.
For more information
about Lyme Disease in
Canada: www.canlyme.com.
Dr. Marie Matheson is a
Lyme-literate Naturopathic
Doctor. She received a
scholarship for the ILADS
physician-training program
and has treated patients
across Canada for Lyme and
associated infections. She
practices at the Hampton
Wellness Centre www.hamptonwellnesscentre.com (613)
761-1600.
in everything from pimplemaking to baby-making,
and while they may push us
around like a school-yard
bully, they ensure that our
bodies function efficiently
and effectively.
Regina Palamar is a Biology
student at the University of
Ottawa and a full-time science enthusiast.
Page 32
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JUNE 2013
CLIMATE CHANGE
“Do The Math” on Climate Change
By Muthanna Subbaiah
“There is a tendency at every important but difficult crossroad to pretend
that it’s not really there.” ― Bill McKibben, The End of Nature
Climate change! We hear the
term almost every day, and those
of us paying attention can connect
the recent natural disasters around
the world such as Hurricane Sandy,
directly to climate change. Arguably, climate change can be caused
by a number of naturally occurring
factors such as variations in solar
radiation or by changes in the ocean.
However, scientists and undeniable
facts, such as the fast melting poles,
tell us a different story. Our rapidly
warming planet is a direct result of
greenhouses gases emitted by human
indulgence. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is
the primary greenhouse gas produced
by human activities and was recently
measured at 400 parts per million,
the highest level in nearly 3 million
years. This is just the beginning. The
time to act was yesterday.
350.org, founded by U.S. author Bill McKibben, is building a
global grassroots movement to solve
the climate crisis. To preserve our
planet, scientists tell us we must
reduce the amount of CO2 in the
atmosphere from its current level
of 400 parts to below 350, hence
the name. On Tuesday June 4th at
6:30 PM, please join us at the Sunnyside Branch of the Ottawa Public
library for a free screening of the
documentary “Do The Math” as well
as a talk by our special guest David
Rhynas titled Climate Change at a
Crossroads. To sign up, go to http://
act.350.org/event/do_the_math_movie_attend/5789
“Do The Math” is a 42-minute documentary about the rising movement
in the United States to change the
terrifying mathematics of the climate
crisis and challenge the fossil fuel
industry. Although set in the United
States, the facts that the film outlines
apply globally - making it imperative
for all of us to watch. This important
film follows Bill McKibben, as he
depicts the reality of climate change
and launches the “Fossil Free Divestment Campaign”. Environmental
degradation is the single greatest
issue of our time. Yet, human societies stand paralyzed, unwilling to act.
David Rhynas will joins us prior to
the screening and provide a 15 min-
ute talk about climate change. A lot
has happened since the documentary
movie “An Inconvenient Truth” and
there are some compelling updates
on the latest science and solutions.
This talk will consider initiatives that
our society could readily undertake
towards a more sustainable world.
The screening will be followed by a
Q&A. Coffee, tea and snacks will be
served.
If you are passionate about the
environment or want to join the 350.
org movement, please email me
at muthannas@outlook.com or on
twitter @muthannas. Together we
can solve this crisis and leave a little
more of this precious planet to our
future generations.
FILM REVIEW
Mira Nair’s Film Brings 9/11 Novel to the Screen
The Reluctant Fundamentalist reviewed by Tony
Wohlfarth
Mira Nair’s new film, The Reluctant
Fundamentalist, opens at night on
the streets of Lahore, Pakistan, as the
brutal kidnapping of an American
journalist occurs amidst a busy family celebration starring the legendary Om Puri. Bobby Lincoln (Liev
Schreiber) is ostensibly investigating
the kidnapping and he meets with a
university professor Changez Khan
(Riz Ahmed), who reluctantly agrees
to tell his life story.
We soon learn that Khan is a
Princeton-educated business school
graduate, who went on to a successful consulting career with McKinsey
& Company. Changez lived a quasiassimilated existence in New York
City, and had a charmed relationship
with a beautiful photographer Erica
(Kate Hudson). The terrorist attacks
of September 11, 2001 along with
a culturally tone-deaf exhibition of
Erica’s photos are a major turning
point in the film, when Changez no
longer feels welcome in his adopted
country. He dramatically gives it all
up to return to Pakistan.
Nair’s layered film tells the story
through a series of retrospectives,
guided by Changez’s narration, moving seamlessly from the bustle of
Wall Street to the souks of Lahore.
The scenes set in Pakistan’s secondlargest city are especially moving,
as Nair captures the vibrancy of
daily life on the streets of Lahore.
We learn that Bobby is not a journalist, but a CIA agent investigating if Changez and his students are
implicated in the kidnapping. Nair
assiduously captures both perspectives, presenting her audience with a
brilliantly-nuanced post 9/11 view of
the war on terrorism.
Mira Nair is well suited to adapt
Mohsin Hamid’s 2007 novel (of
the same name) to the silver screen.
Born in India, Nair was educated at
both Delhi & Harvard Universities
and currently lives in New York. Her
extensive film credits include the
award-winning Monsoon Wedding in
2011 (about an arranged wedding in
India) and Salaam Bombay in 1988
(about Bombay’s street kids). Hamid’s novel is adapted to the screen
thanks to a strong screenplay by
Ami Boghani. Hamid was himself
born and raised in Lahore and (like
Changez) Princeton-educated.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist opened the 2012 Venice Film
Festival as its world premiere. The
film screened on the festival circuit,
touching down in Toronto in September and the Tribeca Film Festival in
April. Nair’s film won the Favorite
World Feature Award at the 2012
Mill Valley Film Festival in San
Francisco in October. The Reluctant
Fundamentalist screens at the ByTowne Cinema in Ottawa beginning
June 14, and the running time is 130
minutes.
Tony Wohlfarth is an Ottawa-based
a freelance film writer and critic. He
can be reached at tonywohlfarth@
gmail.com
Titans of the Ice Age IMAX
Review by Tony Wohlfarth
PERSONAL FINANCIAL PLANNING
Are you uncertain about achieving your financial goals?
Call today for your free, confidential, second opinion.
RICK SUTHERLAND, CLU, CFP, FDS, R.F.P.
1276 Wellington Street Ottawa, ON K1Y 3A7
613-798-2421
email: rick@invested-interest.ca
web: www.invested-interest.ca
Mutual funds provided through FundEX Investments Inc.
s
Biodome Garden Project
The IMAX Theatre at the Canadian
Museum of Civilization in Gatineau
features (in 3D) Titans of the Ice
Age.
The 45 minute feature bring to
life museum fossils of the woolly
mammoth, sabre tooth cats, and
ground sloths. The narrative tracks
their pre-historic existence from
the ice age through their extinction
over 4,000 years ago, and provides
an excellent learning experience for
young people. With 3D glasses, the
Community Consultation
June 2, 3:30pm to 4:30pm
Brewer Pool meeting room
oversize screen comes to life and is
nicely complemented by renowned
Canadian actor Christopher Plummer’s narration. Directed by David
Clark, Titans also features music
performed by the Czech Symphony
Orchestra. Titans also provides
a segue to current debates about
global warming.
Titans of the Ice Age screens
several times a day through the end
of August. For further information,
check out: titansoftheiceage.com
and www.civilization.ca
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JUNE 2013
FINANCIAL PLANNING
Understanding Tax Credits And Tax Deductions
By Rick Sutherland, CLU,
CFP, FDS, R.F.P
Most of us have now completed our
2012 tax returns. Have you ever
wondered why certain line items on
your tax return are tax credits and
others are tax deductions? There is
a big difference between credits and
deductions and how these tax reducers really work.
Since 1986 the tax credit system
replaced many line items on your tax
return that were formerly tax deductions. This was an attempt by the
government to make the tax system
fair for all taxpayers. Tax credits reduce tax payable, whereas tax deductions reduce taxable income.
You may be asking, “What’s the
difference?” Most tax credits are
calculated at the lowest marginal tax
bracket. Therefore, as long as your
taxable income places you in the
lowest marginal tax bracket, there is
no difference between tax credits and
tax deductions. Tax credits provide
the same tax relief for all taxpayers
regardless of their taxable income.
Deductions, however, do provide
a greater tax benefit to those whose
income tax bracket is above the minimum. The more tax deductions you
have, the lower your taxable income.
One of the more popular tax reduction strategies has been the Registered Retirement Savings Plan, or
RRSP. Contributions to your RRSP
are considered tax deductible. Every
$1,000 you contribute to your RRSP
will reduce your taxable income by
$1,000.
For the year 2013, taxable income
at or below $43,561 will be taxable
at the lowest marginal tax bracket in
Ontario. That is the point where tax
deductions become more advantageous than tax credits. If your taxable
income is slightly above this threshold then it may be worthwhile to consider RRSP contributions and reduce
your taxable income below $43,561.
The same logic applies if your taxable income is above the next level
of $87,123. It may be to your advantage to contribute to your RRSP and
reduce your taxable income below
$87,123.
Most tax credits are non-refundable. This means that once you have
reduced your tax payable to zero, you
cannot receive any further benefits
from your remaining tax credits.
Certain tax credits are transferrable
to your spouse, parent and/or grandparent, depending on the credit and
circumstances. Examples would be
medical expenses, transit passes, and
education credits.
Other tax credits are refundable
and generate a refund even when the
taxpayer does not owe any tax for the
year. This is why it is important to
file a tax return even if you don’t owe
anything. Refundable tax credits are
usually paid throughout the year to
assist Canadians with ongoing living
expenses. Examples include the HST/
GST tax credit.
As we mentioned earlier, most tax
credits are calculated at the lowest
marginal tax bracket. One exception
is charitable donations. Only the first
$200 of donations is calculated at
the lowest bracket. Donations above
$200 receive a benefit at the highest
Warning – Information Overload!
Provided by Linda
Hancock
Facebook, Twitter, a thousand different blogs, a million or so websites, a gazillion Google hits – there are
so many online information
sources available to us, but
are they the best places to
get the best advice for your
needs? Especially when it
comes to reliable financial
and investment information
that accurately answers your
questions and provides clear
direction you can count on?
Not necessarily. Here’s why.
It’s easy but … There is
a lot of information right at
your fingertips but how reliable is it? Key your investment-related question into a
search engine and just look
at all the websites you have
to choose from. You have to
sort through a hodgepodge
of unfiltered, unverified
sources. That can not only be
a lengthy and frustrating process, it can also lead you to
plenty of poorly researched
or incorrect information and
a risk you may make decisions based on false evidence
or ideas that are not in the
best interest of you and your
family.
It’s one-size-fits-all. It can
be tough to tell if the information you’ve sourced is
correct or not but even if it is,
you can be certain the advice
was not customized for you.
You’re getting information
that may not reflect your
personal lifestyle and goals
or the changes that take place
in all of the unique facets of
your life over time. Even if
you manage to hit on reliable
Internet information, how
can you tell that it’s right for
your specific circumstances?
Personal, professional advice is so important. Professional financial and investment information, experience
and expertise you can trust
puts you at the centre of
things where you belong.
When you talk to a professional advisor, you get valuable face-to-face advice and
recommendations that are an
exact fit for your individual
circumstances as they are
today and as they evolve
into the future. Your advisor quickly becomes your
‘personal’ search engine for
investment advice, tax-saving strategies, family protection measures, the best way
to pay for your dream home
or to save for a fulfilling
retirement, and much more
– information you can trust
to make informed, confident
decisions that are right for
you.
There’s no doubt your
computer opens up whole
new worlds of information
and social contact – but your
search for the best financial
and investment advice can
have only one answer: Your
professional advisor.
This column, written by
Investors Group Financial
Services Inc. (in Québec – a
Financial Services Firm),
and Investors Group Securities Inc. (in Québec, a firm in
Financial Planning) presents
general information only
tax bracket. This is designed as an
incentive for Canadians to give more
to charities.
Tax planning should be done year
round, not at the last minute, and
certainly not as you prepare your
tax return. As you begin your yearlong journey toward preparing your
2013 tax return you can consider
these ideas to help you make better
decisions about tax credits and tax
deductions.
The foregoing is for general
information purposes and is
the opinion of the writer. This
information is not intended to
provide personal advice including,
without limitation, investment,
financial, legal, accounting or
tax advice. Please call or write to
Rick Sutherland CLU, CFP, FDS,
R.F.P., to discuss your particular
circumstances or suggest a topic
for future articles at 613-798-2421
or E-mail rick@invested-interest.
ca. Mutual Funds provided through
FundEX Investments Inc.
and is not a solicitation to
buy or sell any investments.
For more information on this
topic please contact Linda at
Linda.Hancock@ InvestorsGroup.com.
Page 34
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JUNE 2013
MUSIC
Doors Open For Music At Southminster Strikes A Chord In OOS
By Roland Graham,
Artistic Director,
DOFMS series
at the noon-hour mid-week
time slot (concerts are held
each Wednesday at 12pm),
organizers quickly realized
DOFMS Artistic Director and pianist Roland Graham and
tenor Jeffrey Boyd PHOTO BY JENNIFER VAWER
This past season has witnessed the birth of a wonderful new addition to the
cultural fabric of Old Ottawa
South. Launched in February
2013 with the assistance of a
handful of generous local arts
patrons, and planned initially
as a seven-week Lenten series only, the Doors Open for
Music at Southminster weekly concert series (DOFMS
for short) has been a remarkable success. With weekly
attendance of as many as 120
the series had the potential
to be more than a short-term
project.
Among other things, the
concert series seemed to be
meeting a number of important community needs. The
basic objectives were simple:
to create an opportunity for
local and young artists to
showcase their talents; to
bring life into the beautiful
but often empty Southminster
Sanctuary; and to offer something of value to the local
public with a spiritual dimension accessible to everyone.
The willingness of artists to
perform, the enthusiasm with
which volunteers agreed to
assist with production, and
the strong turnout of the public attested to the reality that
these objectives were being
met. And the generosity of
the audience, in spite of the
fact that the concerts were
advertised as free of charge,
only drove the point home,
allowing organizers to thank
the musicians with muchappreciated honoraria and set
aside funds for future music
projects.
But the project was doing
more than that. Coinciding with a period of vitally
important inward reflection
about Southminster’s role as
a Church in the Community
(CBC radio listeners may
have heard Julie Ireton’s
recent piece on “Tapestry”
with host Mary Hynes on
this very subject), the concert
series has furnished Southminster’s congregation with
an unexpected new avenue
through which to engage
regularly and meaningfully
with its neighbours. While
it can hardly be said that
Southminster had been sitting idly by – through its Out
of the Cold suppers, as but
one example, the church has
for many years been making
a vital impact on the welfare
of the Ottawa community
– a new means of nourishing its neighbours has been
a welcome and encouraging development. ‘Spiritual
food’ is, after all, among
those things of which we, as
denizens of an increasingly
secular modern world, are
often most in need.
The success of the concerts can be attributed in part
to the excellent calibre of
musicians who volunteered
to play, along with wonderfully varied and balanced
programming. Concerts have
included classical favourites
such as Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata and the Toccata
and Fugue in D minor by J.
S. Bach, along with comparatively more esoteric selections such as Debussy’s Preludes, and even extended to
Jazz and Gospel content. The
result has been an extremely
enjoyable and varied series
of artistic presentations,
planned with the public in
mind, and offered to people
free of charge besides.
The first season of concerts
will culminate in June with
three exciting final Wednes-
day presentations. The first,
on June 5th, will feature the
Choir of Men and Boys from
Christ Church Cathedral,
directed by Matthew Larkin,
in a program of a Capella
Masterworks from Cathedral
tradition titled ‘Hail Gladdening Light!’. The concert
will include works by Bruckner, Duruflé, Larkin, Palestrina, Stanford, Tallis and
Wood. Then on June 12th,
Ottawa Jazz fixture Brian
Downey will lead a quartet
of superb musicians in a
bluesy reading of favourite
Gospel and Jazz standards,
including ‘Swing Low Sweet
Chariot’ and ‘Summertime’.
Finally on June 19th, brilliant
young concert pianist James
Coghlin will travel from
Montreal to perform Chopin’s ‘Polonaise-Fantasy’ and
Beethoven’s ‘Adieu Sonata’,
among other works.
The DOFMS series will
then take a break for the
summer months and resume
again in the Fall. Inquiries
about our programming
and future plans should be
directed to the church office
at (613) 730-6874.
“Words and Music”: An Hour of Readings, Music and Reflection at Trinity
By Paul Merriam
The series “Words and Music” was
initiated in 2011 by Trinity’s Music
Director, Victoria Scott. Each “Words
and Music” event offers an hour of
readings, music and reflection, with
the intention of creating an oasis of
peace and quiet in the midst of this
busy world. The readings are not
necessarily religious, but are chosen
as “food for thought”. The music
is chosen with a view to creating a
relaxing and refreshing atmosphere.
Trinity is fortunate to have a fine
Casavant pipe organ, and a newly refurbished Heintzman piano, and both
are put to wonderful use in the musical portion of “Words and Music”.
Trinity also has a beautiful Sanctuary,
lovely stained glass windows, and
very good acoustics, offering an ideal
space for listening and reflection.
The next “Words and Music” will
take place on Sunday, June 9th, 2013,
at 4 p.m. It will feature Mary Sean
Burgham as reader, Victoria Scott,
piano and organ, and Trinity Organ
Scholar Kilby Baron. For the first
time, there will be a choral component, with the newly formed “Trinity Singers” offering a selection of
choral music. Admission is free, but
a freewill offering will be gratefully
received.
Why not plan to spend this hour on
June 9th in quiet reflection, listening, and enjoying the beautiful space
Trinity offers? For more information,
you can find Trinity on Facebook, or
contact the Church Office at 613733-7536.
Seventeen Voyces’ World Premiere
of Casanova
By Margret Brady Nankivell
Seventeen Voyces’ 2012-13 exceptional subscription series closes on
Saturday, June 8, with Casanova, the
world premiere of Andrew Ager’s
farcical chamber opera based on
the writings of the famous Venetian
adventurer.
Set in 18th century Venice, the
partially staged opera will be performed in front of a screened tableau of the streets of the famed city.
The performance will take place at
7:30 p.m. at St. Matthew’s Anglican
Church in the Glebe. Directed by Ottawa South’s Kevin Reeves, the choir
will be accompanied by the Ottawa
Baroque Consort, featuring Laura
Nernberg and Kevin James on violin,
Olivier Henchiri on cello and Marie
Bouchard on harpsichord and organ.
The title role will be played by
Montreal baritone Philippe Bolduc.
The first half of the concert will
consist of Monteverdi’s “Gloria”
and “Beatus Vir” and an instrumental work by Vivaldi. Both of these
composers worked in Venice, an
appropriate introduction to the city
Casanova knew so well.
Adults $30. Students $15. Tickets
can be purchased online at www.
seventeenvoyces.ca or at Compact
Music, Herb & Spice, Leading Note
and at the door.
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JUNE 2013
FAITH COMMUNITY
Sunnyside Wesleyan Offers Street Carnival To Serve Community
By Margaret Sambol
Sunnyside Wesleyan Church is hoping to fill Grosvenor Avenue with
the sound of children’s laughter and
adults meeting their neighbours and
having a great time on Saturday, June
8.
That’s because the church is inviting Old Ottawa South residents to a
free Street Carnival from 12 to 4 p.m.
“We, as a church, love being part of
this community and because we are
followers of Jesus we look for ways
to love our community. We thought
a street carnival would be a great
way to love our community,” says
Rev. Brent Russett, senior pastor of
Sunnyside. “A street carnival is just a
wonderful way to bring fun into our
neighbourhood.”
The event features a bouncy castle,
dunk tank, carnival games, facepainting, music and entertainment. There
will also be hot dogs, popcorn, cotton
candy, helium balloons and prizes.
Everything is free, as long as supplies
last.
“We wanted to provide an opportunity for people in old Ottawa
South to get to know the church
community in a non-traditional set-
ting and we wanted to have fun doing
it,” says carnival organizer Gilles
Doucet. “This is an open-ended
come-and-go as-you-like event.”
There will be games and activities
for kids of different ages and interests, including a fishing game, shootto-win ball hockey contest, water
balloon toss and lots more.
“My kids are so looking forward to
this event,” says carnival volunteer
Joe Sambol. “They are literally jumping up and down in excitement when
we talk about all the fun things there
will be to do. I really hope the kids
and families in Old Ottawa South
Doors Open Ottawa in Old Ottawa South
By Linda Russell, Co-Chair
Doors Open Ottawa
Advisory Council
Doors will be opening wide in Old
Ottawa South and the Glebe when
Doors Open Ottawa returns June 1
and 2. This is your one chance to
visit some of the city’s most architecturally, historically and culturally
interesting buildings, many of which
are not open to the public. And by the
way, it’s free.
Last year 80,000 people grabbed
their Doors Open Ottawa Event
Guide and set out to explore some of
this city’s greatest space. This year
over 120 buildings are inviting visitors to do the same.
Check out the Royal College of
Physicians and Surgeons, the Mayfair
Theatre and Southminster United
Church, or head over the bridge
to the Glebe to visit St. Matthew’s
Anglican Church, Abbotsford House,
and Blessed Sacrament Church.
Representing the work of at least
three Ottawa architects, these buildings offer a look at unique architectural features such as original marble
mantlepieces, significant stained
glass windows, a belfry, and atmospheric cinema style design.
If you dare to leave your neighbourhood, visit what is believed to
be the oldest operating hydroelectric
generator in Canada. The original turbines and generators are still inside
the Chaudiere Falls#2 Generating
Station built in 1891. At Ottawa
City Hall’s Heritage Building, the
structure incorporates the old teachers’ college which is now home to
the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame. It’s
also where Mayor Jim Watson has his
office, and during the Saturday morning of Doors Open Ottawa you will
find him hosting tea and coffee. If
you’re a “foodie”, stop by the historic
Cordon Bleu Culinary Arts Institute
on Laurier Ave. where they’ll be celebrating their 25th Anniversary with
special events on site.
come on out and have a really great
day.”
The carnival will be held at 58
Grosvenor Ave. Please note there will
no parking on site during the carnival. Grosvenor will be closed from
Sunnyside to Woodbine, except for
local traffic.
Children under 12 must be accompanied by a supervising adult. This is
a rain or shine event, although some
activities may need to be cancelled in
heavy rains or high winds.
For more information, visit the
church website at www.sunnysidechurch.ca.
Doors Open Ottawa offers a unique
way to become familiar with your
city’s history, meet new neighbours
and gain access to spaces that are
usually off-limits. Doors Open can
put you in touch with your city like
you’ve never been before.
Check out the complete list of participating buildings online at Ottawa.
ca/doorsopen. Watch for the Doors
Open Ottawa Event Guide in the
Ottawa Citizen on Saturday May 25.
Pick up a guide at selected Bridgehead locations. Like us on Facebook
and follow us on Twitter@DoorsOpenOtt.
Southminster United Church
Is an Inclusive, Welcoming Congregation with a heart for Outreach and Forging Partnerships.
Has long been a welcoming home in Old Ottawa South for a variety of community groups, concerts, and outreach ministries.
Is pleased to invite community members and visitors to join us for summer worship services.
Starting on the last Sunday in June and for the next nine weeks, worship will be shared among three neighbouring churches and worship will
begin at 10 a.m. This is a great opportunity to form community and learn from other congregations, and to enjoy bonds of collaboration and
friendship.
Summer Service Places and times:
Sunday June 30, July 7, 14
Southminster United Church - 10 am
Sunday July 21, 28 and Aug 4th St. Giles Presbyterian Church - 10 am
Sunday Aug 11, 18, 25, Sept 1
Glebe St. James United Church - 10 am
Area Worship Services
Sunnyside Wesleyan
Church
58 Grosvenor Avenue (at
Sunnyside)
Sunday Worship Services at
9am & 11am
Children’s program offered
during worship services.
Trinity Anglican Church
1230 Bank St (at Cameron
Ave)
Sundays: Holy Eucharist at 8
and 10am
with Church School & Choir
St Margaret Mary’s Parish
7 Fairbairn (corner of Sunnyside)
Tuesday Evening at 7PM
Friday Daytime at 12:15PM
Sunday Mornings at 9:30AM and
11:30PM
Southminster United Church
15 Aylmer Avenue (at Bank & the Canal)
Sunday Worship: 10:30 a.m.
10:00 a.m. beginning June 30th
Street
Carnival
Bouncy castle, dunk tank, face painting,
balloons, music, food, games, prizes
ALL FREE!
Saturday, June 8 from 12 to 4 p.m.
58 Grosvenor Ave. @ Sunnyside
www.sunnysidechurch.ca
Please note there is no parking on site. Children under 12 must be accompanied by a supervising adult.
Page 36
THE OSCAR
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JUNE 2013
TASTY TIDBITS FROM TRILLIUM BAKERY
Seeking My Mountain “High”
By Jocelyn Leroy
to think of it, all the planes
from those cities are probably too small to withstand
part with $10 in change for
our call. Eventually we had
too much gum and barely
Saratoga, California.
PHOTO BY BRITTANY CAMPBELL
Everyone at Trillium shooed
me out the door, reassuring
me that all would be well
when I was in California for
the second week this April.
This would be a quick trip
for R&R to recover from
moving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day and settling into
our new digs at 1181 Bank
St.
Ready, Set, Go
My husband Dave and I
thought we were so clever
travelling light. We couldn’t
think of any reasons we’d
use a cell phone, laptop,
even credit cards – so, we
left them all at home. We had
lots of US dollars for taking Dave’s daughter out for
dinner; this was not to be a
working or shopping holiday,
but rather temporary freedom
from burdens, large or small.
Passports ready, we sidled
up to the empty United Airlines counter. 6:00 AM. Just
in time to hear that our flight
was seriously delayed due to
“weather.”
Bad News
In fact, there were storms
all over the central U.S. A
bored-looking agent suggested that we head for the East
coast – Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New Jersey. “Of course,
they’ll be late, too. You will
miss your connection in Chicago, no matter which flight
you choose.” She couldn’t
have looked less interested.
Then she shrugged, “Come
the ‘weather.’” Just like the
one we were supposed to be
boarding to Chicago.
After this agent reeled off
more negative possibilities,
we felt frustrated and slightly
panicky. It all looked bad.
“Ms. Nonchalant” asked for
our daughter’s street number
for the immigration card, as
if indeed we were proceeding
to take one of those imaginary, not-safe, not-happening
flights.
What Number?
Oh my God, we had no
idea of her street number,
only the name of the street
and the town, Avalon, Silicon
Valley. Our daughter had just
moved there, and she was to
pick us up. We knew exactly
where we were supposed to
be going.
We thought we would
call her to find out the allimportant number. Oops! Our
cell phones were at home.
Payphone! Do they still have
them at airports? Bingo. We
dumped in all our change. A
recorded voice directed us to
push 10 or 11 buttons, then
stopped. Silence. Panicking,
we ran past a long strip of
stores until we found a magazine, map and gum store.
We bought a pack of gum
with a twenty and politely
asked for change in coin. The
surly woman at the counter
said, “No way.” We grabbed
more gum and said, “Only
10 dollars in change please.”
But the lady wasn’t going to
enough coin. As we tore back
to the payphone, we saw
our doom-and-gloom agent
drumming on her counter top
with a sour look on her face.
She brandished our passports
as we approached.
After depositing all our
change into the slots, the
robotic voice returned, telling
us that this phone did not
accept change. “But this is
a coin-operated phone, and
you said that ten dollars was
the required amount,” we
shouted ineffectively into the
handset.
So then we called family
here in Ottawa in hopes of
learning the California street
number. After what seemed
forever, we received a call
back to learn that yes, the
street number had been found
in a stack of e-mails. A miracle! But now, even though
we had the precious number,
our agent repeated that travel
didn’t look all that good.
How can this be happening? Thousands of flights
cross the US daily in all
kinds of weather. And it
wasn’t even snowing – anywhere. But then our agent
stood up, and she scribbled
on a scrap of paper, “A/C”
(Air Canada) and nodded to
her right.
We sprinted to the Air
Canada counter. Luck was
with us. A friendly, attentive
agent produced two boarding passes for us and said,
“If you hurry, you’ll make
the flight.” She pointed to the
customs area. Now we had
one-half hour to make the
only on-time flight leaving
Ottawa.
I dug out my big juicy
apple. No time for breakfast
at Tim’s. As we approached
the customs entrance, a
crew-cut guard, gun at hip,
shouted, “Stop! You have to
go through those doors to finish your apple.”
Those Doors
On the other side of those
doors, another security
guard – with a baton – said,
“No fruit on this side of the
doors.” I chomped down
on the apple and filled my
cheeks. Dave said, “Just
throw it out.” So, out it went.
Then we were stopped and
told to dump out the contents
of our baggage, spread for
the wand, be patted down, remove shoes and pass through
the X-ray booth.
Then an agent measured
my near-weightless jar of
butterlike, expensive sunscreen: this was not on the
prohibited list. To deal with
this new crisis, I whipped out
a plastic baggie to transfer
my sunscreen into. The agent
now informed me, “You have
to go through those doors
to do that.” There was now
a line-up behind me, glaring at the offending jar, and
by now the doors were far
away. I stuck my hand into
the jar for one quick scoop.
The agent snatched the jar
from my hand. “Just throw
it out,” said Dave, sweating
profusely. We crammed everything back into our bags,
grabbed them and ran to the
gate, covering much ground
in seconds.
The Girlfriend
As we sat catching our
breath before boarding in
five minutes, a stunning,
beautifully dressed woman
sat down beside my husband.
She was bedecked with rings,
bouncy hair, a wristful of
leather bracelets studded with
crystals (diamonds?), and she
had a great smile. I admired
the bracelets. I could tell she
liked the look of Dave.
Dave got right to the point.
“May I please use your cell
phone to call my daughter in
California to tell her of our
change in airline and arrival
time?” She lit up. “Sure, and
let’s text and e-mail her, too.”
Mission accomplished. “You
can buy me a drink. I like
wine. I like it a lot. In fact,
I’m going to California to
write up Napa Valley’s vineyards and wineries.
“And besides being a
wine-lover, I’m also a baker.
I have four ovens in my fivethousand-square-foot-kitchen
at my bed-and-breakfast in
Guelph.” I replied, “We’re
bakers, too, in our threehundred-square-foot kitchen
in our bakery.”
“I’ll be the girlfriend,” she
said, a little too loudly. “You
two have to do ‘til death
do us part’ and ‘for better
or worse.’ I just do e-mails
and text messages.” We all
laughed. And finally we
boarded.
Our seats could not recline even an inch, due to
the emergency-exit window
beside us. Much later, as we
approached San Francisco,
I noticed the window was
leaking water. I calmed my
seat-mates, who were rapidly
envisioning disaster, requiring us to pry open the window, heave it out into space
before stepping out onto the
wing as the instruction card
directed. Then what? We’re
flying over open water! I
reassured my two seat-mates,
to distract myself from my
own discomfort.
And it turned out that our
“girlfriend” never got her
drink, nor we our snacks, because we had left our credit
cards at home, and on this
plane cash and debit were not
accepted. You’d think we’d
never flown before. I wrote
our friend a funny note, inviting her to stop by the bakery
if she ever travelled to Ottawa. She laughed and gave
me a great hug. (Definitely
diamonds on her wrist.)
Finally, the Mountains
By now, Dave and I really
needed that drink. I couldn’t
recall the last time I thought
that – if ever. But the next
day, rested, we drove up a
lush mountain south of Silicon Valley. In our daughter’s
car, we negotiated hairpin
turns, seemingly every 20
feet. We were heading for
the Mountain Winery, a few
thousand feet up, and we
enjoyed a breathtaking view
in all directions. Gorgeous
homes – mansions, in fact
– dotted the hillsides surrounding us. Most reflected
Spanish architecture. Their
grounds were professionally
(and artfully) landscaped, yet
not too formal. Hedges and
Cont. on page 37
THE OSCAR
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Page 37
JUNE 2013
TASTY TIDBITS FROM TRILLIUM BAKERY
Cont. from pg. 36
low walls, draped in vines
and bright flowers, nestled
under tall pines and palms.
(Later, once back down at
our base, we went on line to
check out some of the “for
sale” signs on these premises. Prices started at several
million dollars. Of course,
our favourite was listed
at $14 million: it had six
bedrooms and eleven bathrooms. But it was the kitchen
and the gardens that sold us.
We don’t really need eleven
bathrooms.)
Above the mansions, we
passed vineyards on every
slope. We could see for
miles, past San José, through
the clear, clean mountain
air. Near the mountain top,
we got out and walked up
cobblestone paths. The sky,
the sweet air, the flowers,
took my breath away. I love
mountains; I’m even drawn
to big hills, which some flatland folks call mountains.
Finally, there it was: the
original stone building with
its weathered sign, “Paul
Masson,” the original owner
of The Mountain Winery. His
chateau still stood, surrounded by flowers and mossy
stone walls. Inside, Jesse the
Mayor, the friendly current
owner, greeted us and ex-
Recipe:
Maple Syrup Butter
Tarts
plained how things worked.
David and I picked up crystal
wine glasses and paid for our
four-part wine tasting.
We carried our first glass,
of a lovely crisp Chardonnay,
outside to an iron-and-glass
table set against a twostorey-high stone wall. From
our seats we could view
vines draping along layered
walls, blooming red and yellow flowers, and, down from
our terrace, an ampitheatre
seating 500, where big-name
concerts are held from Spring
through Fall. This day, a live
steel band played on the terrace as we sipped our wine.
I remembered my mother’s
favourite words: “This is
living.”
All around us were people
who must live in the mansions we saw on the way up.
There were mainly BMWs –
and one limo – in the parking
area. One handsome gentleman had an even-handsomer
cat on a blue leash. This
tomcat looked like he was
used to frequenting wineries;
he was calm, cool, self-confident. Four white paws and
a white bib complemented
his sleek, short grey coat. He
strutted about proprietarily.
In spite of the elegant
premises and the high-end
clientèle, there was a decidedly comfortable, casual aura
about this place. We ordered
Ingredients
3 eggs
½ cup butter
1 ½ cups maple syrup and/or brown sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
1 tbsp. lemon juice
raisins
2-inch unbaked tart shells
a platter of fine cheeses to go
with our next three wines,
an earthy Pinot Noir, a fruity
Beaujolais, and – I forget the
fourth! I’m sure I tasted notes
of citrus and choirs of angels.
Dave and I nibbled water
crackers and fig compôte,
wine-soaked strawberries and
spiced walnuts. The warming sun, utterly stunning
surroundings, deep-blue sky,
trees of all kinds, made us
linger. They totally seduced
us.
Next time I’ll wear my new
silk scarlet blouse – even if
the trip is only in my dreams!
Directions
Mix eggs, maple syrup / sugar, vanilla, lemon
juice and melted butter.
Place raisins in empty tart shells before
pouring in the filling, to ensure even
distribution.
Bake at 400° F for 15 – 20 minutes, or until
golden-brown.
RED APRON COOKS
By Jennifer Heagle co-owner
of The Red Apron
Farmer’s Market season is upon us
and luckily we are surrounded by
great and growing markets, all within
a short walk or bike ride of our
neighbourhood.
The more established markets, like
the Parkdale and Byward market are
becoming more local in their content,
and opening their doors to new and
smaller growers and producers. Our
good friend Azeb and her business
partners have opened a small stall at
the Parkdale Market selling Kitchen
and Garden Aprons under the ‘Hip
Street Apron’ banner. Check out the
colorful and clever products every
Thursday through Sunday in June.
The Main Street Market, every
Saturday between 9am – 2pm on
the grounds of Saint Paul University
at 223 Main St., continues to thrive
with a growing list of small artisanal
producers. Gluten free baked goods
are becoming more available and
Simonne at 5 Cupcakes makes the
best butter tarts around – gluten or
no gluten. Josef at Canreg Station
always has a line-up for his amazing
artisanal cheeses, but he also sells
pasture raised pork and lamb.
At the Ottawa Farmer’s Market,
every Sunday from 8:00 am until
3:00 pm, our favourite growers and
producers have returned this year;
Pascale with her ‘all natural icecream’ and ice cream sandwiches,
Colin at Jambican with his fantastic greens, and the Flatbread Pizza
Company where I enjoyed the most
amazing breakfast pizza last year.
But there are also many new vendors
this year including Maria-Clara &
Alvaro at Crepe Joy. Each week they
will be creating at least 2 seasonally
inspired crepes using ingredients
sourced at the market. Last week’s
asparagus, cheese & pesto crepe was
a huge success!
In June we will see a larger number
of locally grown vegetables at the
market including asparagus, baby
spinach, salad greens, greenhouse
cucumbers & tomatoes, rhubarb and
strawberries.
Farmer’s Market Quiche
1 9.5″ pie crust – uncooked
We make our own pie crust using
butter and lard but you could purchase one or even make a crustless
quiche.
2 tablespoons fresh pesto or chopped
fresh herb
(This time of year we make a ramp
pesto)
½ cup crumbled or shredded cheese –
(Canreg Station Mountain Shepherd
is a great choice)
¼ cup chopped green onions
½ cup of chopped cooked bacon or
sausage
(a variety of market vendors smoke
bacon, or cure sausage)
3 eggs
1 cup milk
salt & pepper to taste
Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees. Spread
cheese, pesto, green onions & bacon
or sausage on the bottom of the unbaked pie shell. Whisk eggs & milk
and season with salt and pepper. pour
into pie shell. Place in the oven and
bake for 30-40 minutes until eggs are
set and crust is golden brown. Let sit
for 15 minutes before serving.
Baby Spinach & Cherry Tomato
Salad with Farmstand Cheese &
Yogurt Mint Sauce
(serves 4)
8 cups baby spinach, washed and
dried
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes,
sliced in half
500 g of your favourite cheese,
crumbled or grated
(we like Canreg Station feta for this
recipe)
500 g 3% Plain Yogurt
1 bunch Fresh Mint
3 cloves garlic
1/3 cupolive or canola Oil
Juice from ½ lemon
Salt/Pepper to Taste
Remove mint leaves from stems and
wash. In a food processor or blender,
puree mint leaves, lemon juice, oil
and garlic cloves. Stir mixture into
yogurt and season with salt and pepper. Arrange spinach, tomatoes and
cheese on a plate and spoon on the
yogurt mint sauce. Serve immediately.
Crepe Joy inspired Breakfast
Crepe
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter, melted
I make my crepes in a blender but
if you don’t have a blender you can
use a large mixing bowl. In a mixing
bowl, whisk together the flour and
the eggs. Gradually add in the milk
and water, stirring to combine. Add
the salt and butter; beat until smooth.
I find it best to let the batter sit for
a few minutes (up to 20) before you
start cooking.
Heat a lightly oiled griddle or crepe
pan over medium high heat. If you
think you will do this often, invest in
a crepe pan – it’s well worth it. Pour
or scoop the batter onto the griddle,
using approximately ¼ cup for each
crepe. Tilt the pan with a circular
motion so that the batter coats the
surface evenly.
Flip the crepe using an off-set
spatula and at this point you can
start to get creative. You can serve
your crepes with the fillings ‘on the
side’ or you can put the filling in the
crepe and fold it over and let it warm
through.
Filling/Topping Suggestions:
• Steamed asparagus, sliced ham &
cheddar cheese
• Egg, ham & cheese
• Sliced tomato, pesto & goat
cheese
• Sautéed mushrooms & goat
cheese
• Sliced strawberries & whipped
cream
• Nutella & sliced bananas
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-Massage -Hand & Arm Splints
205 - 194 Main St., Ottawa K1S 1C2
Phone: 567-4808 Fax: 567-5261
www.sueravenphysio.com
Page 38
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KALEIDOSCOPE KIDS’ BOOKS
What are You Re-reading this Summer?
By Karin Fuller
With the school year wrapping up,
kids (and parents!) are often anxious
to shed routines and just relax into
the warmth of sunny summer days.
Growing up, my sisters and I often
indulged in some re-reading of our
favourite stories while lazing in the
hammock, or holed-up inside on
rainy cottage days. This month, we’re
going to focus on some of our favourite “one more time” books.
Board books get a lot of use.
Some stories are more enjoyable to
read every night than others, am I
right? For some kids, it’s the rhyme
that hooks them; for others, it’s the
pictures or the subject matter (could
be lady bugs, cows, tractors, puppies – you name it, some little person
is captivated by it…). My favourite
board book to read again and again
would be Is Your Mama a Llama by
Deborah Guarino and Steven Kellogg. The pictures are cute, the text
is fun and rhyme-y, and kids start to
anticipate the answers based on the
characteristics of the animals being
described. Best of all, if you read it
in different accents, it really cracks
me up (this could just be me – user
experiences may vary…). I’m also
pretty keen on Jeremy Tankard’s
Grumpy Bird, mostly because of
the expressions on the animals’ faces.
Anyone with a two year old can
appreciate a story about a bird that
wakes up too grumpy to fly – this is a
cute story that helps toddlers learn to
express their feelings. It also shows
how we can rely on our friends to
help us when we’re down. Not a bad
message and it ends with worms for
breakfast for all!
Any repeat-hits list compiled by
yours truly wouldn’t be complete
without a book by Oliver Jeffers.
We all have our top titles, but in the
board book format, my vote is for
Lost and Found. The story is simple
enough for the younger set to follow, and the illustrative style is spare
but contains details that you will
only notice upon reflection. I love
that the boy simply adds a toque to
his head to row the penguin back to
the South Pole – exactly the sort of
winter dressing accommodations I’ve
become familiar with in a house that
is now full of teenagers. This is sweet
story of friendship that I never get
tired of reading to anyone who will
listen.
Show of hands – anyone else grow
up a fan of Dennis Lee’s nonsensical
Alligator Pie? This book of jump
rope poetry is a feast for the ears and
the eyes – originally published in
1974, it flaunts psychedelic pictures,
and lines that stick in your head for
years. As a kid, I had a record that
featured children reciting these poems along with the author. Yes, I did.
And it was awesome.
When my three kids were preschoolers, they had this book on
semi-permanent loan from the
library: The Story of the Little Mole
Who Went in Search of Whodunit
by Werner Holzwarth and Wolf Erlburch. It is also published under the
title The Story of the Little Mole
Who Knew it was None of His
Business. The sights and sounds of
animals pooping are brought to life
– it’s an episode of Wild Kingdom
written with four-year olds in mind.
Not just any detective story.
Another favourite at our house was
Where the Wild Things Are – the
classic by Maurice Sendak. Honestly,
50 years of kids can’t be wrong on
this adventure where a timeout expands into an island adventure. What
better time of year to start a wild
rumpus than the end of school? Go
ahead, roar your terrible roars, gnash
your terrible teeth, roll your terrible
eyes, and show your terrible claws!
It’s better to get that out before long
car rides to vacation hot spots.
Meerkat Mail by Emily Gravett
has post cards on every page spread
(how great is that?) – sick of the
heat of the Kalahari Desert and a bit
crowded by his large nuclear family, Sunny the Meerkat embarks on
an odyssey to find the perfect place
to live, bunking with his mongoose
relatives along the way. His letters
home are full of sage observations,
and somehow he manages to stay one
step ahead of the jackal! Clever book
with fantastic illustrations – a new
classic.
No list of re-reads would be complete without a mention of the entire
Harry Potter series. Adventure,
magic, kids having to make their
way in a world of good and evil – it’s
really got all the elements that will
keep you coming back for more.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
by Rick Riordan is another series that
has seen a lot of use at my house.
When the last book came out, we
actually had to buy two copies so that
there was less fighting over who got
to read it first (good thing we own
a bookstore…)! Mythology, quests,
danger at every turn in the modern
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JUNE 2013
world – this is the recipe for a postbedtime, flashlight in bed, “just one
more chapter” kind of night.
Maureen Johnson writes great
young adult fiction. Suite Scarlet is
a favourite among her titles – what’s
not to love in the foibles of Scarlett
Martin, whose family owns a small
Art Deco hotel in the heart of New
York City? Strong characters, theatrical adventures, and all the fun and
challenges that come from living in
a big family. This book has such a
great dedication, I feel compelled to
include it here: “This book is dedicated to anyone who has ever played
a dead body on stage or screen. It
takes a big actor to lie on the ground
and keep quiet. Droop on, my lifeless
friends.” I mean, how great is that?
One final set of books I’d like to
mention starts off with The Warrior Heir by Cinda Williams Chima.
This is a wonderful high fantasy
series, set in modern times. The story
embodies the struggle between guilds
– warriors, wizards, charmers. With
compelling characters, a fast moving plot and lots of historical battles
and lore explored along the way, this
book remains enjoyable after multiple readings.
Everyone has books that they
keep on their shelves to pick up
when there’s nothing new to read, or
they want to revisit some favourite
characters, or just for the reassurance
of knowing what’s coming up on the
next page. This summer is the perfect
time to slip into a comfortable story
and enjoy the sunshine!
CARLETON CORNER
Carleton University announced its comprehensive
strategic plan to ensure environmental sustainability in all
university operations on May
21. Carleton’s sustainability
strategy and goals constitute
one of the most ambitious
action plans in Canada to reduce a university’s footprint.
In collaboration with
Honeywell, a significant
financial investment will be
made to conduct a buildingby-building assessment that
will reduce energy, waste and
water use on campus. The
multi-year plan is complemented by an extensive
array of academic programs
and research connected to
sustainability at Carleton.
The plan also will encourage
participation from all sectors
of the university campus.
In other news, third-year
chemistry student Nick May
was named the 2013 Student Entrepreneur National
Champion at the Enactus
Canada National Exposition in Toronto. May was
awarded $10,000 and the
John Dobson Cup by charitable organization Enactus
Canada and the John Dobson
Foundation for his success as
a business owner and fulltime student. His cosmetics
company REMAY developed
a shaving gel product for
women. May was chosen by
a panel of entrepreneurs and
industry leaders from across
the country during the threeday event. He will represent
Canada at the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards in
Washington, D.C., in November.
Meanwhile, Prof. J. David
Miller from the department
of chemistry was named the
2013 Distinguished Fellow
by the American Industrial Hygiene Association
(AIHA). The Fellow designation recognizes members
who have contributed to
the industrial hygiene or
related disciplines through
research, leadership, publications, education or service to
AIHA. Miller’s work develops methods for assessing
exposure to fungi for studies
of damp housing conditions
and health effects of mould
in the built environment. He
was honoured at the 2013
American Industrial Hygiene
Conference and Expo (AIHce) and the Fellows Special
Interest Group meeting on
May 22.
The Carleton community
was saddened to hear of the
passing of Carleton alumni
and Toronto Sun founding
editor Peter Worthington last
month. Worthington died at
the age of 86 at the Toronto
General Hospital. He graduated with a bachelor’s of
journalism degree from what
was then called Carleton
College. Worthington is re-
membered as one of the most
well-known journalists who
saw many wars and conflicts
of the 20th century over his
long career. He was editorin-chief of the Toronto Sun
for 12 years and in the 1980s,
he helped launch Toronto’s
sister publication, the Ottawa
Sun. Worthington was the
winner of a National Newspaper Citation, four National
Newspaper Awards and was
named to the Canadian News
Hall of Fame.
Carleton Corner is written by
Carleton University’s Department of University Communications. As your community university, Carleton
hosts many exciting events
of interest to Ottawa South.
For more information about
upcoming events, please go
to carleton.ca/events.
Carleton is planning a Homecoming Weekend, Friday, SaturdaySunday September 20-22 which
will include the football Ravens
playing York University.
THE OSCAR
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JUNE 2013
CARLETON SPORTS
The Origins of Carleton Football
Carleton College football, ca. 1949.
PHOTO COURTESY OF CARLETON UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, HERITAGE PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION.
By Joe Scanlon
Although there were some attempts
at sport when Carleton College began
night classes in autumn 1942, it
wasn’t until day classes began in the
fall of 1945 that Carleton began to
participate in team sports with other
educational institutions and – like
most things at Carleton in those early
years – the initiative came from the
students.
As was true in many institutions in
autumn 1945 many of those students
were war veterans, glad to be alive
and thrilled to be getting something
many had thought impossible – a
university education.
They were to say the least a dynamic group and they got involved in
everything.
Football was the first sport to get
organized that fall and it began when
some students drinking at the Bytown
Inn (the main student drinking spot
for more than a decade) decided they
wanted to start a football team.
They decided they would visit the
Ottawa Journal – just a few blocks
away – and ask the sports editor, Bill
Westwick, if he would help.
Westwick was more than obliging.
It was 11:45 p.m. but right away he
called a man known as Tiny Bismarck Hermann, a former Ottawa
Rough Rider.
He told him, “I want you to coach
the Carleton College football team.”
Hermann replied, “They don’t have
a team.”
Westwick told him they were trying
to form a team and needed a coach.
Hermann said he would think about
it and call back and five minutes later
he did so – and agreed to become the
first Carleton coach.
The names of all those involved in
the visit to the Journal are not known;
but two of them were Bob Forbes and
Don Anderson and they – working
with Jim Hanna, the student athletics
representative – started to turn their
idea into a reality.
The players must have posted notes
wherever classes were held – there
was no college building until the
following year – because in a matter
of days they had enough players to
form a team. They also somehow had
persuaded two other schools to play
them.
Getting Hermann as a coach was a
real coup. He was not just an ordinary football player: he was a Royal
Canadian Mounted Police Officer, a
wartime naval officer and a Rough
Rider football player who had been
on teams that won the Grey Cup in
1936, 1939 and 1940.
W. D. T. Atkinson, principal of
Glebe Collegiate, offered the new
team the Glebe-Commerce field for
practices. Equipment came from
the Strathcona junior team and the
Ottawa Trojans and Rough Riders.
The equipment was largely new. The
teams also came up with some sweaters; unfortunately they didn’t match.
Charlie Kerr recalled he had once
played for a hockey team which had
an extra set of sweaters. They were
made for hockey but they did match.
There was no question things
moved quickly because on October
13, 1945, the team headed by bus to
Macdonald College.
Although Carleton was older, bigger, stronger and had better equipment than Macdonald, the team lost
that first game to Macdonald, 15-0.
Two of Macdonald’s touchdowns
came on Carleton fumbles, one
behind the goal line, the other on the
one yard line.
But a week later Carleton hosted
Macdonald at Lansdowne Park – and
won 22-1.
This time Macdonald did the fumbling.
Macdonald fumbled a kick on the
five-yard line. Al Holley scooped it
up and scored.
Macdonald fumbled on its own 30.
Carleton called a reverse and Ted
Graves went 30 yards for a touchdown.
Late in the game, Macdonald
fumbled on the one. Mel Carson, a
245-pound middle (today the position is called by the US term, tackle)
recovered the fumble. Hermann sent
him back in as a halfback. He proved
unstoppable, scoring on the next play.
(It would be years later when Mike
Ditka started to use William “The
Refrigerator” Perry in a similar way
with the Chicago Bears.)
Carleton finished the season with
two losses against Queen’s intermediate team.
Although they were a new team
at a new institution, Carleton had
some talent. Russ Brown came from
the Trojans, Ottawa’s other semi-pro
team. Doug Good later joined the
Rough Riders. Johnny Shore went on
to star at the University of Toronto.
Bill Morgan moved on to play for
Queen’s. Rock Robillard had previously played for the Rough Riders
and later would play and coach at
McGill.
The team survived that first season
but it was less than professional.
For one thing players kept arriv-
ing. Robillard for example had not
been to a single practice before the
first game. Hermann showed him
the plays en route to Macdonald. For
another the players were inclined to
do their own thing. When the bus
arrived early at Macdonald, some
players decided there was time for a
beer at a nearby bar. The officiating
also left something to be desired. In
one of the Queen’s games, Shore got
so upset at the rough play he punched
the nearest person from Queen’s, the
referee. Having a Queen’s official as
referee was not – at the time –all that
unusual. The referee for the first Carleton game against Macdonald – Des
Bloom – travelled to the game on the
Carleton bus.
When the season ended, the student
paper predicted that Carleton would
soon be accepted into an organized
university league. In fact it took time
for Carleton to get into a league with
other smaller schools and it was only
in autumn 1970 – 25 years later –
that Carleton finally got to play the
first teams at established universities
such as Toronto, Queen’s, Western
and McGill.
This fall after a lengthy break Carleton returns to men’s football.
Until the sport was dropped it was
financed along with every other sport
almost entirely by student fees. Ticket sales generated very little revenue
as attendance – except for the annual
Panda game with Ottawa U and the
rare playoff game – was minimal.
Now Carleton has a new model, to
some extent a copy of Laval. Football
is being financed by contributions
from alumni – mostly former players.
It is therefore independent of other
sports.
(The story of the early history of
Carleton football was researched
by second year Journalism students
after a suggestion from the Director
of Athletics, Keith Harris, and some
coaches. It was published by the football alumni, known as the Old Crow
Society.)
Manners Matter
10 AM – 1 PM, Saturday, 13 July 2013
3110 River Building, Carleton University
Norman Patterson School on International Affairs’ Young Diplomat Academy
In this workshop for children ages 7 -13,
Margaret and Larry Dickenson (residents of Old Ottawa South)
outline the basics of good manners for both everyday life and social
occasions – table manners, meeting & greeting,
social behaviour, etc.
A 2-course meal will be served in order to put the classroom portion of
the course into immediate practice.
Fee: $125
To register contact 613-520-2600 (ext 1371)
Page 40
THE OSCAR
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JUNE 2013
SUNNYSIDE BRANCH LIBRARY
Sunnyside Branch Library
1049 Bank Street, Ottawa
613-730-1082,
Adult Services,
extension 22
Children’s Services,
extension 29
Children’s Programs
TD Summer Reading Club
– GO!
Opening Ceremony /
Bon Voyage! Cérémonie
d’ouverture!
Join us for the TD Summer
Reading Club 2013 kickoff! Family program. /
Joignez-vous à nous pour le
lancement du Club de lecture
d’été TD 2013! Programme
familial.
Wednesday, July 3, 2:00 p.m.
This year’s travel theme
encourages children to
journey to places near and
far, from the backyard to
other worlds, by whatever
means they can imagine;
and experience new tastes,
friends and excitement along
the way.
Children’s Weekly Summer
Programs
Summer Family Storytime
/ Contes en famille en été
(bilingual)
Stories, rhymes and songs
for children of all ages and a
parent or caregiver. / Contes,
rimes et chansons pour les
enfants de tous âges et un
parent ou gardien.
Wednesdays, July 10-August
14, 10:15 a.m. (30 min.)
Travels with a Book /
Une histoire, un voyage
(bilingual)
Stories, rhymes and songs
for young school-aged
children. Ages 4-6. / Contes,
comptines et chansons pours
les jeunes enfants. Pour les
4-6 ans.
Thursdays, July 11- August
15, 10:15 a.m. (30 min.)
Game on!
Roll the dice, pick up a suit
or grab a nunchuk! Come
play cards, board games or
Wii with us! Ages 6-12.
Wednesdays, July 10-August
14, 6:30 p.m. (60 min.)
Outside my front door
Take a second look at the
world around you with travel
movies. Ages 6-8.
Fridays, July 5-August 16, 2
p.m. (60 min.)
Summer Reading Club
Special Programs
Artful Exploration
Travel into the world of art.
Ages 9-12. Registration.
Thursday, July 4, 2 p.m. (60
min.)
Summer Babytime
Stories, rhymes and songs
for babies and a parent or
caregiver. Ages 0-18 months
Tuesday, July 9, 10:15 a.m.
(30 min.)
My Island Vacation
Embark on a fun-filled island
getaway. Ages 6-8
Tuesday, July 9, 2 p.m. (60
min.)
Block Party / Ça dé “bloc”
Building Boom: show off
your architectural creativity
with Lego®. Ages 6-12. /
Archiboum! Architectes en
herbe, à vos Lego®! Pour les
6-12 ans.
Wednesday, July 10, 2 p.m.
(60 min.)
Everyone Plays
A world of fun and games at
the library. Ages 6-8.
Thursday, July 11, 2 p.m. (60
min.)
Summer Toddlertime
Stories, rhymes and songs
for toddlers and a parent or
caregiver. 18-36 months.
Tuesday, July 16, 10:15 a.m.
(30 min.)
What’s on the Menu?
Scrumptious stories and tasty
tales from near and far. Ages
6-8. Registration.
Tuesday, July 16, 2 p.m. (60
min.)
World in Art
Explore art in the world
around you and create some
of your own. Ages 6-8.
Registration.
Wednesday, July 17, 2 p.m.
(60 min.)
Outside my front door
Take a second look at the
world around you. Ages 6-8.
Thursday, July 18, 2 p.m. (60
min.)
My Island Vacation
Embark on a fun-filled island
getaway. Ages 6-8
Tuesday, July 23, 2 p.m. (60
min.)
Imagine a world
Get a glimpse of worlds just
beyond this one. Ages 6-8.
Tuesday, July 23, 2 p.m. (60
min.)
Where in the world is agent
X???/Où dans le monde est
l›agent X???
Double agent X has escaped
and the Diefenbunker needs
your help to find him! He
could be hiding anywhere in
the world, and you’ll need to
uncover secret coded clues
to find him! Registration
required. Ages 6-12 /
Agent X s’est échappé et le
Diefenbunker a besoin de
votre aide pour lui trouver! Il
pourrait se cacher n›importe
où dans le monde et vous
aurez besoin de découvrir des
indices secrets et codés pour
lui trouver! Inscription.Pour
les 6 à 12 ans.
Wednesday, July 24, 3 p.m.
(60 min.)
Amazing Explorers
Grab your gear and seek out
wild adventures in uncharted
territory. Ages 6-8.
Thursday, July 25, 2 p.m. (60
min.)
Everyone Plays/Games
around the world
A world of fun and games
at the library. Take a turn
around the globe and find out
what others do for fun. Ages
6-12.
Tuesday, July 30, 10:15 and/
or 2 p.m. (60 min.)
Artist’s Travel Sketchbook/
Carnet de voyage d’artiste
The Group of Seven traveled
around Canada, stopping
in many places along the
way to make sketches
of beautiful landscapes.
Registration. Ages 9-12/Le
Groupe des Sept a beaucoup
voyagé partout au Canada.
Quand les artistes dans le
Groupe voyaient un paysage
magnifique. Inscription. Pour
les 9 à 12 ans.
Wednesday, July 31, 2 p.m.
(60 min.)
Ultimate Road Trip
Stuck in transit? Seize the
skills that will make you king
of the road. Ages 9-12.
Thursday, August 1, 2 p.m.
(60 min.)
Summer Babytime
Stories, rhymes and songs
for babies and a parent or
caregiver. Ages 0-18 months
Tuesday, August 6, 10:15
a.m. (30 min.)
Hidden Worlds
Soar to adventure in
fantastical realms. Ages 9-12.
Tuesday, August 6, 2 p.m.
(60 min.)
By Land, by Sea, by Air
It’s not where you’re going it’s how you get there. Ages
6-8.
Wednesday, Aug 7, 2 p.m.
(60 min.)
Majinx
Majinx invite you on a
spectacular journey to
discover magic from around
the world including China,
Egypt, England, Australia,
India and more. Registration.
Ages 6-12.
Thursday, August 8, 2 p.m.
(60 min.)
Summer Toddlertime
Stories, rhymes and songs
for toddlers and a parent or
caregiver. 18-36 months.
Tuesday, August 13, 10:15
a.m. (30 min.)
Hidden Worlds
Soar to adventure in
fantastical realms. Ages 9-12.
Tuesday, August 13, 2 p.m.
(60 min.)
Go here, go there, go
everywhere
Travel the world with stories,
activities and crafts. Ages
6-8. Registration.
Wednesday, August 14, 2
p.m. (60 min.)
Let’s go....to a puppet
show!
Puppet show for the whole
family.
Thursday, August 15, 2 p.m.
(30 min.)
Teen Programs
TAG Teen Advisory
Group (Ongoing Event)
Sunnyside Teens--join our
new Teen Advisory Group
and have a say in which
programs, activities and
services will be offered to
youth and also help plan and
implement them. Ages 14-18.
To join, stop by the branch.
Look for Teen Programs
presented by Teens: such as
Grade 9 survival tips plus
Drop in Board Game & Card
Game nights. Meet once a
month on Saturdays at Noon.
development, poverty,
economics and politics.
Registration.
Tuesdays, 7:00 (90 min.):
January 8-June 25
Wednesdays, 2:00 (120
min.): January 9-June 26
Ukrainian Conversation:
Beginner Level
Join our group led by a
fluent Ukrainian speaker.
Start off with a review of the
Ukrainian alphabet. All are
welcome. Registration.
Mondays, 7:00 pm (60 min.):
June 10, 24
Adult Special Programs
Eating to Lose Weight
What are we eating,
drinking or doing to cause
our bodies to hold on to
extra fat? We have more
information available on
how to lose weight and how
to be healthy, and yet as a
population we are getting
bigger and unhealthier.
Though there isn’t a magic
diet or pill, we need to
discuss a more sustainable
way of losing weight. Dr.
Chandan Brar of the Glebe
Chiropractic Clinic will
focus on making sense of
what works and what doesn’t
when it comes to losing
those extra pounds that
we are all carrying around
unnecessarily! Registration.
Thursday, June 20, 6:30 pm
(60 min.)
Adult Programs
We Were Children - NFB
Film
We Were Children gives
voice to a national tragedy
and demonstrates the
incredible resilience
of the human spirit. In
this emotional film, the
profound impact of the
Canadian government’s
residential school system
is conveyed unflinchingly
through the eyes of two
children who were forced to
face hardships beyond their
years. Thursday, June 27,
6:30 pm (90 min.)
Canadians in Conversation
Informal chats with the
purpose of developing,
in conversation together,
an appreciation of the
implications of new findings
about the human condition
on the planet; and developing
an appreciation of Canadians,
including ourselves, as active
creators, participants and
sustainers of an emerging
Canadian human community
and emerging global human
community. Topics will
include ecology, human
Healthy Nutrition for
Cancer Prevention
Following a healthy lifestyle
and eating a balanced diet
can help reduce the risk of
developing several forms of
cancer. Specifically, breast,
prostate and colorectal cancer
have been linked to diet. Join
Graham Beaton, Doctor of
Naturopathic Medicine, and
learn what dietary changes
you can make to reduce your
risk of developing cancer.
Registration. Thursday, July
18, 7:00 pm (60 min.)
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JUNE 2013
SUNNYSIDE BRANCH LIBRARY
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
Reviewed by Hélène Merritt, Children’s Librarian at
the Sunnyside Branch of the
Public Library
Set in Alaska, The Snow Child is a
novel is based on northern folklore.
An elderly couple are unable to
have a child of their own. When, one
winter’s day, they build a snow girl,
the girl comes to life.
Mabel and Jack are the old couple
in this story and they leave Pennsylvania to homestead in Alaska. Jack
is farm stock. The hard work and
vagaries of farming are not new to
him. Mabel’s father was a university
professor and it takes her eight years
to adapt to her new lifestyle.
Jack and Mabel have had a child
but it died at birth and Jack buried it
before Mabel even realizes it was a
boy.
Moving north to Alaska is their
escape, their way of dealing with the
questions and the looks of prying,
surely caring neighbours and family.
One winter night, in their new
home, Jack and Mabel build a snow
girl, give her a red scarf and blue
mittens and in the morning, the snow
girl is gone and a set of footprints is
left in the snow. Little by little, the
lonely couple see glimpses of the girl
and little by little, they tame each
other.
The girl comes in for a meal and
slowly the three learn about each
other and their lives. When spring
comes, the girl – Faina – disappears:
she runs north into the mountains, the
land of perpetual snow.
When winter comes, she returns
and brings with her joy and freshness.
The old couple don’t dare believe
their luck and don’t dare talk about
Faina whom no one else has seen.
They befriend another family: Esther and George and their three boys.
When Jack hurts his back, the
youngest son Garrett helps with the
planting and the harvesting of the
crops. He spends more time with
Jack and Mabel and after a while
catches a glimpse of Faina.
Climate Change: To Believe Or Not To Believe
By Gail Stewart
“An increasing majority of Canadians believe that climate change is
happening and is caused by human
activity”
The Environics Institute 2012
In Canada we seem slowly to be
shaping a shared view about climate
change and our human responsibility
for it. OOS residents had a recent opportunity to consider the matter when
Sunnyside library was the site of two
very different events.
On April 18th, Old Ottawa South
resident David Rhynas, a trained volunteer in the Climate Reality Project,
gave a well-illustrated presentation:
Climate Change at a Crossroads: an
update on Al Gore’s An Inconvenient
Truth. (The Climate Reality Project is
dedicated, in light of “overwhelming
international scientific consensus on
climate change” to seeking action on
climate change.)
Noting the advertisement for the
Rhynas presentation, Tom Harris, a
well-known global warming skeptic
and Executive Director of the International Climate Science Coalition,
had sought an opportunity to present
a different view. On April 29, also at
the library, he spoke on Climate Science in an Era of Negative Discovery. (The ICSC, publicizes, among
other things, “the dangerous impacts
of attempts to replace conventional
energy sources with wind turbines,
solar power, biofuel and other ineffective and expensive energy sourc-
AROUND TOWN
Old Ottawa South artist Teresa
Waclawik will be exhibiting her
paintings for the month of June at the
Wine Rack 797 Bank Street (between Third & Fourth in the Glebe)
Opening party June 1st, 2013 Meet
the artist and view her work (with
wine samples of course!) 2 p.m. to 8
p.m. Exhibition will continue for the
month of June.
Belmont Avenue Street Sale. Saturday June 8. Rain Date Sunday. 9 a.m.
to 3 p.m. (unless it all gets sold by
Noon). Along Belmont Ave. on both
sides of Riverdale. Next to the Porch
Sale, this is the biggest Street Sale in
Old Ottawa South. From furniture to
toys to clothes and tools, we’ll have
it all. Hope to see you there!
First Annual Belmont Paddlefest
Saturday June 15 between 1PM and
3PM. Join family, friends and neighbours in Windsor Park at the dock to
celebrate National Paddling Week.
Lets all paddle together on the
Rideau River. Bring whatever watercraft you have and then try something new like SUP (stand up paddleboards), surf skis, outriggers, etc.
Hope to see you there, and remember
to bring your lifejacket or certified
pfd.
Glebe Art in Our Gardens and
Studio Tour is coming up soon. Mark
July 6 & 7 (10;00 - 4:00) on your
calendar. You will see some amazing
art on this tour. Chat with the artists. Get yourself a favourite piece
of art. www.glebearttour.ca for more
information.
La Leche League Canada has a
group in Old Ottawa South
Are you breast-feeding your baby? Are you pregnant and planning to
breast-feed? A La Leche League
meeting is a relaxed, supportive and
non-judgmental place where you can
meet breast-feeding women, ask specific questions about breast-feeding
and learn more about breast-feeding
from accredited leaders.
Meetings every second Tuesday of
the month from 7:00 to 8:30 PM at
36 Glen Ave. Next meeting is June
11. For more information call 613238-5919. The Spectrolite Ensemble at Southminster United Church, featuring
NACO clarinetist Sean Rice, cellist
The two young ones fall in love,
and get married. But shortly after
the birth of her child Faina disappears again and leaves hardly a trace
of having been part of the family.
She does leave a child though, Jay, a
boy who will be brought up by Jack,
Mabel, Garrett and his parents.
This is a beautiful tale of longing
and love and loss and loving again.
Perhaps you did not want to hear
about snow or winter stories just now
when the sun is warm overhead but
it is a story worth remembering and
opening up on a winter’s day. Or
perhaps even to cool down a hot July
evening.
es.”)
The differences between the two
presentations ran deep. How to think
about the issue?
Much of science involves the use
of tools and methods that extend
our senses but which are not widely
available. Increasingly we rely on
others to report to us on phenomena
invisible to us. Science itself is a
procedural method requiring careful inquiry and review. Few understand climate science, fewer still
are involved in it and much about
climate (and the relation of climate
to weather events) is simply not yet
fully understood.
Against this is the degree of risk
to our future if we ignore credible
scientific findings. Furthermore the
consequences of climate change are
increasingly accessible not only to
our own understandings but directly
to our senses. Also nature bats last:
positive feedback from a melting
tundra, for example, could accelerate
climate change.
Already, to most of us, mitigating and adjusting to climate change
makes increasingly good policy sense
and the question has become how
best to do this locally and globally.
The notion that we should want to
proceed effectively, using scarce
resources efficiently, seems merely
obvious. Thus, to this participant,
Mr. Rhynas’s presentation was the
more substantive of the two, also
its motivations in my opinion more
transparent.
Vernon Regehr, and pianist
Patrick Cashin. On Friday June 7th
at 7:30pm. Southminster, in collaboration with the Newfoundland
and Labrador Arts Council, presents
this top notch trio of talented young
Canadian artists, performing music
by Beethoven, Zemlinsky and Sierra.
This is their one and only stop in the
Nation’s capital this year! Tickets,
at $20 ($5 for Students), are available at the Leading Note, Compact
Music (Glebe), Folklore Centre, and
through the Southminster church
office.
Canadian Agriculture Museum, south
of Prince of Wales round-about,
follow signs. 613-230-3276, www.
friendsofthefarm.ca
By the Book, a used bookstore and
cafe operated by the Friends of the
Ottawa Public Library Association
(FOPLA), is holding its monthly
half-price book sale on Saturday,
June 1, from 10 to 4, at 363 Lorry
Greenberg Drive. Following sale on
August 4. Drop by for great buys on
hundreds of books (most under $2).
Explorer Rose Workshop with
Edythe Falconer, June 15, 1 to 3 p.m.
Heritage Rose Garden -- Workshop
on roses, rose pest and diseases and
self-guided tour, handouts available.
Bring a folding chair. Park at the
The Annual OCCSC Community
Open House is back! It will take
place on Sunday, June 9, at 381 Kent
Street, in the back parking, from
1:00 pm - 5:00 pm. You don’t want
to miss this year’s theme: “Happy
Life in Ottawa”! It is, indeed, going
to be a happy event, full of activities,
prizes, food, and drinks.
Peony Tours June 8, 9 a.m. to noon.
By Donation. Guided tours of the
Peony Beds will be offered on the
Central Experimental Farm. Get tips
on what would work best in your
garden and ways of keeping your
peonies happy. Location: Peony
Beds, Ornamental Gardens, C.E.F.
Park at the Canadian Agriculture
Museum, south of Prince of Wales
Traffic round-about. 613-230-3276,
www.friendsofthefarm.ca
Page 42
THE OSCAR
l
JUNE 2013
CLASSY ADS
CLASSY ADS are free for Old Ottawa South residents (except for businesses or for business activity) and must be submitted by email to oscar@oldottawasouth.ca by the
deadline. Your name and contact information (phone number or email address) must be included. Only your contact info will appear unless you specify otherwise. The editor
retains the right to edit or exclude submissions. The OSCAR takes no responsibility for items, services or accuracy. For business advertising inquiries, call 730-1058 or email
oscarads@oldottawasouth.ca.
For Sale
Basketball Wall Unit $20
(needs new net), 16 Sawyer’s
Rotary Slide Trays $2
each, Life World Library
Collection (1960’s-1970’s)
$15.00. 613-526-9005
----------------------------------For Sale: Window air
conditioner, mini fridge,
fans, dresser (6 drawers),
two kitchen chairs. 613-7305972
----------------------------------For sale: Pair of good-quality
speaker stands. Approx. 17
inches high and suitable for
speakers up to 12” X 20”.
Asking $30. Stephen. E-mail:
lindsay_1200@yahoo.ca
----------------------------------For Rent
House for Rent: 3-bedroom
house in OOS. Finished
basement, kitchen, living
room/dining room, 2
bathrooms, washer/dryer,
fridge & stove. Available
June 1st. $1900, plus
utilities. 5 minutes to all
amenities. Mature adults
only. 613-730-0206
----------------------------------House for rent: 107 Hopewell
Avenue at Leonard, July
2013; 3+ bdrms, 2 baths, fin.
bsmt; 5 appliances, AC, gas
heat & h/w; new insulation;
hardwood both levels, high
ceilings; bright, quiet, smoke
free home; parking space,
shed.
Fran (613) 730-4804, fdoy@
sympatico.ca
----------------------------------For Rent: Nova Scotia
Beachfront House. Vacation
on quiet and beautiful
Crescent Beach in Lockeport,
Nova Scotia. Historic private
home is fully equipped,
has two full bathrooms and
sleeps 4 (one king-size bed
in the master bedroom and
two single rooms). Fantastic
views of the ocean waves
rolling onto the beach.
Non-smoking, no pets. For
photos, rates and inquiries
please contact Katherine at
613-230-1313, kslack999@
yahoo.com.
----------------------------------Furnished House Rental:
Available from September
2013 till May 2014. Looking
for clean, non-smoking
tenant(s), no students,
children or pets. References
required. Please call Nancy
or Terry at 613-233-7676,
email - nyarwood@hotmail.
com
----------------------------------Found
Found. Women’s watch.
Windsor Park along
riverfront pathway. The
area of the path runs from
Belmont over to the soccer
field. 613 730-0033.
----------------------------------Found on Riverdale Avenue.
Bicycle, cream colour, older
style. Damaged - gears gone,
fender damaged. 613 7300033
----------------------------------Found: Adult bike, on the
banks of the Rideau River. If you have misplaced yours
contact adamscrivner@
yahoo.com with description.
Caregivers
Looking for Full-Time
Daycare Provider: We are
looking for a full-time
daycare provider for our
two year old in Old Ottawa
South, that could take us
on as a client on or before
September 1, 2013. A home-
care provider is preferred,
preferably one with other
young children. Operating
hours between 8AM and
5PM are required. If you
have a spot available, please
contact us at 613-422-1326.
Dogsitter
Looking for dog-lover to
pet-sit our lovely yellow
lab at our house on Windsor
Park from June 27-July 18th.
Lovely furnished house in
exchange for dog-sitting.
Please call Sarah @613-8892827.
Gardener Wanted
Wanted --- Someone to
water our garden / lawn
periodically during our
summer absences. Aylmer
- Seneca area. Not difficult.
Please call 613-730-3040.
MARKETPLACE
EXTRA-MILE RENOVATIONS
Beautiful Decks, Fences,
Gates & Porches.
Quality Bathrooms & Kitchens.
We also do trim work, plumbing,
electric, installation
of doors & fixtures.
The OOS
Traffic Survey
Local Renovator.
Creative Solutions. References.
Please call for an estimate 613-297-8079
GIBBON’S PAINTING & DECORATING
Local House Painter - Bonded
With 20 years experience
Customer satisfaction
Let us know
what you
think at
www.Old
OttawaSouth.ca
ALWAYS GUARANTEED
For a free estimate please
call Rory 322-0109
Ask about my $25 referral rebate
Book now for your painting needs
To put you ad here contact the Ad Manager at oscarads@ottawasouth.ca
THE OSCAR
l
Page 43
JUNE 2013
BACKYARD NATURALIST
Royal Swans Threaten Rideau River Ecosystem
By Linda Burr
Way back in 1967, Queen
Elizabeth II thought that a
few royal swans would make
a jolly nice birthday gift for
Ottawa. What could be more
elegant and graceful than
pairs of white swans gliding silently along the Rideau
River? In fact, a lot of people
back then thought that Mute
Swans were so much nicer
than our own North American waterfowl, that these
swans were imported from
Europe to many places in the
USA and Canada to decorate
ponds and rivers. What happened next, though, was an
ecological disaster.
Fast forward 50 years to
Chesapeake Bay, Maryland.
A few Mute Swans brought
over in the 1960s escaped
from captivity and reproduced so successfully in the
wild that today Mute Swans
number in the tens of thou-
sands, and their numbers
are steadily growing. Mute
Swans are now considered an
invasive species in Maryland
and several other US states,
and authorities are desperately trying to find ways to control their numbers. The swans
are also spreading north into
Canada and along the Great
Lakes, and wreaking havoc
in places such as Presqu’ile
Provincial Park and other
significant wetlands.
Mute Swans are not native
on the Rideau River. They
feed on aquatic vegetation,
but they don’t just nibble on
it – they yank up the plant
from the bottom, pulling
out the whole plant including the roots and rhizomes.
Adults can eat six to eight
pounds of vegetation a day,
and can quickly de-vegetate a
large area. This vegetation is
extremely important for fish
and other aquatic organisms
that live in the river. The constant grazing of Mute Swans
destroys aquatic habitat that
is important for maintaining
a healthy biodiversity of all
species along the Rideau.
An adult Mute Swan
weighs up to 25 pounds and
has no natural predators.
Males can be very aggressive
and will use their wings to
beat off intruders. Its aggressive nature can disrupt the
nesting of native ducks and
geese, and its presence in
places like Chesapeake Bay
has been linked to the decline
in some native species of
ducks. Mute Swans are also
very territorial and have been
known to actively crush the
eggs and young of other bird
species.
If the story of the Mute
Swan sounds familiar to you,
that’s because introductions
of exotic species rarely have
a happy ending. Deliberate and accidental species
introductions around the
world have resulted in many
ecological disasters. Think
of what the Emerald Ash
Borer is doing to our ash
trees, for example.
But now we know better.
We are fortunate that these
swans we have can be
easily dealt with by simply
not introducing them every
spring to the River. It is
strange that the City continues to deliberately introduce
a species that is considered
invasive and harmful elsewhere. Most recently, six
states in the eastern USA
(Delaware, Maryland, New
York, Rhode Island, Virginia,
and Vermont) have attempted
to control mute swan populations.
I’m not sure if the Queen
would be insulted if we
gave up her royal swans, but
offending the Queen is not
the more important point.
I would like to imagine a
future where we value a
healthy environment, and the
health of the Rideau River, to
such an extent that we would
be willing to swap the swans
for something even better.
For example, wouldn’t it be
wonderful if the money spent
on keeping the swans could
be diverted into improving the water quality in the
Rideau to such an extent that
we could actually go swimming there again? In the
meantime, I give the Royal
Swans a ‘thumbs down’.
Sorry, Your Majesty – ‘we’
are not amused.
Linda Burr lives in Old
Ottawa South and is a
biologist and avid backyard
naturalist.
Brighton Beach Gets Special Spring Visitor
By John Engeland
Last April 22nd towards
days-end, along with others
in the park we noticed a big
white swan hanging about the
reeds at Brighton Beach on
the Rideau River. Yet Ottawa
does not release the Royal
Swans so early. Along with
other astonished onlookers,
we found that, in contrast to
our Royal Swans, the white
swan had the black beak characteristic of a native American species commonly known
as a Whistling Swan. Although we regularly enjoy the
spring and fall migrational
visits of a diving armada of
Merganser Ducks, this is
the first time in the 31 years
that we have lived in front of
Daylilies
By Colin Ashford
The Old Ottawa South Garden Club finished its 20122013 season of meetings in
a veritable blaze of glory
thanks to one-time math
teacher and now Master Gardener, Kelly Noel. After retiring from teaching, Kelly took
the online horticulture course
at University of Guelph and
soon after was bitten by the
Hemerocallis (daylily) bug.
Kelly claimed that daylilies
are the perfect perennials:
ever changing displays (the
A Blaze of Daylilies.
blossoms only last a day);
PHOTO BY KELLY NOEL.
grow quickly; resistant to
drought; easy to hybridize;
and resistant (in our climate) quick primer in plant classification: genus (an agreed
to disease and pests.
classification); species (a
Having got the attenstable breeding population);
tion of the members with
and hybrid (a cross between
a photograph of a stunning
two species). The genus
display of daylilies taken
Hemerocallis was introduced
in her garden, Kelly went
from Eurasia to the west by
on to give the audience a
seventeenth-century plant
Brighton Beach Park that we
have ever seen a Whistling
Swan stop on its migration
between its Canadian Tundra
summer grounds and its midU.S. coast wintering territory. I wonder what our Royal
Swans would think and how
they would react if they ever
came face to face with this
spring’s special visitor.
hunters - the name comes
from two Greek words meaning “day” and “beautiful”.
The genus contains around
twenty distinct species, and
the American Hemerocallis Society database records
over 74,000 cultivars.
Showing pictures of some
of the over 400 daylilies in
her garden in Leitrim, Kelly
illustrated the colours and
seeming endless patterns of
daylilies. Daylilies come in
red, pink, purple, melon, and
yellow (the holy grails being
white and blue) and patterned
with bi-tones, bi-colours,
multi-colours, darker eyes
or bands, watermarks, halos,
applique, dustings, speckles,
picotee, and contrasting borders. Kelly showed examples
of the six officially recognized forms: single, double,
polymerous, spider, unusual
forms, and sculpted.
Kelly continued her pre-
Native Whistling Swan, note the black break, at Brighton
Beach. PHOTO BY JOHN ENGELAND
sentation with her techniques
for hybridizing daylilies or,
as she put it: making babies in the backyard. After
fertilizing the flowers of one
specimen with the pollen
of another (and noting the
names of the parents), Kelly
collects the resulting seeds,
dries them, and then places
them in a refrigerator for
four to six weeks. In late
February or early March, she
germinates the seeds in damp
vermiculate and then transplants the seedlings to small
pots. She keeps the seedlings
under lights until they can
be put outside into specially
prepared raised beds - again
keeping careful note of the
parents.
Kelly finished her presentation with more stunning
pictures of hybridized daylilies and information about the
American and Ontario daylily societies (www.daylilies.
org and www.ontariodaylily.
on.ca respectively).
This was the final meeting of the Old Ottawa South
Garden Club for this season;
we plan to begin our 2013—
2014 season next September.
Page 44
THE OSCAR
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Amnesty International 6th Annual Benefit Concert
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