Cramahe's Canada 150 Party (Part 2 of 3) -- Opening Ceremony (including @shadowspub's award)

shadowspub (70)in #life • 7 years ago

It’s been a wonderful celebration this weekend!

The planning for this weekend started almost two years ago. We first had to decide what activities we wanted to plan for the local celebration of Canada’s 150th and Cramahe’s 225, then the real work of doing the planning and bringing it all together got underway.

Year Long Celebration

The activities actually started earlier this year with the New Years Day Levee at the Legion being the kickoff event. Then ukuleles were purchased and local school children started learning how to play them. They will hopefully continue to enjoy learning this instrument and sharing their talents in the community as they did this weekend. A stamp competition was held for local residents to design a stamp to celebrate the event.

Other Related Projects

The committee provided support for community projects as part of the celebrations that we didn’t plan directly. These included the filming of a video about a local prominent member of the community by the Heritage Committee, a short story and poetry contest by the local Library and an artists studio tour of the township.

The Need For A Local Civic Award

The committee also identified the lack of local civic awards as being something we could do something about. The committee decided to create the Order of Cramahe to recognize people and groups engaged in volunteerism and community building. Nominations for the award ended in June to give a sub-committee time to review the nominations and decided on recipients.

Cramahe is the home of Hoselton Sculptures which are created in aluminium. They created the award which will be reserved exclusively for the use of the Township to present to deserving recipients. The award is shown above.

The Main Celebration Weekend

We decided this weekend, the Civic Holiday weekend in August, would be our main weekend of celebration. I wrote yesterday about the Citizenship Ceremony which took place Friday morning.

The Opening Ceremonies

We returned to the local arena known as the Keeler Centre for the official opening ceremonies Friday evening. We had originally planned for the opening ceremonies to take place in gazebo at the park in the town square but rain forced us to go to plan B.. The Keeler Centre.

After the singing of O Canada, our national anthem, committee chair Jim Williams talked a bit about his own story that brought him from having been born in New Brunswick to Cramahe Township where he has been a part of the life of the community for many years.

He encouraged people to talk about ‘their stories’ this weekend because part of the history of our country and our township is the people’s stories.

Just across the township line and to the north of where I live is where my paternal grandmother’s people settled in 1759. The family moved away from the area over the generations and I may be one of the few, if not only, descendants even living in the area.

Remarks and greetings were brought to the ceremony by Kim Rudd, federal Member of Parliament (MP); Lou Rinaldi, Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) and Mayor Marc Coombs of Cramahe Township. The Warden of Northumberland County and Mayor of Brighton, Mark Walas, was also in attendance.

Poetry and Short Story Competition

The library CEO Mary Norton conducted a poetry and short story competition the committee had financially supported. The opening ceremony was the time to present the winners of the competition. Mary enlisted the assistance of Mayor Marc Coombs and, area resident and acclaimed international author, Jane Urquhart to make the presentations.

Winners of the junior competition (L to R)Clayton Bowlby (1st), Tucker Walsh (3rd), Mary Norton - Library CEO, Mayor Marc Coombs, Jane Urquhart and in front Mia Hatt (2nd)

Winners of the open competition (L to R)Mayor Marc Coombs, Tucker Walsh for his sister Madison Walsh (2nd), Mary Norton - Library CEO (at back), Joyce Murray (1st), Carolyn Campbell (3rd) and Jane Urquhart

Winner of the Vandermeer Toyota Poetry Prize (L to R)Mayor Marc Coombs, Lila Sundani Cappelletti, Mary Norton - Library CEO (at back), and Jane Urquhart

Order of Cramahe Presentations

Then we came to the part of the evening where the inaugural presentations of the Order of Cramahe were to be made. There were four recipients, among them was @shadowspub.

While I’ll identify the others in the picture of the presentations, I’m going to use my Steemit name as I prefer to retain as much privacy as possible. The picture of the award above is mine, I’ve smudged out my name.

The Order of Cramahe recipients and the presenters. (L to R)MPP Lou Rinaldi, Mayor Marc Coombs, 150 Committee Chair Jim Williams, Ed Greenwood (recipient), @shadowspub (recipient), Lenna Broatch (recipient), Northumberland Warden Mark Walas, MP Kim Rudd and in front Pat Johnston (recipient)

Fantasy fiction fans may be delighted to know Ed Greenwood is the original creator of the Forgotten Realms game world.

I know the amount of work and volunteering the other three recipients have done in the community. I am blown away to be receiving this award with them.

And There Needs to Be Cake

What is a birthday celebration without cake? Or in this case, cake and cupcakes.

After the cake was cut and served, the opening ceremonies concluded.

I went home at that point as I’m still feeling the effects of my recent illness and I needed to rest for Saturday.

Originally we had planned to close a street by the park and have a street dance. Due to the rain, the music moved to the arena and those who attended the dance enjoy 50’s to 60’s music and of course, a bar. I heard much fun was had by all.

This post has gone longer than I intended so, I’ll be writing about Saturday in my post.

If you missed the first post, just click here