July 31, 2012

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Our Community in Review PART 3 of 5 ~ 1994-1999

C2 30th Anniversary Series Tuesday, July 31, 2012 The Parksville Qualicum Beach News

Community in Review ~ 1994

• January, 1994: Gordon Ireland takes over from Ken Kimmel as the general manager for the Parksville Chev-Olds Generals.

• February: About three dozen Raging Grannies gathered on the railway tracks in Nanoose Bay to stop a VIA Rail train on Feb. 16. The Grannies wanted a ferry terminal built in Nanoose Bay and passenger traffi c to be tied into a double-tracked train system to remove some of the traffi c from the highway.

• March: Nanoose Chief Wayne Edwards said an archaeological fi nd on the Craig Bay development site is “very exciting.”

• April: A proposed housing development near the French Creek estuary has area resi-dents concerned. Vancouver-based land owners prepared the develop the 40 acres of land northwest of the estuary and to build more than 260 housing units.

• May: A scarlet fever outbreak in District 69 subsides after 30 cases were reported.

• June: District 69 became one golf course richer June 12 with the opening of Glengarry Golf Links in Qualicum Beach.

• July: Forty-fi ve thousand people showed to the 1994 International Sandcastle Com-petition in Parksville. The previous year had drawn only 35,000.

• August: The Queen’s Baton arrived in Nanoose Bay in colourful, traditional native style. The offi cial baton was fl own in to co-incide with the Tribal Journeys event for the Commonwealth Games.

• September: Al and Mary Palmer’s fi ght to turn Jedediah Island over to the province as parkland is gaining momentum.

• October. Island Pubishers, parent com-pany of THE NEWS, announced it has pur-chased The Arrowsmith Star.

• November: What is probably the worst fi re in Parksville’s history is being called acci-dental. Five Parksville businesses were gutted and another four damaged.

• December: The local SPCA has a place it can call home on the Alberni Highway.

TOP STORIES

Vancouver’s Doug Sawyer lines up teammate John Watson during the 19th World Croquet Tournament in Parksville.

Teen wins beauty pageantA Parksville teenager exhibited

a brilliant smile when the judges in the Miss Parksville-Qualicum Beach and District competition on May 28.

Alison Duncan, a Grade 11 stu-dent enrolled at Ballenas Second-ary School in Parksville, was named the winner of the annual pageant, which was sponsored by Quality Foods.

The victory was no easy feat for Duncan, as she found herself up against some serious competition from the other seven contestants who were entered in the pageant.

Alison Duncan shows her winning form at 1994 pageant.

Car thief earns 118 days custody

If having too much time on your hands is a reason to commit crimes, the courts were more than willing to help with the problem.

That was the message Judge Peter Doherty gave to a young offender in Parksville Provincial Court in May.

“Defence argued you had too much time on your hands,” the judge said. “The court will give you some structure.”

The youth, caharged with several counts of theft for what Crown Counseil Jeff Johnston called “a spree of motor vehicle thefts” the pre-vious August, was sentenced to spend 118 days in open custody.

RDN gives sewage cash

The Regional District of Nanaimo approved a $13.4 million loan for upgrading the French Creek sewage treatment plant.

The loan authorization was contingent on receiving matching funds from both the provin-cial and federal governments under the Liberal infrastructure program.

The loan brought the amount of debt being held by the RDN to $23.9 million.

Church turns 100The logs at St. Anne’s Church are more sil-

vered now, and the building has settled a little more comfortably into the lush, green land-scape, but essentially it looks just like it must have when it fi rst opened, 100 years ago in July.

One of the fi rst preachers who used the site was Rev. Charles Cooper, who was responsible for the spiritual welfare of people of English-man River, French Creek, Errington, Little Qua-licum and Nanoose Bay.

At the time, all supplies had to be brought in by boat.

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The Parksville Qualicum Beach News Tuesday, July 31, 2012 30th Anniversary Series C3


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• January, 1995: Parksville Residents As-sociation holds it fi rst meeting. They will be looking at all the issues concerning Parksville residents, most of which are related to growth.

• February: School District 69 submits specifi cations for a new secondary school in Qualicum Beach.

• March: North Island Wildlife Recovery As-sociation has a rare visitor — a burrowing owl. These owls are very rare on Vancouver Island.

• April: Members of Nanoose First Nation and their supporters begin a blockade on the Craig Bay Estates development on the out-skirts of Parksville.

• April: District 69 copes with tragedy after the suicide deaths of two young people who attended Oceanside Middle School.

• May: Qualicum Beach was alive with chili lovers and ice cube watchers, as the second annual Fire and Ice celebration hit the village. The event attracted about 5,000 people.

• June: The water spray park in the com-munity park in Parksville is closed after an estimated $15,000 damage caused by fi ve vandals.

• July: A surcharge of 20 per cent will be charged to out-of-town swimmers at the Ra-vensong Aquatic Centre.

• August: Shaw Cable packs up their of-fi ce and relocates to Nanaimo. However, the move frees up more time for the station to be out in District 69.

• September: At the RDN board meeting on Sept. 12, Parksville, Qualicum Beach, French Creek, Lantzville and Nanoose Bay decide to go together in the referendum for the $49 mil-lion regional water supply system.

• October: A sod-turning ceremony oc-curred Sept. 28 for the new $9.7 million Springwood Middle School in Parksville.

• October: A B.C. Supreme Court jury be-gan to hear details of the 1993 murder of Helen Dunlop. Delmar Warren French, 28, is charged with fi rst degree murder. He was later found guilty and given 25 years in jail.

TOP STORIES

A conservation officer tags the ear of a sedated cougar which was treed, tranquilized and removed unharmed from Springwood Park.

The News shrinksThe Parksville Qualicum Beach

News downsized its pages in No-vember from its former broadsheet format.

The size of the paper was reduced by two inches in height.

The move came as the price of newsprint soared and the supply of newsprint dried up.

“Newsprint costs havwe more than doubled since Feburary of 1994,” said Island Publishers vice-president Manfred Tempelmayr.

Most major newspapers had al-ready made the convrersion to a smaller format in response to the price hike.

The move, he added, was made to protect the consumer from having to bear the brunt of the increased costs and help reduce the demands on British Columbia forests.

The change was not expected to impact page design or layout and would make the paper easier to han-dle, as well as reduce the amount of wood fi bre used to produce it.

The reduction in newsprint sup-ply came after Fletcher Challenge and MacMillan Bloedel announced plans to reduce the amount of news-print they produce in order to make more premium grades of paper in their facilities.

Unplayable lie at the Morningstar golf course was the sight that greeted golfers venturing out after a windstorm ripped through the area.

City man shot dead

Parksville RCMP began a probe of an inci-dent in November which saw a 43-year-old city man shot to death at his home.

The body of Larry James Hansen was found at his Accacia Street home. Police say the man died after suffering a single gunshot wound.

Police and forensic experts raced to the scene and an autopsy was conducted.

That wasn’t the only foul play in the area. Also proceedings began against the man accused of killing Helen Dunlop, 79, who was found stran-gled to death at her Corfi eld Ave. home in 1993. It was believed that a shoelace was the murder weapon used in the killing.

Charged with her murder was Delmar War-ren French, 28.



• January, 1996: Trustees for School District 69 took a stand against amalgamation with Port Alberni’s board of trustees. Chair Lesley Tombs said local trustees will fi nd ways to trim their budget and agreed to meet with the City of Parksville and Town of Qualicum Beach to see what services could be shared as cost-savings to all partners. Education min-ister Art Charbonneau says this district will amalgamate with or without its input.

• February: Owners of the Island Hall in Parksville see their plans to develop the site fi zzle. Public opinion was mixed on planned retail outlets, open space for public use, residential buildings on the beach and taller buildings.

• March: Paul Reitsma tops the polls and fellow Liberals elect him as their representa-tive for this constituency. It’s now to Reitsma to wrest the Parksville-Qualicum seat away from NDP MLA Leonard Krog in the upcom-ing provincial election, slated for May. Reits-ma sais he will continue on as mayor.

• April: After months of uncertainty, Edu-cation Minister Paul Ramsey says School Dis-trict 69 won’t be amalgamated with any other district.

• May: Parksville mayor Paul Reitsma un-seats Leonard Krog as MLA for Parksville-Qualicum by 511 votes.

• June: Qualicum Beach mayor Jack Collins announces he won’t run again in November’s municipal election. Councillor Bill Luchmei-jer says he’ll seek the job.

• July: The French Creek sewage plant opens its $13 million expansion, but local res-idents say odours wafting from the facility are as bad as ever, prompting numerous studies and remedial measures — to no avail.

• August: Problems with the district’s 911 emergency phone system are leaked, bring-ing to light serious technical fl aws that have been dispatching the wrong fi re departments on emergency calls.

• September: A heavenly treat is witnessed by thousands as the last total lunar eclipse of the century brings a humbling glow to the evening skies.

TOP STORIES More interest in elections shown in Qualicum

When local organizers held election forums in District 69 this year, there was a marked dif-ference in terms of the level of interest shown between voters in Parksville and those in Qua-licum Beach.

Some 500 of Qualicum Beach’s 3,337 electors showed up at the Qualicum Beach all-candi-dates forum on November 5.

At the event, angry voters grilled the candi-dates on the issues of growth in an around the town.

In marked contrast, at a similar event in Parksville held a day earlier, only 100 people showed up.

Oil spill proves messy, expensive

An act of vandalism cost Parksville in excess of $2,000 after a valve line leading to the bottom of a furnace fuel tank was kicked off in March, leading to the discharge of about 250 gallons of fuel across the property.

The fuel ran into a storm drain, ending up at the McMillan Street outfall.

About 160 gallons of the spilled fuel was vac-uumed up by a truck and about 40 more gallons were soaked up by absorbant pads.

“I suspect we lost in the area of 40 gallons into the ocean, said Bob Davies, the environmental emergency response offi cer for the Ministry of Environment.

The costs related to the wages for those work-ing on the spill, as well as incidental expenses.

Potholes in CoombsThe winter was a diffi cult one for roads in

District 69, hammering them with potholes.This fact was brought out by a dozen Coombs

residents, who tathered on Winchester Road to pledge support for the long battle with govern-ment to get the road permanently repaired.

Longtime resident Nick Kroot said noth-ing had been done with the road in the past 30 years, leading to its sad condition.

Krog wants CFMETR closedParksville-Qualicum MLA Leon-

ard Krog wrote a letter to the Min-ister of National Defence, asking that the testing facility at CFMETR at Nanoose Bay be put to peaceful purposes at the end of its tenure.

Krog said in the letter that there is strong support for the conver-sion of that facility to peaceful uses more consistent with pbulic val-ues, goals and needs.

The move got full support from members of the Nanoose Conver-

sion Campaign.“There is no doubt about the

values he states in his letter, said Michael Candler, a spokesperson for the group.

Candler had been invovled in a push to convert the facility to peaceful purposes for the past dozen years. He said the facility was a product of the Cold War and should be allowed to die a natural death when the term ended.

The facility remained open.



February: Parksville-Qualicum MLA Paul Reitsma rallied citizens for a rally to get the provincial government to reverse its recent decision to close the Parksville court house. He said said that loosing the service would mean not only the lost jobs but would leave a big gap in the area’s services.

March: Local MLA Paul Reitsma had his hand slapped in a very public way Thursday for dipping into the trough aboard a B.C. Fer-ry. The Vancouver Province newspaper ran a column revealing that he had been using his MLA ferry pass to pay for dinners at sea “with alarming frequency.”

April: An Easter Sunday fire at Tigh-Na-Mara Resort destroyed about 16 waterfront units. The Parksville fire department re-sponded around 8 p.m. and called in Quali-cum Beach and Nanoose Bay for help.

April: Reaction to the new town hall taking shape in Qualicum Beach appears to be gen-erally unfavourable amongst citizens, while town officials continue to defend the $3 mil-lion project.

May: A major flooding of Horne Lake saw two campgrounds submerged and dozens of recreational cabins threatened by rising wa-ters. The water was up to four feet above nor-mal due to heavy rains and melting snow.

July: Canadians across District 69 joined those across the country in marking Canada’s 130th birthday with big celebrations in Parks-ville and Qualicum Beach

August: Parksville’s politicians agreed to send a letter to the premier’s office asking him to consider carefully the significance of carrying through with his threat to force the closure of the Canadian Forces Maritime Ex-perimental Test Range in Nanoose Bay.

September: A movement to stop the pro-posed closure of French Creek Elementary School is gaining momentum as parents and residents begin to mobilize themselves.

December: Parksville’s historic water tower has been saved for posterity after an anony-mous donor read an appeal for help in its rescue in the pages of the PARKSVILLE QUALICUM BEACH NEWS.

TOP STORIES

The Horne Lake campground was severely flooded by extremely heavy rains and melting snow in 1997. In other parts of District

69, homes were destroyed and other property was severely impacted.

Hitchhiker sexually assaulted

This seal popped up on the beachfront by the

QUalicum Beach Chamber of Commerce building.

The little fellow was tuckered out but soon safely

on its way.

A 15-year-old boy who was hitchhiking from Parksville to Qualicum Beach in July was sexu-ally assaulted, leading to charges against a GOld River man.

Members of the Oceanside RCMP detachment said the boy had been picked up near the Ea-

glecrest subidvision by a man in a pickup truck,. The driver went to a secluded area, where he produced a knife and proceeded to sexually assault the youth.

The suspect was later located at a Qualicum Beach motel and ar-rested.

Wolf traps do their jobWolf traps set up in the Boor-

man Road area west of Qualicum Beach were taken down after two male wolves were killed by conser-vation officers while caught in the traps.

Lance Sundquist, the acting re-gional enforcement manager said the traps were removed because there was no more reported wolf activity in the area.

The traps were laid because of a dog killing in April and another in-

cident in which a wolf tried to lure a dog from the safety of its prop-erty.

The trapping didn’t go unno-ticed, with some local residents expressing their opposition to the use of the traps.

Mae McKenzie, president of the Association for PRotection of Fur Bearing Animals in District 69 called the move unfortunate.

“We have to learn to live with these things in our area,” she said.



A campaign to recall Parksville-Qualicum MLA Paul Reitsma was initiated this year after it was discovered he had been penning letters to the editor under an assumed name.

The letters, under the fi ctitious name of Warren Betanko, slammed his opponents and heaped generous praise on Reitsma.

In April Reitsma apologized for his be-haviour in the B.C. leg-islature but was kicked out of the Liberal caucus anyway. He still refused to resign, declaring in-stead that he intended to regain the trust of B.C. voters.

However, voters were evidently not in the mood to forgive and forget and, in response, volunteers fanned out across the constituency to collect signatures on a recall petition. By late May the recall peti-tioners, headed by Mark Robinson, were within 2,000 signatures of their goal of 17,000 names.

When the petitions were completed, a total of 25,000 names were submitted to Elections B.C. Rather than become the fi rst member of the B.C. legislature to ever be recalled, Reitsma, who had served as mayor of both Port Alberni and Parksville, resigned his seat as an MLA.

• January: Parksville Chrysler was named as the Chamber of Commerce Business of the Year, while Parksville Mohawk won the nod as best small business.

• February: A woman who robbed a cor-ner store in Qualicum Beach by brandishing a syringe of blood that she said contained the AIDS virus was sentenced to a one-year con-ditional sentence.

• March: French Creek residents were com-plaining about a stink coming from the sew-age treatment plant, but new odor-fi ghting gear was costed at anywhere from $350,000 to $1 million.

• April: Pilot George Clark and is wife were lucky to walk away after the T-28 warplane they were fl ying landed with its wheels still up during Airport Appreciation Day.

• May: The days of dumping garbage for free at the Regional District of Nanaimo dump ended this year. Free dumping days were eliminated, but the fee on other days was reduced to battle illegal dumping.

• June: An apartment fi re left dozens of people homeless in Parksville in June when a blaze ripped through a three-storey apart-ment building on Moilliet Street.

• July: The fi rst sandcastle weekend in 17 years without the annual sandcastle compe-tition had business owners calling for some-thing to replace it.

• August: A woman who robbed a corner store in Qualicum Beach by brandishing a syringe of blood that she said contained the AIDS virus was sentenced to a one-year con-ditional sentence.

• September: Leonard Krog lost the 1998 byelection in Parksville-Qualicum North Na-naimo to fi sh farmer Judith Reid.

• November: Police busted a huge pot farm in Errington, with millions of dollars of marijuana consigned to the fl ames.

• December: A $30 drug debt led to a beat-ing of a Parksville teenager by four other youths.

TOP STORIES

Gen. Money’s medals returned to the town

Firefighters battle a blaze that engulfed the entire upper floor of a 32-unit apartment on Moilliet Street in Parksville.

When Qualicum Beach celebrated Heri-tage Week in 1998 they did so in style — with the return of some very precious artifacts from local history.

Those artifacts were the military medals from Brigadier General Noel Money, who was one of the key fi gures from the town’s past.

The medals, circa 1900, were welcomed back to the community from their former home of a Victo-ria collector by members of town council and the Qualicum Beach Historical Society.

Mayor Bill Luchtmeijer, an air cadet band and former mayor and museum society president Art Skipsey were all on hand for the big event.

After acknowledging Money’s contribution to the town, Lucht-meijer announced the land sur-

rounding the train sta-tion, which had been called Heritage Park, would now be known as General Money Me-morial Park.

Much of the gen-eral’s signifi cant heri-tage is still visible in Qualicum Beach, in particular the Memo-

rial Golf Course, which he played a vital role in starting up. As well, the 1915 house on the Brown property was his former abode and Money donated the land upon which St. Mark’s church currently sits.

Born in Montreal in 1867 and educated in England, Money fi rst came to Qualicum beach in July of 1913 and he quickly bought six residential lots.

In the following year Money re-turned as the resident manager of the Merchants Trust and Trading Company.

Money died in 1941.

GENERAL MONEY

Disgraced MLA calls it quits

PAUL RIETSMA

Rainfest 1998Nobody had to be worried this festival was

going to be rained out. Quite the opposite.In 1998 Parksville celebrated Rainfest with a

series of activities designed to be undertaken indoors.

Organizer Sandy Herle, who would later go on to become mayor of the city, was one of the key organizers of the celebration of rain.

Events included a nerf golf tourney, gumboot races, road hockey games, a basketball skills contest, karaoke and a parade of lights.

Despite pesssimistic forecasts for sunshine, the weather co-operated with a nice drizzle.

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• January: The annual Polar Bear Swim in Parksville saw political activist Bruie Brunie doff her top and take to the waves on New Year’s Day. Brunie carried a sign that said, Dis-arm for World Peace.

• February: A proposal to split Parksville and Qualicum Beach into two separate pro-vincial ridings united Parksville mayor Julia MacDonald and Qualicum Beach’s Bill Lucht-meijer in opposition to the move.

• March: A group called the Society for the Preservation of the Englishman River Estuary (SPERE) decided not to appeal a court ruling that undercut its opposition to the Arrow-smith dam.

• April: United Church minister Foster Freed was pushing for Canada to live up to its NATO Commitments and get involved in the war in Bosnia. His church had been sponsor-ing a family from Bosnia.

• May: Qualicum Beach residents voted in favour by a two-to-one margin in a ref-erendum about whether or not to incor-porate 270 acres of property to the west of the town boundary.

• June: The cliff at Little Mountain proved deadly for a Parksville man, who fell 120 feet to his death in June.

• July: The Englishman was called a riv-er of sorrow after a teenaged visitor from Saskatchewan died after being swept over the falls.

• August: A federal court judge sank an attempt by the Province of B.C. to expro-priate the base at CFMETR in August. The court denied an injunction by sev-eral plaintiffs who had launched a law-suit against Ottawa over its seizure of 225 square kilometres of seabed.

• September: • Police were on the look-out for mailbox bombers after vandals hit three different areas in one night. The culprits used pipe bombs and fireworks.

December: RCMP turned the sod on their new home. The $1.5 million project was set to provide more parking, better access, inter-view rooms and a new cell block area.

TOP STORIES

RCMP officer handels marijuana from one of the biggest drug busts in the area’s entire history.

Brown property savedIt’s offi cial. The Brown prop-

erty — and the old growth forest it contained — would not fall to the developers’ bulldozers, but was to remain as a heritage forest for fu-ture generations.

The announcement came in April, three years into the cam-paign to save the property after preservationists joined with the municipality to come up with $908,460 — enough to purchase 70 per cent of the undeveloped por-tion of the land.

“It’s a good day for Qualicum Beach,” said Chris Lee, the presi-dent of the Brown Property pres-ervation Society. “It’s been a team effort — a long team effort.”

Of the total purchase price, the Town of Qualicum Beach came

up with $483,460, obtained from development cost charges as well as other reserve funds. The soci-ety kicked in $426,000, which they raised through pledges and dona-tions from the community.

“The Town of Qualicum Beach has identifi ed the Brown property as a site for anticipated parkland acquisition since the adoption of the 1987 offi cial communmity plan,” said mayor Bill Luchtmeijer. “Working in co-operation with the community and the Brown Prop-erty Preservation Society, we have collectively been able to achieve our goal.”

Along with the purchase, the group secured a one-year option to purchase the remaining 30 per cent of the undeveloped land.

Civic vote brings surprises

A total of 42 candidates threw their hats in the ring to seek a seat in the Nov. 20 municipal election.

Parksville mayor Julia MacDonald was ac-claimed at the close of nominations. School District 69 trustees Loretta Nichols and Barbara Terry were also acclaimed, while RDN directors Jack McLean andn Joe Stanhope also held onto their seats by acclamation.

In Qualicum Beach there was no acclama-tion however. Incumbent mayor Bill Luchtmei-jer was challenged for his seat by Coun. Teunis Westbroek.

This election also saw the fi rst run for a seat by former school vice-principal Randy Long-muir, who focused on the need to have a hospi-tal in Oceanside.

One of the key elements in the Parksville race focused on development. Fully half the written questions at a Parksville all candidates meet-ing involved development and development friendliness.

That development friendliness proved a key issue, with candidate Rick Marshall arguing that council’s attitude towards development was driving businesses away.

In Qualicum Beach meanwhile, a forum, where incumbent mayor Luchtmeijer criticized Westbroek for missing a town budget meeting because of an annual fi shing trip. In response, Westbroek said he had been closely involved in the budget process.

When the dust settled in the two communi-ties, Westbroek had won the mayor’s chair in Qualicum Beach, taking a whopping 65 per cent of the vote to Luchtmeijer’s 35 per cent.

Incumbents Marlys Diamond and Anton Kruyt easily reclaimed their seats, along with newcomer Scott Tanner, who won a nailbiter against Chris Lee that required a runoff election in December.

In Parksville, Macdonald remained by accla-mation while Coun. Anne Duggan led the pack with 1,057 cvotes. Jon Walters fi nishd second, while longtime councillors Jim Banks and Barry Johnston also returned to their seats. Longmuir also won his seat, as did Fred Demmon.

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Community profile

LISSA [email protected]

If you’ve experienced multicultur-al music in the area over the last couple of years, odds are that Val-

erie Dare had something to do with it.Dare has been the music coordina-

tor at the Errington Hall for the past couple of years and with that role she has brought a wealth of experi-ence and connections and a genuine enthusiasm for this ethnically diverse music.

In Arrowsmith she also helped put together the youth marimba group Kumbana Marimba, as well as the group Afro-Mumanzi, who now run local summer camps, she’s involved in the marimba lessons for seniors at the Bradley Centre and she’s also involved in the new Jug Band Project that recently began at the Coombs Activity Centre.

Her community engagement stretches beyond just Ar-rowsmith.

Dare grew up in the area and graduated from Kwalicum Secondary High School in 1964, before moving to Victoria to attend university. She became a teacher and taught in a number of locations including Parksville, Powell River, Nelson and Revelstoke before settling in Vancouver.

After returning to school she received a masters degree in education with a specialty in school libraries. It was teaching at Brittannia Secondary School in East Vancouver that Dare discovered her affinity for world music and what a wonderful tool it was for introducing new cultures and music to the largely ESL (English as a second language) student population.

“It was a really neat way for students to be introduced to other cultures in a sort of live format, non-text, so they didn’t have to read and could acquire the information in other ways,” she said.

The musicians would come into the classroom, demon-strate their craft and interact with the students, and Dare saw great results. She became involved in creating curricu-lum that combined learning and ethnic music for schools

throughout B.C. Dare discovered ma-rimba music while attending a mu-sic showcase during her time on the Vancouver School Board’s art advo-cacy committee. The idea came up

and funding was available to build a set of marimbas at Britannia school’s

wood work shop.In District 69 last year, Dare and Marilynn Sims, both

with Arrowsmith Community Enhancement Society (ACES), won a grant to introduce a similar project. Ma-rimbas were built at Qualicum Beach Middle School with the help of students and seniors and lessons and perfor-mances around the area followed. Dare was also involved with local community groups on the mainland and helped create a youth performance group that has since evolved into a group called Kutapira. In 2007 they played for Queen Elizabeth at the Aberdeen International Youth Festival in Scotland. This group has been involved with the Errington Hall over the years and some of its members make up the group Afro-Mumanzi, who run a World Music Summer Camp in Errington.

With the idea of starting a local youth performance group, Dare worked with the Oceanside Community Arts Council to hold workshops at the local middle schools. She discovered two youth in an adult marimba band and they became the instructors of the group Kumbana Marimba.

After her first year on the Errington Hall board, Dare managed to get approval for a grant, enabling the hall to book out of town guests. Back on the board of directors at the Oceanside Community Arts Council, Dare is now en-deavoring to bring more activities and community engage-ment to The MAC (McMillan Arts Centre).

“What I’m hoping we can do is transform The MAC into a real community arts centre,” she said.

This will be a tough challenge however, she said, with-out any basic funding from local government. But whether this challenge pans out or not one thing’s for certain, the community has a lot to thank Valerie Dare for.

LISSA ALEXANDER PHOTO

Valerie Dare has helped create a vibrant music scene in Arrowsmith, among many other achievements in the area.

Working with hammer and steelArrowsmith

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Documents

July 31, 2012