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$1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, March 7, 2013
Volume 29 No. 10
TRIAL - Pg. 14Wind turbine trialbegins in Goderich FESTIVAL - Pg. 19Film festival coming toBlyth in late MarchMILESTONE- Pg. 7Brussels businesscelebrates 50 yearsPublications Mail Agreement No. 40050141 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON N0G 1H0INSIDE THIS WEEK:
‘Farm Show’ actors arrive in Blyth
Huron
to host
100th
IPM
Slide away
The sun was bright and the weather was still chilly enough to keep the snow on the ground on Monday as these three Hullett
Central Public School students took to the slopes (the school’s slides) at their morning recess. Enjoying a little time out of the
classroom are, from left: Nathan Haney-Laflamme, Tyson Finch and Jake Bromley. (Denny Scott photo)
With the Blyth Festival season’s
opening night gala still months
away, a group of actors arrived in the
village on Monday to begin research
for a revisitation of one of the most
important plays in Canadian theatre
history.
Beyond The Farm Show will kick
off the Blyth Festival season on
Friday, June 28 and following the
same process employed by Theatre
Passe Muraille actors in 1972 with
The Farm Show, a group of actors
has already begun venturing out into
the community, engaging with those
in the farming community and
crafting the fabric of what will soon
become Beyond The Farm Show.
Blyth Festival Artistic Director
Peter Smith welcomed six actors and
the show’s director, Severn
Thompson, to Memorial Hall on
Monday and the group quickly
began running through ideas and
setting up meetings.
Thompson, daughter of The Farm
Show’s director Paul Thompson,
who has since been named to the
Order of Canada, was accompanied
by actors David Fox, Catherine
Fitch, Tony Munch, Marion Day,
Jamie Robinson and Virg Iredale.
Fox is returning to Huron County
yet again after appearing in The
Farm Show and many Blyth Festival
productions. Fitch, Munch and Day
are all regulars of recent seasons of
the Blyth Festival, while Iredale
was a member of the Young
Company that revisited The Farm
Show at the end of last year’s
Festival season.
Monday began with an early
afternoon meeting with Smith,
before they hit the road, visiting
McGavin’s Farm Equipment,
chicken farmer Henry Grobbink and
beef and cash crop farmers Brenda
and Ken Dalton.
The group then spoke with Citizen
Publisher Keith Roulston on
Tuesday before visiting Pauk Van
Dorp of Blyth Farm Cheese and a
cattle farm near Blyth, while one
actor participated in a ride-along
with a farm veterinarian performing
an ultrasound on cattle.
The visits are scheduled to
continue through the week,
including an organic community
supported agriculture (CSA) site
near Lucknow on Thursday, egg
farmers Bob and Carol Leeming and
Brussels Livestock on Friday, as
well as a visit with Central Huron
Councillor Alison Lobb, who was
profiled in The Farm Show.
Smith says he’s excited about the
meeting of the minds that this
process is going to facilitate. He said
Beyond The Farm Show is all about
community and the people on the
farm. He said that while the issues
facing farming may have changed,
and will continue to change, the rich
stories will always take place with
the people who dedicate their lives
to farming.
Thompson and her group of actors
will be in Blyth until Saturday prior
to returning to their homes for a
period before coming back to Blyth
for the summer.
Huron County has been selected
as the host of the 100th International
Plowing Match (IPM) to be held in
2017 after making a successful bid
to the Ontario Plowmen’s
Association over the weekend.
While the 100th year of the IPM
was recently celebrated, the actual
100th IPM won’t be until 2017 due
to several years where matches
weren’t held according to bid chair
former Ontario Queen of the Furrow
Melissa Sparling.
“Some of the matches in the past
were cancelled during the wars and
one was cancelled because of an
epidemic,” she explained in an
interview with The Citizen.
As bid chair, Sparling made the
presentation on Sunday which saw
the provincial body pick Huron
County as the hosting county.
Originally there had been rumours
that other counties would be seeking
to host the same year, however when
it came time for the bids, only Huron
County was present.
“We had heard through the
grapevine that other people might be
bidding, but we also heard that they
may have been scared off by us,” she
explained. “Maybe they did and
maybe they didn’t... Lately it has
been more the Plowmen asking
people to host the match.”
Sparling said that as recently as 10
years ago, counties were vying for
the right to host the match, but
recently that hasn’t been the case.
“It’s been getting harder and
harder to find a host for the match,
this was the first time in awhile there
was a bid presentation made,” she
said. “The price of corn, the price of
soybeans and the price of land is a
By Denny Scott
The Citizen
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
Municipality hosts MDL meeting
After last week’s announcement
that MDL Doors of Brussels was
declaring bankruptcy, the
Municipality of Huron East wanted
to help residents and former
employees in any way it could.
On March 8 at 10 a.m. the
municipality will be hosting an
information meeting at the Brussels
Business and Cultural Centre,
formerly the Brussels Public School,
featuring Employment Ontario and
Service Canada. Huron East Chief
Administrative Officer Brad Knight
issued a press release announcing
the meeting on Friday.
Representing Employment
Ontario will be employees from the
two local service providers in Huron
County, The Centres for
Employment and Learning and
Conestoga College and from the
Ontario Ministry of Training,
Colleges and Universities. The two
service providers from Employment
Ontario will be presenting on
support systems in place to help find
recently laid-off employees work,
make career decisions and explore
Continued on page 6
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
Continued on page 2