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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1999-04-28, Page 6f • Fashions for spring Spring fashions were the topic at last Wednes- day's Exeter Lioness Club presentation of "The Heat Is On". The fashion show, held to help the revitalization of Victoria Park, featured fashions from The Purple Turtle, Designer's, Brigitte's and Thomas H. Fine Menswear and European Addi- tion. In the top photo, from left, Luke and Garrett Alexander show off their cool clothes from the Purple Turtle, while below, Zoe .Darling and Ra- chel Robinson show off their Designer's duds. T -A welcomes shutterbug The Exeter Times - Advocate welcomed a new face to the family last week. Our readers will see freelance photographer Kim L. Pearce of the Kirkton-Woodham area out and about in the T -A coverage area. Pearce, a Fanshawe photography graduate. has been a professional shutterb.ug for eight years. )ler specialty. besides photo -journalism, is taking photos of farm animals. Pearce is married with three grown children. When not behind the lens. Kim Pearce Pearce likes to hike. read and travel. "1 like being able to cap- ture things the way I want to and the freedom to travel and be creative," Pearce said of her craft. Exef r T" es -Advocate INednesday..Noal-2R; rine,- Public flT Publie gets say on the future of Exeter parks By Craig Bradford DMFS-AovocA1'E S )'AFF EXETER — Do we want- huge centralized recreational facilities or several small parks spread out across the town? That's just one of the issues con- templated at last week's Exeter parks study focus group meeting at ")'own Hall. About 20 people attended the meeting from a wide range of inter- est groups from seniors to the Nomads campers to skateboard enthusiasts. Town chief administrative .officer Rick •Ilundey said the people who came out had some good ideas. "They added a great deal to the process." Flundey said. The meeting was held to gather the public's thoughts on where the town should be going when it comes to parks and recreational facilities in Exeter. • Hundey said several potential projects. and directions were identi- fied that ranged from improving the existing large parks and their facili- ties (South Huron Rec. Centre, Victoria Park, Nabisco Field, \'IaeNaughton Parkt to creating more ,mall 'passive' parks where seniors can walk and refit. Interest was shown in developilw the proposed trail from Mactiaughton Park to Morrison Dam. Others showed an interest in pre- serving the environment by either planting more trees, naturalizing parks, creating scenic gardens or a large garden featuring indigenous wildflowers. Hundey said Huron County plan- ners Wayne Caldwell and Sandra Weber will take the information gathered at the focus group meet- ing. summarise it and report to town council. Then council will prioritize the projects or direction the town should pursue in a long range parks plan. Hundey said the town needs to look at the demand on parks/recreational facilities and fig- ure out what it means to future resources. In ..r, interview with the Times - Advocate, Weber identified 12 issues brought up at the meeting: •-Walking distance. How far are people willing to walk to a park'? Should there be one large park or several small ones? Weber said she and- Caldwell .will make an invento- ry of all park space in Exeter and see which areas are under served. •Public washrooms in parks. •Trees Most of Exeter's parks don't have mature trees for shade. •There should be- parks near nursing/retirement. homes and neigh.bourhuods with a lot of senior,. •Playground equipment. Caldwell and Weber - will make an inventory of Exeter .equipment and see if it is adequate. •New subdivisions. What areas are expected to be developed and• will there be. park space. there? •Development of walking trails. *Access to parks. Some people said they would like Exeter's parks to be linked somehow. •Cost of park maintenance. *Walking space. Seniors voiced interest in more areas to relax. •tieeds of all user groups. For instance, skat: h.,arders in town want their ow; a !acility while there is a growing demand to expand soccer facilities. - •Park benches. More bench 's would make for small spots for peo- ple to rest while out and about. Weber said she will forward her and Caldwell's notes to those who attended the meeting and report back to town council by the end of the spring with their criteria. Included with the meeting materi- al was a comparison of how Exeter stacks up against other municipali- ties when it comes to recreational facilities. Exeter stacks up well against towns its own size or larg- er. In fact, towns as Large as - Goderic:h (pop. 7,613) or Severn (pop. 9,757) only have one arena, many do not have public indoor pools (Exeter doesn't) and some have no public tennis courts (Exeter has two lit public.courts). I'he largest disparity in facilities is in the number of soccer fields and lit baseball diamonds. Exeter has a total of six soccer pitches lone to be lit soon, plus five -others) while • Kincardine (pop,. 6.318) has 12 while Severn has none. Exeter has two lit ball diamonds plus live unlit ones while Hanover •(pop.- 6,538) has 11 and Severn none. The value of volunteer work T -A note: Jasmine Lather is a. Grade 9 stu- dent at. South Karon Dis- trict High School who submitted. the following essay in the 3rd Young People's Press contest. Jasmine's essay finished among the top 25. Young People's Press is a na- tional newswire service that has had articles published in more -than 220 newspapers. 1 think the most sig- nificant thing I have done voluntarily would be the 24- hour famine I -did to raise money for the church. I was .new in the youth, group and they thought it would be a great idea to go in a famine. 1 didn't know if 1 wanted to, but 1 took the sponsor sheet anyway. I didn't really know too many people then, so I was quite nervous. 1 got my sponsors and in No- vember we assembled at the church around 11 a.m. We started .by going throughout . my town gathering canned goods for the impoverished at Christmas. Our town isn't that large but we thought we could collect a lot. We had four groups out and mine just hap- pened to be the longer one, and at -8 C it felt very frigid. We went to every house on the street I was on and were able to gather about six gro- cery bags full of non- perishable food items. The Optimist club took them and assembled all the other bags from the groups - and took them to the food bank. Now it was` time t'o go the the gym at Stephen. Central Public School to play sports and keep our minds off food. The food that we collected . wasn't exactly helping us, but there were still 21 hours to go! The church group -and I played all kinds of sports. like soccer (my fa- vourite), bas- ketball. and vol- leyball. We all listened to ,music as we played, 1 bet none of us even re- membered that we hadn't eaten in at least three hours! After around two hours of non-stop sports it was time to head back to the church. At the church we were getting ready to prepare a sermon for the next day at church. I had to rehearse the child's prayer because that's what was left. I didn't mind. We lit candles, • read the Bible scriptures and sang the songs for the next day. The group practised well into dusk. It was about 7 p.m. by nuw. We were all prac- tised out. I think I could say the prayer by heart now. I had a free hour to do whatever I pleased. My friend. Krista and I stayed upstairs and 1 practised my piano. while she taught me. I was really good at this one song when w.e-were told. to coma dewu tains to sing songs. We sang for an hour and listened to music that had been brought in by people to play in the CD player. It was lots of fun. I was now starting to be- come delirious from ,hunger, not too bad, it was just that food popped in my head every two seconds. It didn't help that we had now decided to watch movies and food was in both of them. We. watched "Bio Dome" and "Ransom". They were interesting movies, it just just that I was starting to get hun- gry and they were eating pizza and • everything else. We fell asleep like that, not having nutrients, kind of makes you tired. We had a nice but short sleep. We had to get up and get dressed, practise our sermon and wait till the final minutes- t°, inutestr? roll by. The church session seemed like eter- nity. I was having mixed feelings, like hunger and fatigue. After church was over we had a luncheon from the Christians. Hot dogs have never been so ap- pealing to me in my whole life. 1 realized then that no Jasmin Lathe e r child should ever have to go through anything like this and 1 feel for every child who does_ 1 think that the rea- son that I did this .was because ( wanted to knew what it was l4ke . 1 • wanted to feel like those children did. 1. have .always seen them look hungry but I want- ed to know how hungry they felt. I know now that it is the most horrible thing to go through and not be able to do a whole lot about it either. On the bright side. our church raised $1.33() and donations were made after people heard what we had done. So 1 think we made the 'church peo- ple happy. They could now ren- ovate -the church tower along with the other money they had been saving. I also ac- complished a lot on an- other level. I made 15 more friends and had an interesting ex- perience. I have gained a lot from this ordeal — friends, knowledge and awareness. All • the lri>s we do and every- thing we eat is like roy- alty to some people. I have never thought of it like that before un- til I did this famine. Who cares if we go hungry for 24 hours, children and adults starve to death all over the world.