HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1996-04-17, Page 15GUESS WHAT'S
COMING...
Bebind tite scenes of Lucan's 125 anniversary plans
ReporterBy Brenda Burke
T -A
LUCAN - Despite recent disagreement between
organizing committees, plans for Lucan's 125
celebrations on June 21, 22 and 23 are well underway
as the village gears up for its biggest bash since the
Lion's Club held a fair more than a decade ago.
The 125 Committee was established in September
as an umbrella group to oversee numerous
subcommittees including heritage, security,
entertainment, parking, food, citizenship, parade,
crafts, tours, displays, antique cars, antique tractors,
ball tournament, promotions and fundraising. Also
involved in organizing the anniversary are local
churches, schools, nursery schools, service clubs,
sports organizations, firefighters, guides and scouts,
the business association and village council.
"I like to think of this as the last big fling of the
century," said 125 Committee Chair Norm Steeper.
"One of our goals was to get as much involvement as
we could from the village."
With the village growing, said Steeper, the
challenge is to involve everybody in the community
event.
"Sometimes it's hard to fit them in...It was time for
, (the anniversary) just for the social development in the
village...We were ready for a party....It's a reunion...We
need to be able to contact all the people that have
moved away from Lucan."
With seven general organizing meetings under its
belt, the committee looks forward to additional
meetings before June. In the meantime, members are
busy photocopying fliers, posters, booklets and mailing
lists. Promotions, including the printing of a souvenir
book, have also been put in motion.
"We're at the stage now where all our souvenirs are
pretty much in place," said Promotions Chair Jenny
Jones, adding the event will be promoted until June,
"just to make people aware."
"A lot of people have a vested interest in making
this very successful," said Steeper. "We see it as an
opportunity to promote Lucan," and its "rich heritage."
An ambassador from Ireland, he said, is invited to
join the party. And, of course, local members of
traffii
Comn>ip Vice Chair Peggy M ra ostaken on
• the task of recording what Steeper calls "a significant
event in the history of Lucan."
Mastorakos, who has sat on a number of
committees, finds this the most challenging to work
with. She admitted one of the greatest tasks of
planning the 125 celebrations is dealing with the
numerous people involved.
"It's hard for a lot of groups to get together and
agree on things," she said. "Actually, I have a good
bunch of people to work with."
As for organizing, "Nothing's going to be left until
the week before," said Steeper, who added past
disagreements have not held up the committee's plans.
"We're on schedule," he said. "We're meeting the
challenges and dealing with (them)"
Meanwhile, the Lucan and Area Heritage
Committee, one of the celebrations' sub -committees, is
busy organizing a 60 to 70 float parade, wagon tours,
historical displays and festival in the park that includes
an antique show and sale, flea market, fanner's market,
fine art and craft exhibition and children's festival.
"We gave our word that we will look after those
four venues so we will do that," said Heritage
Committee Chair Mike Anderson.
"Those four areas are really the backbone of the
heritage festival," he added, referring to a separate
event the committee holds annually. "Our committee is
an ongoing committee and our festival is an on-going
festival."
Core heritage festival events will coincide with 125
celebrations but there will be some changes. Last
year's tractor -pulled wagon tours, for example, may
become this year's horse-drawn tours. Tour books will
be updated for this event but "our concern," said
Anderson, "is to get them accurate than to have them
done on time."
But the most pressing task facing the committee is
its historical displays. After planning for seven months is,
to have historical and cultural displays in the
community centre's main hall, the committee was
recently forced to search for alternative venues due to a
change in plans.
"Now we're back to square one as far as displays
go," said Anderson. "Instead of one large venue we
have three small venues."
The new venues combined, including the heritage
museum and donated space from the Legion and
Scout/Guide Halls, do not provide as much room as the
main hall and although all three areas will be equipped
with much-needed air conditioning for the artifacts, the
Guide/Scout Hall is the only wheelchair accessible
building.
The 24 groups setting up displays must reconfirm
their arrangements with the committee, which may be
searching for additional space. It's aim is to intersperse
Lucan and area history from 1836 to 1995 throughout
the three buildings to create a more realistic cultural
Also planned is a memory lane of his
interest that will travel from the m
Park..
"People's main interest is the history of Lucan r.
because it's our birthday," said Anderson. "The
displays will still be represented, but on a smaller
scale."
"We can pretty well triple what we did last year but
we don't have the space to do it," explained Lima
Thompson, vice president of the Heritage
Committee...Because of the amount of history th►t's
here, we have to delegate... We will meet our target
date, there's no doubt about that."
The first major fundraiser of Lucan's 125
anniversary celebrations includes a Coffee House Jam
on April 26 at the Lucan Community Memorial Centre
where from 8 p.m. to midnight the audience will
choose the "Best Sounding Band" to appear as the
opening act in the 125 Open Air Concert on June 22.
At left, Doug.fohnston, Peggy Mastorakos,
preparation for Lucan's 125 anniversary.
Norm Steeper and Jenny Jones sort T-shirts in
1Nstorlcai artifacts must also be organized for the June celebrations. At left is Linda
Thompson, Jean Hodgins and Mike Anderson.
MEN
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Where Are They Now?. is an extended series on South Huro
District High School graduates and their career choices
Betty BfrreII: creatlng company slides
LONDON = `l'tn not just running a nickel and dime business out of my basement," said
Betty Birrell, who designs high resolution 35 mm slides for companies such as Kellogg Canada
Inc.,rAVCO Financial Services and Big V Pharmacies Co. Ltd.
Birrell's computer-generated slides, often containing chart, diagram and logo graphics, are
used for internal company purposes such as training, annual shareholders' meetings and
conferences. She averages three to six annual orders for large businesses and for smaller
groups, updates slides once a year.
"I really excel in the service end," she admitted, adding although she doesn't like to be
"available 24 hours a day," sometimes such dedication is needed in order to compete in her
field.
"I'm always ready to do business."
Many companies are equipped to make their own slides, she pointed out, adding in an age of
cutting back, it can get expensive to appoint existing staff to the task that tends to require costly
overtime and trips to film labs.
Besides competing with easily accessible Softwear packages businesses buy to construct
slides, Bissell must deal with the marketing block of voice mail, which she considers to be "a
real problem these days," since "you don't get to talk to real people anymore."
Although she markets her slides largely in London, she is able to service customers in
Toronto and would like to expand to other areas.
Using both drawings and the scanning of photos, Binrell combines logic and creative skills
to produce mathematical layout and images with Visual' impact, always with the audience in
mind.
Although her business "tends to go hot and cold," with its peak time between January and
May and the past few months slower than usual, she enjoys being self-employed and believes
home-based businesses offering competitive products and services can flourish in times of
economic instability.
'The home-based business is really appealing,"
she explained, because it leaves her time
entertain, garden and visit family.
Bom in Hagersville, Birrell spent her childhood years in Exeter until 1959. Then she was
in grade 10 at South Huron District High School
where her parents were teachers.
"I had perfect attendance in high school," she
noted.
She remembers driving with her brother and
parents to the high school from the family farm near
Ailsa Craig, an operation her brother now runs.
"It was a pretty little fruit farrn on the Ausable
River," she recalled.
Bissell attended the University of Wester Ontario to
study math and science and quit for a year to code
health claims at London Life before returning for a
general arts course.
She then decided to become a bilingual secretary
and travelled to Quebec to live with a french family
where she met her future husband, married and had
twin daughters.
In 1971, following her divorce, Birrell relocated to
Kitchener where she worked for a manufacturer's life
insurance company, then a farm equipment company.
She was employed as a sales representative for Yellow
Pages -Tele -Direct (Publications) Inc., before being promoted to assistant sales manager of the
company in Burlington.
When news came her office was to close and she met her second husband in 1980, Birrell
moved to London the following year and enrolled in a real estate course. But with interest
rates climbing to more than 21 per cent at the time, she chose to work as a secretary for
Cableshare Inc., a London data communications company where she was asked to learn how
to operate the in-house slide -making equipment.
"Thirty days later," she said, "1 was in business."
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