The Citizen, 2012-11-01, Page 1CitizenTh
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$1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, November 1, 2012
Volume 28 No. 43
RACING - Pg. 13Local family continuesexcellence in racing SEPTIC - Pg. 24 Mandatory inspectionprogram comes under fireAWARD- Pg. 3Blyth Citizen of the Yearwinner announcedPublications Mail Agreement No. 40050141 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON N0G 1H0INSIDE THIS WEEK:
Festival reveals 2013 season
Gateway officially partners with Georgian College
A budding partnership
An official memorandum of understanding was signed by representatives of Georgian College
and the Gateway Rural Health Research Institute in Huron East on Friday in Seaforth. The
partnership is certainly in its infancy, however, both parties say they’re looking forward to
working with the other. Signing on the dotted line are Gwen Devereaux, president of the
institute’s board of directors, left, and Georgian College’s associate dean Elizabeth Erwin,
right, while the school’s manager of continuing education Barb Carriere looks on. (Shawn Loughlin
photo)
While the 2013 Blyth Festival
season will feature three world
premieres, Artistic Director Peter
Smith says the season will be more
familiar to the community than they
might initially think.
The season will begin a little
earlier than usual with a remount of
last year’s wildly successful Dear
Johnny Deere. “Back by popular
demand” as Smith says, the play will
open the season on June 11 and run
until June 22 to make way for the
Festival’s regular programming slate
of four plays, which will begin two
days later on June 24.
“Dear Johnny Deere outsold all of
our other plays last season,” Smith
said, as it turned out to be one of the
Festival’s most successful shows in
recent years.
Since the play is set for
productions at the Lighthouse
Festival Theatre in Port Dover and
Theatre Calgary, Smith said it
simply made economic sense to
remount the play.
“It’s a great way to kick off the
season and get that energy going,”
he said.
While the remount was something
that had already been knocking
about in former Artistic Director
Eric Coates’s head, it was confirmed
when Smith began his “knockabout”
a plan to meet with the people of
Blyth by going through the
community and knocking on their
doors. He said he was hearing a lot
of positive comments about Dear
Johnny Deere, but at the same time,
hearing that people heard great
things about the show after its run
had concluded.
The remount, Smith says, gives
those people a second chance to see
the show, while at the same time
bringing back a hugely successful
show from the Festival’s 2012
season.
Smith’s knockabout was
something he proposed when he first
came to Blyth this year, saying he
wanted to reconnect the Festival
with the community and hear what
was on minds of members of the
community in regards to the Festival
and the plays it has been producing.
Smith says that while the majority
of responses have been positive, not
all of them have been.
“A lot of people have been
wondering if the theatre is reflecting
them on stage,” Smith said.
Wanting the Festival to be a
reflection of the community is
paramount to Smith, he says, and it
all goes back to something former
Artistic Director Anne Chislett told
him.
“More people buy mirrors than
they do paintings,” Smith
remembers Chislett telling him.
“This is important to me,” Smith
says. “I want people to feel like
they’re part of this thing because this
is a community theatre in the best
Huron East’s Gateway Rural
Health Research Institute has signed
an official memorandum of
understanding (MOU) with
Georgian College.
In an official announcement held
at the Huron East Health Centre in
Seaforth on Friday, the document
was signed by President of the
institute’s board of directors Gwen
Devereaux and Georgian College’s
associate dean Elizabeth Erwin.
During the announcement the
room was full of familiar faces from
Huron County’s economic
development force. Blyth’s Brock
Vodden, the Huron Business
Development Corporation’s Paul
Nichol, Huron County’s Douglas
Barill, head of the Huron County
Economic Development Department
Mike Pullen and Director of
Planning Scott Tousaw were all in
attendance as the announcement was
made.
Devereaux said the announcement
brought her back to the early days of
the institute, when she and a group
of community members took a trip
to Hazard, Kentucky and came up
with the idea for Gateway. In the
early days, the institute had
partnered with Georgian College,
but until now there had been no
formal documents signed.
Devereaux said this type of
partnership had always been part of
her “expanded dream” for the
institute and she hopes to continue
to expand.
“Thank you for believing in us,”
Devereaux said to representatives
from Georgian College.
In an interview after the
announcement, Devereaux says she
hopes that the institute’s yet-to-be-
built facility, which will include a
lecture hall, will be transformed into
a potential satellite campus for
several post-secondary institutions,
not just Georgian College. She is
also hoping that the expansion will
reach beyond the healthcare field,
providing all kinds of post-
secondary education.
Erwin, who also spoke at the
announcement, said in an interview
after the signing of the MOU, that
while she had been unfamiliar with
the institute before last week, she
was impressed with what she saw
when she got there.
“It’s very inspiring,” she said.
“There are a lot of rural
communities in Ontario and this can
be a lesson for us.”
She said the college and the
institute can work in partnership
going forward in the true sense of
the word.
She said the institute can feed the
college its information and findings
as research goes on, while at the
same time indicating to the school
what the needs are in rural
communities as far as programming
and demand for courses.
In turn, Erwin said, the college
can be crafting programs to the
needs and wants of Huron East and
greater Huron County, offering
programs that will lead to positions
needed in the community,
encouraging students to return to the
area.
The move was called a true
economic development driver by
many on Friday, who feel healthcare
will be one of the main factors in the
Huron County economy going
forward.
“I’ve been so impressed with
what’s happened in this rural
community,” Erwin told the group.
“This is a dynamic and futuristic
community and I know we will do
good things together.”
Huron-Bruce MP Ben Lobb was
in attendance and he called the
announcement “exciting”.
“It takes a lot of drive and people
working behind the scenes,” Lobb
said.
Lobb also said that in today’s
economic climate, not many people
are afforded the luxury of staying
with one employer their whole lives.
Often people will change
employers, and even career paths,
several times over the course of their
lives, so to offer such a viable option
as healthcare in Huron County is a
great direction for the community to
take.
Huron-Bruce MPP Lisa
Thompson said she had recently
been reading a newspaper article
about the end of community-driven
initiatives and she couldn’t wait to
write in and show the newspaper
how wrong it was.
She called the Gateway initiative a
true community-driven project that
she was proud to have happening in
her riding.
“A lot of people wanted this with
all their hearts and I can’t wait to see
this grow,” she said.
Huron East Deputy-Mayor Joe
Steffler, who has been involved with
the project since its inception, said
Friday’s announcement was one that
doesn’t happen every day in Huron
County.
“This is as good as it gets,” he told
the group. “I can’t be excited
enough. Healthcare is going to be
one of our biggest industries going
forward.”
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
Continued on page 12
With cold rain and winds here to
stay and snow said to be around the
corner, it’s time to turn your clocks
back as Daylight Saving Time ends
on Nov. 4.
Clocks should be turned back by
one hour on Sunday, Nov. 4 at
2 a.m.
Time to
fall back