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The Wingham Advance-Times, 1967-01-12, Page 7Wingham AcIvance ,MOSI, 11110rglay, Jan. 120 126.7.m, pa el HAVE YOU ANYTHING TO REPORT? CALL 357••2320 We don't know everything that goes on and sometimes people feel neglected when they don't find reports on events that particularly interest them in the newspaper. Readers can help make the hometown paper even more interesting by calling or sending news items to our office. How about personals? Have you been away or had visitors? WE WELCOME YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS ingbun 20tiancoatnt '66 FORD GALAXIE 500 2-Door Hardtop, '.‘/8 Automatic, Radio, Power Brakes, Power Steering '66 FORD CUSTOM, 6 Cyl., Radio '65 FORD 4-Door Automatic '64 MERCURY MONTCLAIR Two-Door Hardtop, V8 Automatic, Radio, Power Steering '64 METEOR Four-Door, V8 Standard, Radio '64 FORD, 8 Cyl., Automatic, Radio '64 PONTIAC, 4-Door, 6 Cyl., Radio '64 FORD 1-Ton Truck, 4 speed transmis. '63 CHEV. 6 Cyl., Automatic, 4-Door '62 CHEVY II, 6 Cyl., Automatic, 4-Door '60 FORD Frontenac 6 Cyl., Standard, A-I shape 0 DON'T FORGET Lions Centennial Dance, Friday, January 13 BRIDGE MOTORS PHONE WINGHAM LOCATION — 357-3460 BRUSSELS LOCATION — BRUSSELS 249 CURRIE'S FURNITURE BABY SALE BELOW ARE ONLY A FEW OF THE BIG SAVINGS FOR BABY ON SALE THIS WEEK *THE LARGEST SIZE CRIB MADE Complete with four pos• ition adjustable steel spring, spring filled mattress, teething rails. White enamel or natural finish. NOW ONLY 89 COMPLETE WITH PAD FOLDING A PLAYPENS $14 49 HIGH CHAIR 1 II ' NURSERY 9 INFANT with potty SEAT $4 98 CHAIR $4 8 BABY $50 ALL SIZES CRIB $ o 95 WALKERS 6 MATTRESSES° KIDDIES' 519 ROCKER Solid wood construction *FREE PARKING *FREE DELIVERY *FREE STORAGE DON'T MISS THE BARGAINS BOYS' AND GIRLS' Winter Coats & Jackets Savings to 50% EVERYTHING ON,, SALE COMPARE THIS VALUE SPECIAL RACK Blouses & Skir s vi PRICE 10(i OFF ALL STOCK mall APO\ OMIll %JP AP:Mk 111:gR CLEARANCE AT McDonald's 40••••=mm••••••••=1 Starts Friday January 13 LADIES' AND CHILDREN'S WEAR Mine Host Times Six Million BY GERALD TAAFFE If you are ever faced with the prospect of having 10 mil- lion visitors looking for a place to stay, the man to call on for help is Jacques Belanger, Right now, Jacques Belanger is trying to find a place to sleep for a crowd that's half as big as the entire population of the whole country, They're all going to Montreal for Expo 67, and Bel- anger is the man who's finding aces for them to stay. How? Well first of all, he's counting on relatives and friends living in and around Montreal to look after four mil- lion of them. For the other six million he's counting up hotel rooms, motel rooms, tourist courts, apartment houses, room- ing houses, dormitories, trailer courts, camping sites, country inns, and people with spare bed- rooms, If a cruise ship docks at Montreal, Belanger may ev- en start counting the staterooms on board, just in case. 'If all we had to offer were the commercial inns,' Belanger says, 'the visitors would be stacked up in the parks like fire- wood.' Jacques Belanger is a 39- year-old ex-hockey player and coach who got into the hotel business 10 years ago. He ran a small hotel in the Laurentians for two years, went to the 1216- room Queen Elizabeth hotel as one of the assistant managers in 1958, and by 1964 -- the year he jOine4 Expo's staff -- was managing the Jamaica Hilton, in OchQs Ries. Nelson Verrnet- re, Hilton's head in Canada, and Belanger's exboss, calls him 'a natural for the hotel business.. an outgoing, Sales- minded guy.' Belanger manages to sand- wich sports activity into a work schedule that can begin with a staff conference at 8,30 in the morning and end only at mid- night, with the drive home from a dinner talk to, say, the Plattsburg, Kiwanis. He gives such talks maybe twice a week. Days, he quietly co- ordinates Expo's needs with government, with commercial innkeepers and with travel ag- encies. He canvasses private homes, apartment buildings and institutions. His job is to find accommodation for an es- timated 100,000 visitors a day during Expo's peak months of July and August. When that time comes he will also have to direct the visitors to their lodgings. The size of 13elanger's task became clear in 1964 when Ex- po sent a detailed questionnaire to every operator of a hotel, motel or rooming house within a hundred miles of Montreal. 'The first thing we found out,' Belanger says, 'was that there wasn't enough room in the com- mercial inns.' From the ans- wers, Logexpo discovered there were 27,233 rooms available in the area. The forecast need was for 55,368 rooms a day dur- ing Expo's peak months. And Belanger couldn't simp- ly go out and find the extra rooms in private homes. The Quebec Hotel Act has always limited the renting of rooms by the day to licensed hotelkeep- ers. In 1965, Logexpo asked the provincial government for authority to use the rooms avail- able in private homes, apart- ment buildings and colleges. Belanger got his permission last April and Logexpo now holds the exclusive right to is- sue non-commercial lodging permits during the exhibition. But even before the necessary legislation was passed Logexpo had begun to dig up lodging in private residences. By Febru- ary Belanger had the names of 2,000 people who were willing to rent rooms in their homes expect from the public. 'We tell them that there can be no discrimination on grounds of race, color or creed, ' says Bel- anger, 'and that the guests should be able to come and go as they please. In other words, that the same rules apply as in the hotels.' Doubling the number of rooms available in a city the size of Montreal may be a toagh job, but Belanger and Logexpo face a tougher one -- they have to triple the number of camping sites. Belanger's staff could find only 9,000 camp sites when they surveyed the area early last spring. 'We need 30,000, ' Belanger said, 'and that's a minimum figure.' Chances seem good that we will get them. The Quebec Roads Department is combining with the Department of Tour- ism, Fish and Game to provide 2,000 more camp sites within 100 miles of Montreal, before Expo opens. The cities and towns are helping, too. 'We asked Que- bec's association of municipali- ties if they could come up with something for the boy scouts,' explains Belanger. 'We're ex- pecting at least 5,000 of them after next year's World Scout Jamboree in Idaho.' Last April, only a few days after the pro- vincial government's camp site announcement, the suburban Montreal municipalities of An- jou and St. Leonard declared that they would have camp sites ready for all 5,000 scouts by the time Expo opened. 'If things keep up at this pace, ' sayd Belanger, 'we'll get our 30,000 sites. That's one side of things that really had us wor- ried.' If Belanger and Logexpo are successful in finding a bed for every visitor to Expo, part of the success will belong to Que- bec's highways. A network of new roads being made ready for Expo's opening will mean that a visitor can stay as far as 100 miles from Montreal. 'Those roads will make visiting Expo a mile-a-minute proposi- tion, ' Belanger claims. 'A visi- tor staying 50 miles away can get to the site in 50 minutes.' Between January of 1956 and opening day next April 28, Quebec will have spent $1 bil- lion on roads. For visitors from east and west, there is the four- lane Quebec section of the Trans-Canada Highway, ex- tending from the Ontario bor- der to Riviere-du-Loup. To make access to Expo easier, this highway has been re-routed through the centre of Montreal. Visitors from south of the city can use the new Eastern Town- ships Autoroute, heading south- east from Montreal to Sher- brooke, 31 miles from the Am- erican border. New York State has also made its contribution. The new four-lane Adirondack Northway takes motorists due north from Albany to the Que- bec border. All these roads are part of normal expansion, but they have been rushed through to coincide with the opening of Expo. But roads aren't the only way visitors to Expo will be served speedily. Belanger plans to have 24-hour switchboard ser- vice, with a total staff of 80 girls, to answer queries about accommodation. Information on what rooms are available will be fed into a computer. The operator will mark a card to see if the visitor's first choice of' lodging is available. If it isn't, she can find out instantly what sort of room the visitor can have. And in case ground facilities turn out to be insufficient, there's always the St. Lawrence River. Jacques Belanger may set up a floating hotel by the Expo site. 'I know it didn't work out very well at Seattle,' he explains, 'but they weren't right on the waterfront as we are.' He adds: 'Besides -- Seat- tle's 'floater was an old tub. We wouldn't go ahead unless we had a first class ship.' - Imper- ial Oil Review. WHITECHURCH Attending the 4-H Leaders' Training School being held in Lucknow January 11 and 12 will be Mrs. Garnet Farrier and Mrs. Bill Evans. All girls in the vic- inity 12 years and over who wish to take part in the club, "A World of Food in Canada" are requested to contact Mrs. Farrier. Girls not taking part in the club are requested to hand In their book covers to Mrs. V. Emerson, to Expo visitors. Just as he be- gan to make enquiries about space in apartment buildings, a bus company rented an entire high-rise apartment building that will be completed in time for Expo. The company's package tours of Expo will in- clude accommodation, But Logexpo has responsibili- ties as well as privileges. Be- fore issuing lodging permits for private homes, for example, inspectors examine the rooms offered. One of their duties is to make sure that the tempor- ary innkeepers know what to A CLOSE-UP OF THE drill rig being used at the West Wawanosh farm of Elmer Foran shows the large diesel engine which drives the large steel beam driving the drill into the ground. The well is now about 1,700 feet into the ground and drilling is expected to continue until the 4,000 foot mark is reached. Euchre held in Langside hall WHITECHURCH— Langside Community Hall Board held a progressive euchre party which had been postponed between Christmas and New Years, on Saturd...y evening in the hall with six tables of players. Graham Moffat, playing as a lady, won the high prize; low lady was Agnes Conley; high man, George Young and low man, Douglas Wall. Lunch was served by the committee, Blink: "No, I won't lend you fifty dollars. Lending money ruins friendships." Brank:" Wait a minute. You know we've new been good friends." Use of electricity has trebled i n 12-year period The inaugural meeting of the Wingham Public Utilities Commission was held on Thurs- day with all members present. It was a pleasure to wel- come W. W. (Jim) Gurney back to the Commission after an ab- sence of twelve years. Jim, with his previous experience in town affairs, both as mayor and Public Utilities Commission will be a valuable asset. It is a matter of note that the consumption of electricity has practically trebled in this length of time and the value of plant and equipment has in- creased from $201, 448 to $447; 903 at the 1966 year end. The sale of electricity is considered a very good indication of the overall economy. John W. Pattison was ap- pointed chairman for 1967.