It used to be when someone talked about the manufacturing industry our immediate thoughts were boring, repetitive, often noisy dirty sweatshops where those on “the line” were supported by the ‘trades’ and pushed by theforemen. Well, wipe that off the chart! Gone! The changing face of manufacturing is one of the reasons Barrie is playing…
Racism… it’s a fatal disease. There’s only one solution and that’s a non surgical change of heart. Picture nine young people, high energy, dancing their message to an inspired audience. The message is clearcut. Surgery must happen. These young dancers (and a techie road crew of three) are taking their message through music and movement…
Rod Clugston and Lorna Nemeth have a dream. In their dream one of us is innocently driving along when we come across a bicycle on the edge of the pavement and the rider sprawled in the ditch. The accident isn’t their dream; our ability to respond to it, is. It’s sort of like life insurance;…
Linda Griffiths would say she¹s a changed woman, that every day she is touched by the memory of some aspect of a journey she made six months ago. It’s taken that long for the experience to ‘settle’ in its significance. It’s taken that long for Linda and I to find the right time to share…
Five students from St Nicholas School are rehearsing with vigour these days. Why? They want to build a well. Haleigh Sokil, Derek Hope, Dillon Owens, Thomas Bamford and Sara Preston are all students in a band called Deep Subject. They are raising their voices, plucking their guitar strings and bouncing to the beat of drums…
Each person who knew Ossie Rowe had a story about him. George Taylor, winding down his own law career these days, remembers as a new graduate from Osgoode Law School, perusing the journals in search of employment. And there is was! An ad from the firm of Boys, Seagram & Rowe… “wanted, junior lawyer for…
I’m sitting here looking at my miniature Spirit Catcher. A gift from one of my small business groups 10 years ago, it represents much for me. Constructed in exact detail to its mammoth original which graces Barrie’s waterfront, my Spirit Catcher (plated #3) reminds me of this city I love, and of the importance of…
She had just turned 30; a single mother with a great kid and a great job…she covered a huge territory in sales for the Oscar de la Renta line of scent products. She was in a new relationship and the future looked pretty rosy, especially in light of the challenges of the past. Her new…
Monday night last was International Women¹s Day. The Barrie Event Centre was abuzz with 200 women and a few men who were supportive and approving of the night’s festivities. A project hosted jointly by WINGS (Women in Networking Growing Stronger), Business Enterprise Resource Network, The Wedding Wizard, Pre-Paid Legal Services, Blacks Signs & Banners, Royal…
When Barrie was a small city, or a big town (say, 26,000 people) its economic development activities were performed by the Chamber of Commerce. Local business people opened their factories to show other business people through. In those days Barrie’s economic foundation centred around manufacturing… Copaco on Innisfil St., Lufkin Rule (later Cooper Tools) on…