column 105 You know it goes. You invite good friends over for dinner. You pour a glass of wine and sit down comfortably to enjoy whatever it is you’ve cooked. Maybe you’ve had a nibbly or two to start, though I’m finding as we age that the nibbly can turn into the dinner, if…
Column 104 It’s a partnership in Barrie that’s making a huge difference for all of us! And it’s all about trees. Living Green Barrie, the City of Barrie, the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority, businesses and ordinary volunteers like you and I… these are the community partners that make up the Urban Canopy Coalition….
Mike Fox has a vision. It’s big. It involves community commitment. It guarantees community benefit. Mike would like it to be universally accessible and not a marginal operation. It’s a food cooperative. As executive director of Living Green Barrie, Mike is using his considerable background in finance to broaden people’s understanding of what cooperatives are…
Twenty-seven years ago, Barrie wasn’t exactly a hotbed for refugee resettlement. The Ministry of Immigration had developed regional quotas and was looking to bring immigrants in to the Barrie area. They wanted to provide financial assistance to help sponsored individuals settle in Canada. It was the responsibility of a government bureaucratic office and it wasn’t…
It was synchronicity, you might say. Jack Cain was heading up the finance committee at Collier St United Church. He was a bit concerned when the church held a meeting to look at becoming a site for the newly established Rainbows program. “This might cost us some money,” he said, determined to check it out….
He had a vision. He was rooted by family and community values. He was dashingly attractive. He was meticulous. He cared eternally. He was (eventually) retrospective. He stayed the course and focussed on the business of getting the job done. Emil Pidutti arrived in Barrie in 1984. He looked at a large parcel of land…
You can’t really say that fillings are Susanna Mosli’s life. As a mobile dental hygienist, she identifies cavities, cleans teeth, suggests when people should take themselves off to a dentist. And because she has her Sparkling Smiles mobile service, she arrives at your home and takes care of the entire family while you get on…
Wednesday evenings are casual knitting nights at Eliza’s Buttons and Yarn. Huddled around a small table at the back of this lovely shop, any number of women gather on a semi-regular basis, projects in hand. Elizabeth Fallone is there to help solve problems with a pattern, techniques that ease a dropped stitch, or just plain…
When Georgian College opened its School of Fine Arts in 1971, it attracted excellence all round… terrific professors—all practicing artists—and gifted students. The school was small, its fledgling campus in the empty fields of Barrie’s east end. But ambition was mighty. Karen Smith, head of the School of Fine Arts, attracted a stable of talent….
Funny how good things come from bad things. I’m working with a group of clients these days as we learn how to recognize bad things and wallow in them and let them own us briefly, and then find the gift in there. It’s a process taught to me by a good friend a few years…