When the North Frontenac News was established as a not-for-profit enterprise in 1971, its stated purpose was to knit the small isolated communities together north of Verona. There were other information sources about the world ‘out there’ but none that focused on local issues and celebrated the joys and quirks of people in tons such as Parham, Sharbot Lake, Godfrey, Mountain Grove and Cloyne.

Forty seven years later the world has changed. The Frontenac News, now a for-profit, independent community newspaper, is delivered free of charge to all households in South, Central, and North Frontenac, Addington Highlands and Western Lanark.

But our purpose remains. There are many ways, through radio, tv, and print, to find out what’s going on in the larger communities outside of Frontenac County, but no other way to find out what is going on in our own communities.

There are new media sources now, but as powerful as social media is, it does not provide information to everyone in the community. Our local and county councils collect $45 million each year from us as taxpayers, and only the Frontenac News reports on how decisions about how that money will be spent are made. When it comes time for municipal elections, we are the only ones who take the time to hold all candidates meetings, and interview all the candidates to prepare a primer for the benefit of our readers, both online and through the weekly newspaper.

When someone makes a difference in our communities, even when they try to make a difference, we let everyone know about it.

We are committed to delivering all of this information free of charge, and to disseminating it as widely as possible. That is why we use Canada Post to deliver the newspaper each week, because even though it is very expensive, it is the only way we can guarantee delivery to all of the back road locations where people have built their lives. That is also why we do not have a paywall on either of our two websites, Frontenacnews.ca (which we load with the stories from the paper and update throughout the week as well) and Frontenac-live.ca (where comprehensive event listings and a complete business directory are located).

We remain committed to providing information for free thanks to the revenue generated by our advertisers.

Yet, even as the federal government prepares to step in to support the newspaper industry across the country, the rules surrounding who is eligible penalise us for our commitment to all residents in our readership area. Free newspapers have never been eligible for government support.

In other words, if we made our readers pay us for the newspaper, we could apply for funding. Since we give it away, we can’t.

With costs rising, we have decided to introduce an element of reader support to help us grow and thrive. The idea of user supported content has taken hold on the web, and we are jumping in as well.

We are asking for support from our readers, only those who can afford it, to cover our costs and enable us to invest in further upgrades to our reporting and to our web service. It costs us $30 a year for each of the 12,500 households that receive the paper each week.

If a portion of our readers are able to kick back that $30, or pay $50 or $100 to help cover for those who cannot afford to pay anything, it would be a big help to us.

We have enlisted online help for this by registering with Patreon.com, which is a service that was set up for makers of cultural products based on small, monthly payments, or we can accept payment in all the usual ways at our office, including credit card, Interac and email payments, checques and even cash.

For your support, we are offering a thank you in the form of a free 20 word classified ad (value $12 with hst) for any contribution (as long its $12 or more)

Thank you,
Jeff Green, Publisher

To become a patron of the Frontenac News, click here.

The judge hearing the case of South Frontenac Township seeking an injunction against Loughborough Lake Holiday Park holding concerts, weddings and family gatherings in an ancillary building ended Wednesday’s proceedings at the Frontenac County Courthouse by saying he needed to consider the matter further and will provide a written decision.

Mr. Justice Hurley told Del Vezeau, owner of the park, and acting as his own council and Michael Hickey, lawyer for the Township “I’m not sure when I’ll get it to you” but that he would get it to them as quickly as he could.

At issue is whether Vezeau has the legal right to hold concerts (and weddings) in the barn-like structure he constructed on the property in 2009. The building has been the venue for the Canadian Guitar Festival, a gathering dedicated to all aspects of acoustic fingerstyle guitar that attracts visitors from around the world and the genre’s foremost practitioners including Canada’s own Don Ross, as well as Ed Gerhard, Antoine Dufor and John Ainsworth.

Although the Township has given its blessing to the CGF on numerous occasions (a requirement for Vezeau to get a liquor licence for the event), Vezeau has also held some other concerts including Ambush and Rock of Dimes (fundraiser for the March of Dimes) as well as weddings in the building.

Following complaints from neighbour Maureen Belch, the Township laid charges through its bylaw enforcement officer (at the Ambush concert specifically) which were later withdrawn.

The Township, through Planner Lindsay Mills, then advised Vezeau that such events were not allowed in the Resort/Recreational Commercial Zone his operation falls under (part of the 41-acre parcel falls under the Rural Zone but the services camping/trailer sites and the building where concerts take place are in the RRC zone). Mills also suggested that a zoning change could rectify the situation.

No one seemed to question Vezeau’s right to have the ancillary building for “storage and public gatherings,” only if concerts and weddings could be held in it.

Hickey laid out a comprehensive history of what’s gone on in the ancillary building, at one point mentioning a petition signed by neighbours protesting the concerts on noise concerns, saying “I want to give you (the court) some flavour of the complaints.

Justice Hurley dismissed the petition, saying “I wouldn’t care if every neighbour signed the petition (the question is) is he breaking the law.”

Vezeau maintains he doesn’t need a zoning change, telling the court: “In my view, I have been in complete compliance with the (Zoning) Bylaw.”

The judge’s ruling in this case could have far-reaching ramifications for the area, as well of all of Ontario’s cottage country in that it may become the precedent for what resort owners of all types can and cannot do on their properties.

Get ready to rock, Prince Charles.

That’s as in School of Rock at Prince Charles Public School in Verona.

SK-1 teacher Lee Casement has secured a $2,360 grant from the Limestone Learning Foundation and he’s using it to get gear. Now all he needs is some students to rock ’n’ roll.

“I’m teaching SK-1 so I haven’t got to meet many of the junior and intermediate students yet,” he said. “I’m hoping they’ll take a leadership role.”

Casement, a bass player by trade, takes his inspiration from the Jack Black movie, School of Rock where Black takes on a teaching assignment and ends up forming his students into a rock band.

“There’s actually a method to the madness of teaching kids rock music,” he said. “First of all, this is not a music class per se,” he said. “It’s an extracurricular activity featuring music and we’re not teaching music, we’re teaching songs. And because it’s rock, you can get dirty loud, and that can cover up a lot of mistakes which means the kids can learn quickly and sound decent, which goes a long way towards self-confidence.”

To that end, He plans to feature a repertoire of The Clash, The Ramones, and Pink Floyd.

And Casement knows what he’s talking about. This will be his third School of Rock having done similar programs at Tamworth Elementary and Perth Road Public School.

“What have I learned at those two previous attempts?” he said. “Well, I’ve learned how to write a grant application.”

“But I’ve also learned things like getting smaller keyboards and shortscale guitars. And things like tuning a ukulele to open D so that the less advanced kids can strum along and have some fun.”

He’s also learned to recruit help whenever it presents itself.

“At Perth Road, custodian Don Pollard is a drummer,” he said. “He jumped in a loved it.

“Here, french teacher Kevin Bailey told me ‘I play a little keyboard,’ so . . .” In the past, he’s done Neil Young, Nirvana and even Taylor Swift (“a little rockier version but sometimes you have to meet the kids half-way”) with the students.

“This time, we’ll have to see how it goes,” he said. “I like the idea of gender swapping the vocals on covers.

“We’ll probably do an assembly in March and maybe a concert.”

At Perth Road, he had enough students for four bands, including one allgirl rock band that kept their band, She Rock, going after they left the school.

But even if it’s only a power trio at Prince Charles, it’s worth his time.

“I’ve always wanted something that will bring kids together as a team, with a goal in mind,” he said.

The 12th Annual Frontenac Heritage Festival is set to go Feb. 16-19 and one of its regular features, the local talent show, is once again the big draw on opening night (6:30 p.m. at the Granite Ridge Education Centre).

Once again it will follow the Frontenacs Got Talent format with guest judges determining an overall winner.

“Last year’s winner, Zack Teal, will be opening the show as per tradition,” said emcee Rob Moore at last Wednesday night’s audition/rehearsal. “A new winner will be crowned that evening.”

Once again there will be a variety of acts ranging from musical offerings to the demonstration team from Sharbot Lake Karate to poi juggler Eric Zwier to the Sharbot Lake Line Dancing group.

“And Mike Procter will be doing a magic show,” Moore said.

Following the opening gala Friday night, there will be a range of events and activities all weekend including skating at the Tichborne Rink on Saturday, breakfast at Oso Hall, bucket drumming at the Child Centre, bonfire warming station at the C.F. Train museum and a host of events including empty bowls, log-splitting, hay rides and pioneer village in Arden.

On Sunday, there’s the ever-popular Polar Plunge at the Sharbot Lake Marina followed an open mike with chilli at the Sharbot Lake Legion.

“Life’s good,” said guitarist Shawn McCullough in between sets Saturday night at The Crossing Pub in Sharbot Lake, where he and fiddle player Wade Foster played to a sold-out audience that contained more than a few musicians. “I’ve got a good chunk of 2018 booked already with 125 gigs.

“I did just over 200 last year.”

After years of fragile bands and being a chicken-picker for hire, McCullough seems to have settled into the roving troubadour mode.

“I’m honestly enjoying the acoustic thing,” he said. “The biggest worry is trying to find some tasty old covers that haven’t been done to death. I’m looking to bluegrass for a lot of that.”

He’s also doing a lot of songwriting too, looking at an album in the spring.

“I drive home in silence after gigs,” he said. “There’s not much new on country radio I want to listen to these days and so I use that time to write songs. Well, work them out in the car and write them down when I get home.”

He’s got studio time booked in February and while he plans to record all original material this time around, he’s not in any rush and plans to take it one song at a time.

“It’s really tough to release to radio these days,” he said. “So if I can get songs out one at a time, so be it.

But I’m writing some with Wade and I’m really feeling confident about songwriting right now.”

“At the CCMAs after-party, I was backing up Brea Lawrenson in the songwriting circle and she gave me one of her three songs so I did Change.”

McCullough said you work harder as a solo act, likening it to a marathon rather than a sprint, but it has its advantages. “Well, you’re not worried about people making the gig,” he said. “And you can think about the next one more.”

And then there’s the gear thing. “I started having problems with my neck and so you have to adapt,” he said. “So I got a smaller Bose PA and now I can walk through the door carrying all the gear I need.”

Perth Road Village Crafters draw a crowd for annual show and lunch

No one at the annual craft sale and lunch was too sure how long the Perth Road Village Crafters have been in operation but it’s been quite awhile now.

“My mom was in the Crafters in the late ’70s but I’m not sure how long it was going before she joined,” said Faye Barr at last Saturday’s annual craft show and lunch.

The Crafters are a combination social and activity group, Barr said. They’re always open to new members and pretty much open to any craft someone wants to try.

“You name a craft and somebody will probably do it, including knitting, crochet, cross-stitch, sewing . . .,” she said.

Often, for the craft show, they’ll do a group project such as the ‘fascinators’ wacky headwear featured a few years ago. This year’s project is a large quilt worked on by many of the members.

“We probably have 40 or so members but we have some snowbirds so there’s about 20 people on a regular basis,” she said. “We’d be glad to welcome new members, especially if you’re new to the community.

“We’re a welcoming and warm group.”

She said the best way for somebody to join is simply to show up at the Harris Memorial Park Hall on Wednesday mornings from 9:30 a.m. til noon.

They’re not a fund raising group per se, but they do some fund raising and this year were recognized by the Buck Lake Flotilla in support of Camp Merriwood for their contribution.

“We’re essentially a combination social and activity group,” she said. “But when we do make money, it’s very much used in the community.

On the evening of Thursday December 14th Joey Wright and Al Tuck will be performing an intimate concert of song and story telling. The concert will be held at the Snow Road community hall at 7:00pm.

In June 2013, Tuck's studio album Stranger at the Wake was longlisted for the 2013 Polaris Music Prize. "Fair Country" is a mix of original songs and co-writes with poet Alex Rettie; and covers, was released in 2016. December 2016 saw the release of a tribute album, featuring 15 of Tuck's songs, performed by 15 of his musical friends, and produced by Adam Gallant of Charlottetown, PEI.

Joey Wright is a Juno-nominated songwriter, composer and performer from Toronto/Elphin. Joey is well known for his lyrical and inspired guitar and mandolin playing. As the eagerly anticipated follow up to Hatch, 2017’s Country, Music takes us further down the road on Joey Wright’s musical journey.

Al and Joey will be having a good time keeping the event fun and informal and Al will surely be playing some songs by the great Gene Maclellan.

The Frontenac Gazette (and its sister publication, the Kingston Heritage) ceased publication Monday as corporate media giants Postmedia and Torstar completed a deal to swap newspapers and subsequently close the vast majority of them down.
Staff at The Gazette/Heritage were called to a meeting Monday morning and told they had until noon to clean out their desks.

Torstar, through its Metroland Media wing, traded both papers along with eight community papers in the Ottawa area, the St. Lawrence News, three in the Belleville area and 10 other publications to Postmedia in exchange for eight community publications, seven dailies and two free dailies. Postmedia will continue to publish one of its acquisitions. Torstar will continue to publish four of the dailies.

The Kingston Heritage started publication in 1975. Joe Cembal, who has owned many papers in Central and Eastern Ontario, began the Heritage in response to requests from community leaders in Amherstview after the Whig-Standard had turned them down. Cembal was the publisher but his wife Gail actually ran the paper, serving as general manager until their son Darryl took over in 1988.

In 1991, the Cembals saw a way to produce a rural paper as an add-on market for its Kingston Heritage advertisers and The South Frontenac Gazette was born. In July of 2001, the Gazette expanded into Central and North Frontenac and changed its name to The Frontenac Gazette. It later pulled back from North Frontenac.

In 2009, Performance Printing in Smiths Falls bought the two papers and Darryl Cembal continued as publisher for a short time before moving on. During Performance Printing’s ownership, the Gazette acquired the EMC (which stood for Expanded Market Coverage) title in its masthead.

In 2011, Performance Printing was sold to Metroland and eventually the EMC disappeared from the masthead. Just last January, both the Gazette and Heritage underwent a redesign.

Understandably, Darryl Cembal was saddened to hear of the demise of the publications his family built.

“After 40 years, it’s disheartening that family owned newspapers have gone by the wayside,” Cembal said. “Not only were they owned by a conglomerate, they were closed by a conglomerate.

“For a good news product that’s actually still needed in the community, it’s too bad.

“But it was a corporate decision and it is what it is.”

(Editors note 1 This week's Gazette had been completed and submitted to the printers before the Monday morning meeting, but it is unclear if it was printed and is being distributed. The articles were posted online before the shutdown.)

(Editors note 2. Craig Bakay was a long time employee of the Frontenac Gazette. He worked there until the end of 2016, and subsequently came to work at the Frontenac News.)

The North Frontenac Little Theatre showed presented an adorable collection of skits, songs and musical numbers last weekend. The heart of the show was seeing familiar faces, in memorable situations, all coming together. The News sat down with one of the most important people in the whole production, stage Manager and long time NFLT participant Margo McCullough. This was Margo’s 9th production with NFLT, her first as stage manager. Her only performing role, was that of a dancing tree in the Wizard of Oz.

“From the beginning, I thought, hey I can do this. I am so thankful that (Director) Brian Robertson asked me. He’s such an amazing, talented and well spoken person. I couldn’t say no. I feel more comfortable behind the scenes.”

The show started with an Indigenous story, grounding the show in the history of Frances and Mary Sharbot with drumming by Sisters of the Drum in front of a dreamy treeline set. The Sunshine Sketches takes a seasonal look at this area and those changes of season are represented by a 4 part quest for the perfect butter tart with Zeke from Zealand and Martha Stewpot, with a great cameo from David Yerxa selling Lion’s 50/50 draw tickets.

The First Act of the show was anchored by Autumn with the Wedding, a one act play written in North Frontenac that was put on 26 years ago in 1991. It is the story of a different kind of shotgun wedding, held during duck season, and it is still entertaining today even if some of the fashions of the times have changed.

Also in the first half, the cast showed off all of their singing, dancing, and musical talents with a rendition of the Log Driver’s Waltz, The Kick and Push and the Oklahoma inspired “Our Township Song” which includes the classic line “Where the granite’s steep, the soil’s not deep but something makes us call it home.”

The Second Act of the play took the audience through the winter months with the full cast singing The Snowmobile song, Two bearded blues brothers from Oso, a trip to the Treasure
Trunk, a good old hot tub soak and a classic wish for summer at the Cottage, a number from last year’s Turtle Crossings. The sketch about the inner working of meetings, The Ladies Committee was a hilarious piece which had four people playing committee members and four people dressed in black voicing the committee member’s thoughts. The cast finished off the night with The Frontenac County Anniversary Song written last year to commemorate 150 years of Frontenac County.

All in all it was a sweet event of community theatre, by the community, for the community and filled with maple sugar. The full interview with stage manager extraordinaire Margo McCullough will be posted shortly.

On Monday afternoon, I heard that the Frontenac Gazette/Kingston Heritage had shut down. Soon after, I found out that the entire newspaper landscape in Ontario has been dealt a blow. The two major players in the market had agreed to cease competing with each other in a bid to make both companies profitable, or at least to cut some losses.

I have mixed feelings about losing the Gazette.

On one positive side we have been battling it out with the Gazette for ads and stories for as long as I have been working at the News, both as an employee and an owner, so it’s kind of nice not to have to worry about what they are getting up to. And in business terms we are going to jump on the opportunity to consolidate our standing in the communities we serve with readers and advertisers.

On the negative side I have enjoyed the camaraderie from covering events and meetings with Gazette reporters over the years, and will miss that. Every time their reporters got to a story that we missed, it was motivation for us to do better. The community has been well served by competition and differing takes on local issues.

There have been a number of good, solid reporters at the Gazette, and losing those voices will not help us all as we strive to build and maintain our communities.

I have also been thinking a bit about the years when there was a real battle for survival between us, before the Gazette became swallowed up and eventually spit out by the Ontario corporate news establishment.

When Northern Frontenac Community Services (which is now Rural Frontenac Community Services) sold the Frontenac News to David Brison in June of 2001, there was another bidder.

It was the Cembal family, publishers of the South Frontenac Gazette.

As soon as the Cembals found out the News was not being sold to to them, they dropped the South from the Frontenac Gazette masthead and expanded their circulation to Central Frontenac. A newspaper war in Frontenac County carried on for several years. In 2002, the Frontenac News expanded our distribution, adding Harrowsmith and Sydenham. We started covering South Frontenac Council each week, with Wilma Kenny coming on as a reporter. We also hired one of the Gazette’s ad salesmen that year, which made the competition pretty heated. The Gazette responded by expanding into North Frontenac for a time.

When the Heritage/Gazette was purchased by Performance Printing/EMC of Smiths Falls inn 2009, all of that changed, and when Metroland then bought Performance Printing in 2011, the competition basically fizzled.

For the last few years, the battleground has been in the City of Kingston between the Kingston Heritage and Kingston This Week. That battle was settled on Monday. Post Media, owners of the Whig Standard and Kingston This Week, own Kingston.

All of this represents an opportunity, a sense of obligation for us at the Frontenac News, and we are already taking measures in response to the vacuum that has been created. We are also very aware, that we are not immune to the pressures that are at play in the larger media market. We face the same crunch as the larger papers, and face the same struggles that all print publications face as revenue is harder and harder to come by. We will be addressing that issue with our readers in the coming weeks as we renew out commitment to provide a free paper via Canada Post to our readers and to make it relevant. All of our content is locally based and is devoted to local issues and we cover township and politics. Our mandate, and this goes back to the founding of the paper in 1971, is to be a vehicle that knits the various communities we serve together into one inter-connected region.

Our region is much larger now than it was back then, and this week it is getting larger yet.

We are distributing the paper via Canada Post to Inverary/Sunbury, Battersea, and Perth Road, not just this week but every week going forward. We are seeking volunteer community reporters from those communities to come forward. Anyone who is interested is invited to contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Our goal is, as always, to be a source of information and entertainment, to let people know about the interesting things their neighbours are getting up to, and to foster community engagement.

Oh, and we are in it for the long haul.