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Wednesday, 12 July 2017 10:06

Canada Day Walk/Run Event

The extremely damp weather didn’t deter some resilient participants of the Canada Day Walk/Run event.  Approximately 60 walkers and runners came out for a mild but very wet outing along the trail.  The route had to be modified due to some flooding, but other areas could not be avoided.  Large puddles covered sections of the trail, causing some to weave and avoid and others to run right through them.  

Dedicated volunteers assisted with registration, route set up, and water stations and cheered on the participants along the way.

Overall the event was a success and it was great to see young and old out enjoying our trail no matter the weather.  Close to four-hundred dollars was raised which will be donated to the Granite Ridge Education Centre to assist with transportation for youth to athletic events.

Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC

It’s taken about a year and a half, 40 pages of applications and a lot of research and learning, but this fall, the Granite Ridge Education Centre will be offering a unique class to its Grade 11 students — an introduction to GIS, which includes certification in the operation and use of drones.

“We believe we’re the first school in Ontario with this kind of program,” said Wade Leonard, who’s been the driving force behind it and will be the teacher. “There may be another somewhere but we’re the only ones signed up for the software.”

The ‘drone’ in this case is a Phantom 4, which is about the size of a large snare drum, complete with a state-of-the-art camera and software. It has four propellers and it’s no toy — especially not to the federal government.

“The permitting process has taken about 11 months to get this thing off the ground,” Leonard said. “We’re in the final stage now and we’ll be able to fly Class G, which is anywhere outside of restricted airspace (primarily around airports).”

Leonard got the idea after watching some Queen’s personnel flying one around his farm in Hartington. Little did he know what was involved.

“It has taken some time, but we’re taking the Mike Holmes approach,” he said. “Do it right.”

They got a Limestone Learning Foundation grant to get a subscription to software that will aid in GIS mapping, 3D modelling and several other applications including overlays and panoramas.

“We’ll be able to do some very highly detailed maps,” he said. “But there are many applications.

“Real estate, land surveying, construction — you can even count trees, which will be useful to many groups for species identification.”

They’ve already approached a variety of groups and local governments for possible partnerships and literally, the sky’s the limit.

But for Leonard, it seems the biggest attraction is the opportunity to give his students a useful and unique learning opportunity.

“I think it will be highly enjoyable and interesting for students,” he said. “And they’ll be certified going out the door.”

The GREC student body assembled on the soccer pitch for this 150th shot from the school’s drone. The 7 ½ ft. X 12’ Canadian Flag in the background came courtesy of student Claudia Thompson’s grandfather Stephen McCullough. “It’s from the Peace Tower,” she said. “He ordered it 12 years ago and he just got it.” Photo/courtesy of the GREC drone photography program.
Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC
Thursday, 22 June 2017 14:04

Granite Ridge: Special Olympic Recap

Most sports season here at GREC run Fall, Winter or Spring, not the Special Olympics! We started preparing for competition way back in October, which just shows the commitment these athletes have to their sport - and boy did it pay off!

Recently, a group of School to Community athletes traveled all the way to Brock University where they competed at the Special Olympic Provincial Championship.

There were over 800 athletes at the event competing in Basketball, Soccer, Bocce Ball and Track and Field. GREC competed in the soccer competition against 11 other teams from across Ontario and Canada.

During Day 1 of competition GREC tied two games and lost 1 game placing them into the B Division for the following day of competition. Day 2 the team really came together and played like superstars! Despite some jitters and a loss early in the day, our athletes overcame this and posted two 5-0 wins that involved incredible ball handling, constant passing, great communication and many shots on net. This put GREC in first place and on their way to the semi-final game where they beat NDSS 3-0, which secured their place in the gold medal game. In the end, GREC won the GOLD with a 1-0 win over Dennis Morris, a local favourite from St. Catherine's, Ontario.

I hope the memories you made this week will last a lifetime and encourage you to try your best in every situation that life may throw at you!

A special thank you to all the athletes, Ms. Steele and Mr. McCullough for the tremendous efforts over the last three days! We are so very proud of all you have accomplished.

The Gryphons look forward to next years Special Olympic competition, which will be held in Peterborough, Ontario from May 29th - May 31st, 2018.

Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC

“Hoza” is an African word that can mean stop, start or change, Kevin Fell told the audience at GREC last week.

“Our mission is to help put a stop to negative thinking and behaviours and facilitate change that is needed to start living in a more socially just world,” he said.

To do that, Fell and Derek Thorne brought an energetic message told through drums and stories, with plenty of audience interaction and participation.

In particular, they tell they story of Nelson Mandela, who was sent to jail in South Africa for defending opponents and victims of Apartheid, only to re-emerge as a leader of those victims and eventually become president of the country.

They illustrated their point with several audience participation exercises designed to help students think differently about themselves and the world around them. (The ‘arrest’ of teacher Wade Leonard was a highlight for many in the audience.)

“We give them (students) a template to think differently about themselves,” Fell said. “We do that through the leadership of Nelson Mandela and it also gives them permission to think differently about themselves, permission to not put themselves down.”

Fell, who is originally from South Africa, has degrees in both performance and education. He believes strongly in the power of education through the arts.

Thorne is a well-established Canadian drummer originally from Trinidad.

“We’re performers who teach,” Fell said. “We teach through the arts

“And we also give schools a chance to come together as a community.”

One way they did that was to organize a drum lesson on the djembe, an east African drum known for its distinctive sound, with groups of students followed by a round for the teachers.

Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC
Wednesday, 07 June 2017 13:02

Granite Ridge Heart Heroes

Students who organized the annual Jump Rope for Heart at Granite Ridge Education Centre, an event that now includes 7 different athletic events including shooting hoops and more, posed for a photo at the end of the frantic 90 minutes of activity among the elementary panel at Granite Ridge on Monday June 5th.  Catherine Reynolds, who has been running the fund raising event for the Heart and Stroke Foundation for four years at the new school at a nuber before that at the former Hinchinbrooke school in Parham, said she has learned that it is a lot easier to turn the organising over to a team of heroes than to do all the work herself. This year the event has raised $1400 for Heart and Stroke thus far, and money is still trickling in.

Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC
Wednesday, 17 May 2017 13:34

Gryphons headed to Niagara Falls

Recently, the students in the School to Community Program at Granite Ridge Education Centre were selected to attend the Special Olympics Provincial Championship to be held on June 12th – 14th, 2017 in Niagara Falls. The students competed in a qualifying soccer tournament back in February where based on the results from that tournament the team was selected from over 100 other Ontario Soccer teams to complete against 12 teams at the Provincials.

We are so proud of our athletes for the dedication and hard work they have put in to training for this upcoming championship. The two-day tournament hosts over 800 athletes, coaches and staff from across Ontario competing in basketball, bocce, soccer, track & field and floor hockey.

We hope our athletes enjoy this wonderful opportunity in Niagara Falls and come away from the tournament with new friendships and memories that will last a lifetime.

Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC
Wednesday, 03 May 2017 11:46

Here along the Flight Path Review

North Frontenac Little Theatre’s production of the Canadian playwright Norm Foster’s play, Here Along the Flight Path, went up last weekend at Granite Ridge Education Centre in Sharbot Lake. The play centres around John Cummings, played by Marc Veno, who is a teacher at Harrowsmith Public School.

The title of the play refers not only to the planes that fly over the apartment building in an un-named Canadian City where the play is set, but also to Cummings himself. Although he is a catalyst for changes in the lives of three women who live in the apartment next door at different times over a three year period, he does not act. We get a picture of his changing perspective on the world and his life through the interaction but he is essentially along the flight path of their lives, watching and listening as they eventually fly off to the next phase of their lives, leaving him behind.

The play also has something to say about gender and gender stereotypes. Cummings is 46 when the play starts, a cuckolded divorced man who loves his young children but may or may not be involved in their lives. He thinks about having sex all the time, but knows he wants something more in his life without really knowing what it is or how to seek it. Veno captures all this very well, but he is hindered by the character’s limitatoins. As a playwright Foster sets his characters up to reveal and maybe discover themselves, and then inevitably retreats to a joke, keeping the characters from being too “real” and this also hinders the performances of the actors playing those roles. Veno did a very good job, showing Cummings is a fundamentally decent man who respects, cares about and eventually helps each of the women living next door.

Faye Davidson (played by Ellie Steele) is the first neighbout, a ‘hooker with the heart of gold’, Angel Plunkett (played by Carol Belanger) is a ‘plucky’ aspiring musical theatre actress from the sticks come to make her mark in the big city, and Gwen (played by Barb Matson) is a 40ish woman seeking a new life on her own after her policeman husband dumped her for another woman.

Steele played Davidson as strong, unapologetic, worldly and at the same time sympathetic. The scene just before she leaves for Montreal is a classic slapstick ala the Dick Van Dyke show. She decides to have sex with Cummings before leaving town, and he refuses, leading to a kind of chase scene as they both trip over couches, all the while delivering their lines on cue.

The character of Angel Plunkett is in her early 20’s, too young for John Cummings to pursue, which she makes abundantly clear. Carol Belanger captured a lot of the naivetee of Plunkett, who clearly is never going to succeed in musical theatre, but has a second life as a country singer-songwriter back in Alberta. She appreciates her neighbour, a friendly face in a cold big city.

Barb Matson had more to work with as Gwen, who enters into an affair with Cumming, essentially using him to recover her composure and sense of self worth in order to return home to Vancouver and face her own life. Matson was very good in the role, good enough that her ultimate decision to leave Cummings with no warning takes him, and the audience, by surprise. But the structure of the play is such that Cummings is “on the flight path” not the destination.

In spite some of my issues with the play itself, the NFLT production was very solid this time around, the acting and staging and lighting were all clean, and the subject matter of the play was interesting as well.

Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC
Thursday, 27 April 2017 11:59

NFLT Flying high

North Frontenac Little Theatre presents their spring production, Here Along the Flight Path at Granite Ridge Education Centre this weekend (Friday and Saturday 7:30pm and Sunday matinee at 2pm.)

The Norm Foster written adult comedy also stars Carol Belanger and Barb Matson.

Tickets will be available at the door - $15 ($10 students)

Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC

On Feb. 22, students at the Granite Ridge Education Centre celebrated Pink Shirt Day, a tradition that began in Canada to help combat bullying in all its forms.

This year, they had help in the person of Abby Stewart, a Holy Cross student who’s making waves in country/country rock circles.

Stewart, whose stage presence and performance savvy goes way beyond her teenage years, seemed right in her element as her 40-minute set just flew by, to the delight of her (mostly younger) audience.

From her opening cover of Maddie & Tae’s Fly and the crowd favourite Burning House, Stewart had her audience’s attention, and that was a good thing, because along with top-tier music, she also had a message — put an end to bullying.

“I haven’t done this in . . . forever,” she said before launching into Taylor Swift’s Mean. “But it fits the day.

“Today is a day we need to stand up against exclusion — any form of cruelty.”

In an interview, Stewart said the message of Pink Shirt Day is “close to my heart” as she’s had experiences in the form of exclusion.

Indeed, her own You Don’t Know That is about those experiences, a song she co-wrote with a friend on Skype.

“And I love the tag line (‘Be Kind’),” she said. “There’s way too much cruelty in this world.”

Even at her young age, Stewart sees the power of music, in a couple of different ways. As such, she has no problems when it comes to music with a message.

“Rock music should be expressed with what you’re feeling,” she said. “And, music can help you through things.

“You put in the ear buds and it can make you feel a lot better . . . I know it does for me.”

And it would seem the same was true for GREC students as well on this day, as Stewart stuck around after the gig, high-fiving and talking with a throng of young fans and admirers.

Stewart was ably backed by Chris Murphy on acoustic guitar and harmony vocals, Lee Casement on bass, Jeff Babcock on drums, and Matt Baetz on electric guitar

Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC
Wednesday, 25 January 2017 14:40

Senior Golden Eagles Raise Record to 9-0

The Sydenham High School girls senior volleyball side continued its winning ways Monday night defeating the Granite Ridge Education Centre Gryphons 3-1.

The game was a make-up for the previous week’s Tuesday contest that was postponed due to inclement weather.

The win raises the Golden Eagles’ record to 9-0, and they are the only undefeated team in the loop.

The Gryphons fielded a depleted squad, with six regulars and one junior call-up, due to impending exams the following day.

Sydenham handily won the first set 25-6 but then GREC rallied to take the second 25-22. In the third set, GREC had a 12-8 lead at one point but fell 25-18.

The Golden Eagles finished up the win with a convincing 25-4 win.

“It’s been hard to carry on momentum with all the breaks in the season (Christmas, exams),” said Sydenham coach Katie May. “(But) we have skilled players who are committed.”

May cited the leadership and play of Robyn Melnyck and Brianna MacComish and overall team play as big reasons for the team’s success this season.

“We have a lot of experience at a high level on both defense and offense,” she said. “That gives us stability.”

As the defending KASSAA champions, there would naturally be high expectations this year and May did describe this team as “one of the highest potential” but didn’t want to go any further than that.

“Yes, we’d like to finish No. 1 in the league but we take it one game at a time,” she said. “We have good basics in terms of passing, serving, good all-around.

“(And) they are a lovely group of young ladies working together.”

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC
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With the participation of the Government of Canada