Perseverance begins with a vision, and a vision begins with a dream, and a dream begins with an idea. Pineview was an idea -a dream and a vision of several people who were not satisfied that Cloyne and area did not have a Free Methodist church. Because of this spiritual reality some members of Cloyne who gathered together first in Vennachar Free Methodist Church, then moved to the Barrie Township Hall in 1965 under the leadership of the Rev. W.R. Lohnes, knew there was something lacking in this community to meet their spiritual needs and the spiritual needs of our community as well.

This small group of devoted Free Methodists had great faith. The original members were, Aileen Ball, Wilma Brownlee, William Brownlee, Allan Kay, Donna Kay and Marjorie Wise, and faithful others who were committed to the cause.

One day the treasurer noticed an envelope marked "Building Fund" with $5 in it, and stated, “We don’t have a building fund.”

Allan Kay responded, “We do now.”

That was in 1969, the beginning of Pineview Free Methodist Church. The next step was to find a piece of property and purchase it. A piece of crown land was selected - 330 feet at $2 per foot, which came to a whopping $660!! There was a down payment of $25 placed on the table. The Ministry of Lands and Forest wanted it paid in full and a building to be built within two years.

A 10-year mortgage of $51,000 had to be taken out. In June of 1971 they turned the sod, which was 40 feet further south than the original plan had stated. The architect and builder wanted to save a pine tree on the north side of the property, so the building was moved. Within a few years lightning damaged the tree (more of this significance later).

They held their first service on the third weekend of November 1972!

Then came another vision.

Mr. Allan Kay had faith to see what the future could hold for Pineview. He knew God had bigger plans for Cloyne and our local area, for He never ceases to have ideas, dreams, and visions of what Pineview “could be”. Once again plans were drawn up, and once again money was being placed in a building fund account, accumulating until it was needed.

Over the years whenever anyone suggested making changes or improvements to the existing church, Allan Kay would be heard, "Wait until we build our expansion.” Some became frustrated until one man said, ”What’s stopping us from building? ... Let’s get started.” Bruce Kellar picked up the baton and ran with it! There was no slowing him down once he got hold of it.

In 1995 the church began to raise funds for the expansion. There was already $155,000 in the building account and it was estimated it was going to cost a little less than $350,000 to build. They obtained a mortgage of $176,000 to enable them to begin building in the fall of 1999!

Originally it was thought that this money was only enough to build a shell. But by the time they had finished they had built the whole expansion project.

In January of 2000 they were able to hold their first service. The volunteer work hours helped to reduce the cost of the hired contractor, who declared that the people of the community and church were so efficient that they managed to get more done than anyone had ever expected.

Now let’s go back to the pine tree and the lightning story….

When it was first decided to build an expansion most of the plans were for the south side of the existing building. Then one design came in that suggested building to the north! Never before had anyone thought of going north, yet north was the ultimate site to build on. So if the original church had not been moved south by 40 feet they would not have been able to build the expansion that was needed. God knew what needed to be done, and had been in all the details all along.

In September of 2011 the mortgage was paid in full!!

Now Pineview is looking to what God has in store next. He has something awesome planned, for His word tells us in Jeremiah 29: 11-13, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will see Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.”

This year, on November 17 & 18, Pineview will be celebrating 40 years of being a Free Methodist church to the people of the Land O’ Lakes area. Everyone is invited to join the celebrations on Saturday, at 7pm and again on Sunday at 11 am for a time of worship, music, and a much celebrated mortgage burning! Hope to see you all there.

Volunteers make pitch for ATV runs

Brian Moffitt, representing the Ompah Volunteer Firefighters Association, brought information about the increasingly successful ATV runs that the association has been sponsoring each spring and fall.

In 2012, the two runs raised a total of $35,500. Some of that money was donated back to the township for fire equipment, and some has been set aside for a new fire hall in Ompah. Among recipients of the rest of the money are the Santa Claus parade and the local bass derby. A small amount was also provided to local families in crisis.

“In addition to raising money, we have been promoting the township. We did a survey and found that 98% of the registrants for the runs came from outside the township. Those people spend money in local businesses and they come back to the township at other times during the year,” said Moffitt.

He also said that he is aware of five individuals who have purchased property in the township after participating in the ATV runs.

He added that the general manager of Kanata Honda came to one of the runs this year, and “after riding a 100 kilometres through North Frontenac, he was so enthused that he offered a brand new 2013 Honda ATV at cost for us to raffle off.”

The association intends to sell 2,000 tickets at $10 each, picking the raffle winner at the 2013 spring run. The raffle could add another $15,000 to the kitty, upping the fundraising total from the two runs to $50,000 per year.

Council had a number of questions about the ATV runs, including several about insurance and liability.

Councilor Betty Hunter expressed a concern about some of the images used in Moffitt’s presentation, which emphasise one of the appeals of ATV runs, riding through mud. In fact, one of the items that Moffit credited the township with providing for the ATV run was the mud on the trails.

“The emphasis on mud worries me,” said Hunter.

“Why?” asked Brian Moffitt.

“Because of the environmental impact, the destruction of habitat, damage to the trail, that sort of thing,” said Hunter.

“Twelve hundred people come here for the trail runs over two days,” Moffitt replied, “a small amount compared to the thousands of people who ride the trails over the entire year. The fact is that when people buy an ATV they don’t buy it to drive slowly. Yes, the runs cause ruts in the trail, but, but there are ruts being developed as we speak, as hunters drag deer out, as they set up their camps. You are not going to walk 100 kilometres on those trails. They are there for motorized use.”

Deputy Fire Chief Denis Bedard, who was also at the council meeting, said that most of the trail that the ATVs run on is high and dry, and that there are bypasses for all of the lower, muddy parts.

“I’d say about 75% of the riders used the bypass. We don’t market our events as mud runs,” Bedard said.

Mayor Clayton said “I don’t think anybody on council is opposed to the run or the way you run it. The only thing we worry about, for your sake, is that you advertise in advance where the money you raise is going.”

The firefighters' association is working with township staff to develop a protocol for reporting on where the money they raise is donated.

Meeting schedule altered – At the request of Township Clerk Jenny Duhamel, there will be changes to the meeting schedule in 2013. Starting on January 14, meetings will be held every third Monday throughout the year. Currently meetings are held every second and fourth Monday of the month. They will start at 9 am instead of the current time, 1 pm, and they will all be held at the Clar-Mill fire hall, which is located on the same property as the township office. The practice of holding meetings at the Harlowe, Snow Road, Ompah, and Barrie Halls between April and October will be stopped.

“If we do have a major issue on the table that is of concern in one particular district, we can always move that meeting to another hall,” said Mayor Clayton, as Council voted to accept the new schedule.

“It is in the interest of staff to hold the meetings every three weeks, for their scheduling,” he added, “and as I’ve said before it is really the staff that run the township, but they do tolerate a little interference from Council."

No logo, but new signage gets the nod

As part of her report from the Economic Development Task Force, Councillor Betty Hunter presented the rough draft of a new township logo. In place of intertwined hands symbolizing the coming together of former townships into North Frontenac, the proposed logo includes a stylized NF and some imagery representing the night skies initiative.

“This is just a rough version. It will look a lot better once we get a graphic artist to work it out,” said Hunter.

“I don’t see any reason to change it [the current logo],” said Mayor Bud Clayton.

“I don’t think we like the new one,” said Councilor Gerry Martin.

A motion to approve spending up to $1,000 for a graphic artist to finalise the new logo was defeated in a 3-3 vote. (Councilor Wayne Good was not at the meeting)

Proposed promotional signage for Highway 506/509, which was prepared by sign maker Rodger MacMunn, was well received by Council. They approved a motion to seek bids to build the signs. If MacMunn gets the job, the artwork he did for it will be included. If he doesn’t, the township will owe him $250.

Legion wants canteen: Robert Wood, the vice-president of the Northbrook Legion, brought a proposal to Council that the Legion take over operation of the now unused canteen building beside the old skating rink in Northbrook.

The canteen has seen little use since the cancellation of the Northbrook Blueberry Festival almost 10 years ago. The Legion would like to set up games for Legion members and for local seniors as well, including lawn darts and horse shoes.

Robert Wood said that the Legion branch is aware that the building needs to be re-shingled, and if the township will pay for the shingles they will provide the labour. Wood also said that the Legion would like to negotiate a deal with the township whereby they will pay the hydro bill for the building in lieu of rent.

Council will consider the proposal and get back to the Legion with an answer.

Napanee District Community Foundation (NDCF): Dave Remington, the voluntary chief executive officer of the NDCF, came to Council to talk about the foundation's commitment to funding projects in rural L&A County.

“I know people often come to Council looking for money, and we want councils to remember that we give away money to local causes, and groups should be aware that they can come to us for support.”

The NDCF is an endowed foundation, spending the interest that is earned each year on their endowments.

“That has cut down on how much we can spend in recent years with low interest rates, but we do spend about $20,000 each year,” said Remington, "usually in grants in the $2,500 to $3,000 range."

One of the NDCF funds is the Mainaw One fund, which was set up by Ian Brummel and Marg Axford and which is oriented to projects in Addington Highlands.

In the past year, funding has gone to projects sponsored by Pine Meadow Nursing Home and Land O' Lakes Community Services (for the Land O'Lakes Food Bank).

The annual deadline for letters of intent is November 16, and full applications are due in early January. Remington encourages groups to go to NDCF.ca for further information.

Cafe in Denbigh: No one has come forward seeking to set up an alternative enterprise in the new Denbigh Community Centre, so the proposal by Joan MacLeod to open a bake shop/cafe can now be looked at by Council.

Clerk/Treasurer Jack Pauhl reported that the estimated cost of preparing the location in the new community centre for commercial use is $3,000.

“I have heard from some people who are objecting to us spending township money on a private venture,” said Deputy Mayor Bill Cox.

“It looks to some that we are building a coffee shop, but we are not,” said Reeve Henry Hogg. “We would have to do this work to pave the way for any kind of retail tenant, which was always the plan.”

“If we had to do it all over again, we would probably have done it differently, and planned to have the work done before any one came forward,” said Councilor Tony Fritsch.

Council approved the spending.

Joan MacLeod was present at the meeting. She met with Council in closed session after the public meeting was completed to discuss financial matters related to the proposed bake/coffee shop.

Job openings: The job of rink attendant in Denbigh, and the custodian position for both the Denbigh Hall and the Denbigh Recreation Centre are now open, and are being advertised this week.

Denbigh Remembrance Service

Remnants of 1939 plane crash in North Frontenac

A Poppy for Kent

Remembrance Day Poems

Denbigh Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day ceremonies were held a week early in Denbigh, in order not to conflict with those in Flinton, which will take place on Remembrance Day.

But one week early did not mean one week warmer, as the familiar Remembrance Day chill was in the air at the Cenotaph beside the United Church in Denbigh on Sunday, complete with a raw wind and the odd snow flake.

Spectators and participants alike were pulled in closer to the Cenotaph, as much to huddle together against the cold as anything else.

Reverend Bruce Kellar presided over the ceremony, which featured representation from three adjacent townships, First Nations, and others.

The ceremony was followed by a lunch sponsored by the Legion.

Remnants of 1939 plane crash in North FrontenacBy Jeff Green

Several weeks ago,  North Frontenac Fire Chief Steve Riddell (at right) led a group of interested people to the site of a 1939 plane crash on the shores of Cranberry Lake.

Remembrance Day ceremonies at cenotaphs throughout the region tend to focus on the sacrifices of local veterans in far-flung wars in Europe and Asia.

A couple of weeks ago a small group went to see the site of a tragic accident that took place back home in Frontenac County. A plane crash took the lives of two young airmen, George Olstead from Manitoba and James Corbett from Nova Scotia, on October 14, 1939.  Both men had joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in February of that year, and had completed their intermediate flying training at Camp Borden. At the time of the crash they were taking advanced training in Trenton. 

The plane was found the next afternoon on a hillside near the shores of Cranberry Lake (near Crotch Lake) in what is now North Frontenac.

A report in the Whig Standard from October 16, 1929 said that four local residents, Mr. and Mrs. William Sargeant, Fred Trombley and his 17-year-old daughter Mary, discovered the wreckage on Sunday afternoon, October 15. They heard a radio report that morning about a missing plane in the area, and spent the day conducting an organized search.

They saw the gleam of a plane wing at around 3:15 and took another half hour to travel another mile through the bush to the wreckage. The plane had burrowed about 5 feet into a crater full of sand in what was known as Craig’s Meadows.

Local residents, including Bill Riddell of Mississippi, who was hunting in the vicinity on the Saturday, told reporters that he heard the plane “sputtering as though it was in trouble,” but he could not see it because the day was snowy and windy. Blake Buell, the proprietor of a lumber camp on Crotch Lake, said he saw the plane, but thought it was practising special manoeuvres.

It was these local reports that prompted William Sargeant to organize a search party when the radio report came in Sunday morning.

The National Defence Department put out a release on October 16, confirming the death of the two airmen. Both of them had joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in February of that year, and had completed their intermediate flying training at Camp Borden. At the time of the crash they were taking advanced training in Trenton.

They left Trenton at 9:50 on Saturday, the 14th, and were to fly to Carleton Place, then to Elgin and back to Trenton. The place was sighted at 10:50 flying over Kingston, but it must gotten lost on the way to Carleton Place or between Carleton Place and Elgin.

Olstead was flying the plane and Corbett was the passenger.

Locals have visited the site many times in the years following the crash, and a number of artefacts have been gathered as souvenirs.

North Frontenac Fire Chief Steve Riddell, who lives at Snow Road, knows the site well and some people from the area asked him to take them there a few weeks ago to see what was still there.

He said that he hadn’t been there for several years, so he decided to lead the people to the plane, which is relatively easy to access now because a new road that passes very near to the site was built by Frontenac Ventures Corporation when they were conducting uranium exploration in the region a few years ago.

There is still a fair bit left of the chassis and the engine, Riddell said.

The plane is a Fairey Battle, a model that saw active service in 1939/1940. They were built in Great Britain, starting in 1937, as an all-metal upgrade from pervious fabric-covered planes and they used a 1030 horsepower Rolls Royce engine. In all, 2,419 Battles were built. By the time the war started in 1939, the Fairey Battle had been outmoded by the rapidly development of more powerful fighter aircraft, and they were used extensively as training aircraft in Australia, Belgium, Ireland, South Africa, Greenland, Canada, and Turkey.

A Poppy for KentBy Rick Revelle

Photo: Kent Killingbeck

Each Remembrance Day my heart goes out to a gentle soul who was a family friend. He was born in a small Ontario town called Plevna on March 7, 1933 and grew up in an even smaller hamlet called Snow Road. At the age of 20 he suffered more than some of us have suffered in a lifetime. For the next 53 years he worked with what he had and never asked for sympathy. He proved to everyone around him that you take what life has given you and move on. He was a success at what he did the remainder of his life.

Life was hard in those days. Whatever job there was, you earned that dollar you had in your pocket with hard work. Kent’s father supported a wife and 12 children by working for the Ministry of Natural Resources in a lonely job as a fire warden in a lookout tower near Plevna, Ontario.

This is my Remembrance of Kent Killingbeck, a veteran of the Korean War and a man whom I never once heard complain about the card he ended up drawing from the Deck of Life.

To my continued embarrassment, I never ever said thanks to him for the sacrifice that he gave this country.

In 1951 as an 18-year-old he joined the 1st Battalion Royal Canadian Regiment and in December of that year was shipped to Korea. On May 2nd 1953, a short eight weeks after his 20th birthday, while defending Hill 187 in Korea, a grenade thrown by a Chinese soldier ripped into his body and as he lay bleeding another Chinese soldier strafed his legs with machine gunfire as he ran by him.

In his own words he looked down to see if he still had all his parts because if they had been shot off he would have ended his own life right there. Ecstatic that this was not the case his main goal was to survive. He was one of only seven or eight Canadians that day to live through the attack. As he lay wounded and bleeding, unable to move, a fellow Canadian who came with reinforcements laid his body across him and said, "Soldier you have suffered enough today; I'm here to protect you from any more harm."

From that lonely hilltop in Korea he went to the MASH Hospital in Korea where they wanted to amputate the one leg that was in better shape than the other. The American doctors also told him he would never walk again. After that ordeal, with his leg still intact he was sent to the British Commonwealth Hospital in South Korea where they saved both legs. He was then transferred to Kure, Japan and then by train to Tokyo for another long stay before they shipped him to Midway Island, then to Travis, California and Tacoma, Washington. At every stop he was operated on by doctors. He was in Rockcliffe Hospital in Ottawa for six months and the nerve damage in his leg was so bad that he was sent to Sunnybrooke Hospital in Toronto, where he spent a year in a plaster cast up to his waist and was worked on by the best specialists there were at the time.

Told he would never walk again, he proved them all wrong when after two years in hospitals around the world he walked out of the last one to begin his life. Limping badly on the "good leg" and with a leg brace on the other, he was set to take on the world. For his efforts in the military he was awarded the United Service Medal, the Korea Medal and the Korean Volunteer Medal, and his Paratrooper Wings. Besides having two damaged legs, for the balance of his life Kent would also have shrapnel work its way to the surface of his skin where he would pull it out, a grim reminder of how close death brushed him that day as a frightened 20-year-old on a hill half a world away.

I first met him as a five-year-old kid in 1957 when he came with his family to live in an old farmhouse that my family was renting west of Wilton. He and his wife Pearl brought with them a son named Rick and in the next two years Sharon and Pam were born there.

He wasn't a big man, but I remember him as larger than life. He liked to hunt and fish and hated with a passion the people who poached and hunted out of season in the sparsely populated area in Mississippi, where he later made his lifelong home.

He retired from the Ministry of Transportation, where he had worked on road construction his whole life. His retirement vehicle of choice was a big old motor home with a pair of Texas long-horned cattle horns on the front hood, in which he and his bride Pearl drove all over the country visiting friends and relatives.

One weekend he parked this huge monstrosity in our driveway and barbecued. He tipped back a few and then outright amazed me. This 65-year-old man who walked with a bad limp and a brace got up at 5:30 am with me and left for the golf course. He marched stride for stride 18 holes with me and my son, shooting 88. That day when we were done, I choked back tears, marveling at how he kept up with us dragging his leg. Kent though, had a smile that told me he loved every minute of it.

That is why to this day I try not to complain about my aches and pains. I do not have the right to complain. Kent had the right, but I never ever heard him once "whine" about his problem!

Kent and Pearl were together for 50 years until he passed away on May 26, 2006.

I always regretted never shaking his hand and saying thanks. However on this

Remembrance Day 2012 I would like to thank Pearl, Rick, Sharon and Pam for the sacrifices her husband and their dad made for this country, the best nation in the world, Canada.

So on the 11th, please thank a veteran and shake his or her hand. Do not leave it too late, like I did.

With thanks for the files from Amber Rowland and the oral information from

Pearl and Rick Killingbeck and Kent, and of course Opal and Clark. Thanks Kent.

Remembrance Day PoemsDear Grandpa

By Colleen Steele

Dear Grandpa what would it be like if you had survived?Our lives would have been so different if you had not diedMy dad was a wee lad of only fourWhen you were recruited and shipped off to warWould you have taken me in your plane which you loved to fly?Would we have found different constellations in the clear night sky?Would you have kissed away my pain when I got a boo boo?And stayed by my side when I got the mumps, measles or flu?Would you have told me about the Good Old days while I sat on your knee?Would we have laughed and sang while decorating the Christmas tree?Would you have taken me fishing up to "Davy's Hole"?While I tried to catch the Prize fish with my Bamboo Pole?Would you have been there when I hit a home run at the baseball game?Would your name be written in the "Hockey Hall of Fame"?Instead of etched in the granite stone or cementWith the rest of the soldiers on that Special monumentAnd now as I cuddle my Grandchild on my kneeI thank you for your part in our libertyBut Grandpa I still wonder if you had survivedWhat our lives would have been like if you had not died?

Remembrance Day Poemwritten by Cassandra Marrisett when she was 11

I am afraid to open my eyes For men with rifles might be there to my surprise

I listen to what is going on You being here with me keeps me strong I wish I could hold on to all my faith To guide me through life, to hold me in place I am scared to know what I have to go through I am a soldier from World War Two I close my eyes and dream of my new home Where other soldiers are, where I’m not alone I feel Your hand pulling me closer to heaven I didn’t get to see the world, I’m only 11. I couldn’t stand to breathe another hour The smell of my blood that smells so sour I’m dying from getting shot I’m happy now I’m with God

by Susan Irwin, Lawyer/Executive Director

When filing your income tax return for 2011 you may have an unpleasant surprise if you are a low income person expecting a lump sum tax refund.

In previous years, eligible taxpayers could count on a lump-sum refund from three provincial tax credits: the Ontario Energy and Property Tax Credit, Ontario Sales Tax Credit, and Northern Ontario Energy Credit. Many people with low incomes relied on getting a lump-sum tax refund to help pay for more costly items or simply to pay bills.

What you may not have realized is that over the last two years, the money for these tax credits began to be paid out in cheques issued throughout the year. The idea behind the change from a single lump sum tax refund to periodic tax credit payments was to provide people with low incomes a more stable and steady source of income over the course of the year.

If you have been getting this money throughout the year, you will no longer get these tax credits in a lump-sum refund from filing your 2011 income tax return. Of course, you may still get a refund for other tax credits or for income taxes you paid if you worked during the year.

Many people didn’t know about this change and were unpleasantly surprised to discover that no lump sum was available upon filing their return this year. It seems that many people were unpleasantly surprised, so much so, that they complained loudly to the provincial government.

It was therefore a pleasant surprise when, in response to the numerous complaints from Ontarians, the provincial government agreed to provide taxpayers with the option when filing their income tax return of choosing between getting a lump sum or getting monthly payments for provincial tax credits. However this option will not be available until next year (2013).

Remember, in order to get the tax credits paid to you at all, you must file your tax return, even if you don’t have any income to report. When you file your income tax return, you have to check the boxes on the part of the provincial tax credit form that asks if you want the income tax credits. If you want to find out how much you could get from these tax credits, you can use the government’s online tax credit calculator: www.rev.gov.on.ca/en/taxcredits/CalculatorQuestions.asp.

If you need help to file your income tax return, there are some free programs that are available to help you. Volunteers through the Canada Revenue Agency’s “Volunteer Income Tax Program” are able to prepare simple income tax returns without charge for low-income residents. You can find out more about this program by calling 1-800-959-8281 or checking online at www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/vlntr/nd-eng.html.

If you live in North or Central Frontenac townships, the Volunteer Income Tax Program is available through Northern Frontenac Community Services. Call 613-279-3151 for more information. For residents of the Township of Addington Highlands, program information is available through Land O’ Lakes Community Services at 613-336-8934.

For residents of South Frontenac Township the program is available through Southern Frontenac Community Services, 613-376-6477

This column is not intended to provide legal advice; it is just general legal information provided by volunteer local lawyers and the staff of community legal clinics and Legal Aid Ontario. The law can change. You must contact a lawyer to determine your legal rights and obligations. If you are living on a low income, you may be eligible for free legal help from Legal Aid Ontario (criminal, family or immigration) or your local community legal clinic (income security programs, employment law, tenants’ rights, or human rights). You can reach Legal Aid Ontario at 1-800-668-8258 or visit them online at www.legalaid.on.ca. Contact Rural Legal Services (613) 279-3252 or toll free 1-888-777-8916 for more information.

At one time David Graham was a pharmacist/manager at a Shopper's Drug Mart in Calgary. He returned to Kingston, where his family is from, and was doing relief work at local pharmacies when he was approached by the Jetha family to manage their pharmacy in Sydenham.

“One of the things they were trying to do with the store was to expand its services to other areas of health care, to move beyond filling prescriptions and selling retail items,” he said. “And for me it brings an opportunity to evolve in what I do, to have less of technical workload and do more on the clinical side, to make the pharmacy more of a wellness centre.”

It's easy to see why this would be a way forward for a small, rural chain of pharmacies such as the Jethas have been building. Rather than competing with super-pharmacies such as Shoppers and Guardian, Sydenham Drugsmart has been working on providing the kinds of patient care that is only possible in a community setting.

David Graham is one of a few pharmacists in Ontario who has been trained as a diabetic specialist, and he has forged relationships with the Sydenham and Verona medical clinics. As well, Drugsmart has developed a smoking cessation program for patients who are trying to quit smoking.

The pharmacy has been renovated to create some clinic space at the rear of the building, and that has enabled Registered Physiotherapist Curtis Murray-Watters to bring the services of Limestone Health Physiotherapy to Sydenham. At the clinic, Murray-Watters provides manual therapy, a number of modalities for pain amelioration, home exercise programs, taping techniques, patient education and other services. He is also available for a free 15-minute consultation to help patients decide on a course of treatment.

“This is a great environment for me to work in,” Curtis said. “Since I started working here in September it has been very easy to get to know people in the community, and to start helping people with pain prevention and pain management, and promote fitness and wellness through activity.”

The physiotherapy services are often covered through insurance or workplace health plans.

Katie Casselman, a Registered Massage Therapist, also provides service at Sydenham Drugsmart through Limestone Health.

With the new services being offered at Sydenham Drugsmart, Sydenham now has a wide range of medical services available to serve the South Frontenac community, including the Sydenham Medical Centre, and the chiropractic and naturopath services that are also available.

“In the time that I've been working here I've learned that this is a close-knit community,” said David Graham. “There are also some issues around it being an ageing community, around osteoporosis and the need to stay active. Our goal is to make the services we offer fit the needs that people have. This is the future of the practice of pharmacy, to work with patients, to work with Limestone Health and others. We handle people’s pharmaceutical needs of course, but there is now a lot more to what we do than that. It's an exciting time.”

For more information call the pharmacy at 613-376-3842, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; or physiotherapy at 613-376-1073; email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Photo: Don Nielson, outgoing executive director of Community Living.

When Don Nielsen took over the helm of Community Living - North Frontenac in 1994 from Paul Melcher, the agency, and the province, were in the middle of a huge transition from an institutional care model to a community support model for the developmentally disabled population.

This transition to a community model was something that Nielsen had been committed to ever since he began working as an outreach worker for the St. Lawrence Regional Centre in Brockville in 1976, so the opportunity to steer the service model in Central and North Frontenac in a new direction was one of the things that led him to seek the executive director position at the time.

At that time Community Living was based in Mountain Grove at ARC industries.

ARC industries was becoming difficult to maintain because of financial pressures and as well a number of the people who worked at ARC were ageing.

“We also found we were spending a lot of time, and money, transporting people from the communities they were living in to ARC industries and back home,” said Nielsen.

In the late 1990s Community Living moved its office to Sharbot Lake, in a small office building at the junction of Highway 7 and Road 38. They would later move to a house on Elizabeth Street, which was eventually destroyed by fire and replaced with a building on the same lot.

For Nielsen, all of the physical and corporate changes to Community Living have been secondary to the concept of community-based service and his deep-seated opposition to institutional care.

“We provide support for people who have needs, but there are a lot of people in our society who have needs but are not in institutions. All of our clientele live in their own homes. We are not the landlord. Whether we provide 24 hour a day care or 6 hours of service a week, we always knock on the client's door when we want to enter their home. We take off our shoes. They decide whether to let us in or not,” he said.

Another change that has been a feature of Community Living – North Frontenac under Don Nielsen has been the development of children’s services, which has been good not only for the community but for the viability of the agency as well.

One of the major features of the job of an executive director of a social service agency is dealing with sister agencies and government ministry officials. With contacts that he has developed over 37 years in developmental services, Nielsen has been able to put the interests of the clientele in Central and North Frontenac forward while following the various changes in policy and financing that have come along.

A couple of years ago Don Nielsen started to envision this week, when he would leave his job, and devote more time to his twin pursuits of curling and golf.

At that time he began planning for his retirement, and preparing the board of Community Living to undertake the process of re-shaping the agency in light of his pending departure.

In the end the board decided to replace Nielsen with an internal appointee, Dean Walsh and to hire Marcel Quenneville from Verona to take on Walsh’s former co-ordinator job.

“The board went through a process to find a successor, and over the last year Dean has undergone the training and other work that he needed in order to be able to take over. I’m confident that Community Living will do well,” Don Nielsen said.

Photo: a sand tiger by The Sandman, Ken Rose

On March 31, Ken Rose, a.k.a. “The Sandman”, entertained a group of interested listeners at the Wordsmith in Westport as part of an artists' talk series, "Breakfast with the Arts", presented by Artemisia Gallery and Wordsmith.

Ken, who for years created and sold one of a kind original art works made with colored sand, spoke about his life, both as an art maker and a story teller. “Art and creativity were really my saviors,” he began, “and were what I turned to when times got difficult for me at certain points in my life.”

It was after working as a respiratory therapist for children in Ohio and after seeing some very traumatic cases that Ken felt the need to create. He began his forays into art, first by making candles, then plaster sculptures and finally he became a very successful maker of glass-encased sand pictures.

It was Ken's mother who started him on sand, the medium that would bring him success. When working in a gift shop she noticed that some very simple sand creations were “flying off the shelves". Ken heeded her advice, explored the medium, and quickly developed a few simple items. Armed with some sample pieces, on his first day selling his ideas door to door he got an order for four dozen. The rest, as they say, is history.

From those first simple objects he began experimenting and creating more intricate pictures. “I tried to make an image of a camel and when that worked, that was when the proverbial light bulb went off and I realized that I could make any image that I wanted to.” Shortly after that Ken began setting up booths in shopping malls where he created and sold his art. He eventually opened The Sandman store in Westport where he has sold thousands of pieces, including one to former US president, George Bush senior.

Ken's current Westport store is called Lake Effects, and though he is no longer a maker himself, he sells other people's creations at the store. Ken said that the lack of angst in his life has lessened his need to create art but he recalled with fondness the feeling that came with creating. “When you are creating something you can become so focused and your mind so pin-pointed that the whole world could be exploding around you and yet you remain focused on your task of getting that single grain of sand into just the right spot.”

Ken still likes to create but in a more ephemeral way these days, as a story teller, which he said he came by honestly. As the youngest member of a large extended family, who all shared an apartment in Brooklyn, New York, he was “constantly surrounded by a mélange of people, their lives and influences” and became a natural storyteller. He said that that role would later become his function and calling card.

After leaving university Ken went to the Kent State campus during the infamous Kent State protests of the 1960s, and it was there he realized the power of words. Ken recalled that at one protest, “The student president at that time was telling people to disband. I got up on the stage and told people that this was just a ploy to disband the group and that we instead should stay together. I spoke so passionately that people got really riled up and the next thing I heard was glass breaking. My speech had created such a riot that I realized the power of talk.”

Ken concluded his Westport gathering with two stories, one inspired from a place of angst - in this case the angst caused by lack of cash flow and the terrific need to see a dentist. The main character, Colby who is broke, visits a dentist who Colby hopes will agree to cure him in exchange for payment by a story. The second story was inspired by one that a friend had told him; it told of a youngster who witnessed an unfortunate incident involving a cold metal pole, a tongue, a cup of hot chocolate and the consequences of a not very well thought out plan. Ken's delivery was warm, articulate, engaging and humorous, and he explains, “To make a story your own you have to change it so that it's familiar to you so that when you tell it, it's truthful.”

Ken Rose still creates art, but now instead of colored sand he uses words as his medium and the results are equally effective. For more information about the Breakfast with the Arts series at Wordsmith call 613-273-3222 or Artemisia Gallery at 613-273-8775.

Photo: In the past, the only way to cope with the stress of the annualpothole season was to make lemonade out of the lemons of life,like this optomistic chap is doing. But now there’s high-tech help- the new PH-APP (or Pot Hole - APP) for beleaguered drivers.

The Eastern Ontario Regional Network (EORN) was established in order to bring a robust Internet backbone to Eastern Ontario and to extend services to the rural outreaches of the region as well.

With the help of investments from all levels of government, EORN is well on its way to accomplishing its task, but instead of folding up its tent, EORN has decided to branch out.

“With the infrastructure in place, we thought we might as well begin working on services that are geared to residents of Eastern Ontario,” said EORN co-ordinator Julius Sparks, “so we started working on EO-APPS.”

Apps, or Applications, bring everything from bus schedules to video games to Smart phones, tablets and laptop computers.

“There is no point bringing a bus schedule app to Eastern Ontario because there are no buses, but helping people get where they are going is still essential,” said Sparks. “So we have worked with the Queen’s University IT department and the Innovation Centre in Kingston to incorporate GIS and satellite imagery from all of the municipalities in Eastern Ontario to develop the PH – APP.”

The PH stands for pot hole, and the application is being introduced on April 1 in order to be of maximum use to wired-in drivers in Eastern Ontario during the spring pot hole season.

The app is a sophisticated map of all the known pot holes in the region. When tied in to the GPS systems on Smart phones and tablets or even some newer GPS enabled vehicles, not only does the screen light up at the approach to a major pot hole, but as well the app prompts the device to emit a high-pitched beep to warn the driver of the impending hazard.

“This app will save drivers from significant grief,” said Julius Sparks, “and it is really an offshoot of the technology we have developed to help municipalities identify and fix pot holes. We wouldn’t want people to think that we are only finding the pot holes and making them beep. It is always better when they are fixed.”

Sparks added that the APP has been well received, although he has received some complaints from drivers on gravel roads in some municipalities that the unending beeping has triggered migraine headaches.

“But those are really isolated cases,” he said.

By Steve Blight

Over the years, a number of people have asked me about names of plants and animals – why are they complicated and hard to pronounce, what do they mean, and really, who cares? In today’s column I’ll try to shed a bit of light on this subject.

Why are Latin names used? It is important to recall that when nature study really took off in Europe during the period known as the “Age of Enlightenment”, Latin was the common language of the educated – the “lingua franca” of the day. Thus the use of Latin allowed scientists from across Europe to understand each other. Modern biological classification has its roots – so to speak – in the work of Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish scientist who grouped species according to shared physical characteristics. He published the first version of “Systema Naturae” in 1735, in Latin, and thus began the modern system of ordering and naming living things that we still use today.

Interestingly, Linnaeus originally saw the world as being made up of three kingdoms – animals, plants and minerals. People might see traces of this original system in the first question often asked when playing the game “20 questions” – is it animal, vegetable or mineral? The rules have evolved a great deal over the years, and scientists now rely more on evolutionary relationships than physical characteristics to organize species, but the tradition of using Latin to assigning names to living things remains.

Let’s look at an example to illustrate how the classification system works. We’ll use a small but striking orange and black songbird that flies through our area as it migrates to and from the boreal forest, the Blackburnian Warbler – Dendroica fusca.

It’s clearly an animal, so it belongs in the kingdom “Animalia” along with about 1 million other known species.

It has a backbone and spinal cord, so it is in the phylum “Chordata” with about 40,000 species.

It is a bird, so it falls into the class “Aves” with about 8600 species.

It is in the order “Passiformes” with 5160 other species of songbird.

It’s in the family of “Parulidae”, or New World warblers, along with 124 other warblers.

It is one or 28 warblers in the genus Dendroica.

Finally, it has its own unique name Dendroica fusca that identifies it as a Blackburnian Warbler. By convention, the genus and species are normally written in italics, with the first letter of the genus capitalized. And as a general rule only the genus and species are used as the name of a species.

Some people find the handy phrase “King Paul Came On Fancy Green Skates” helps them remember the correct order for the main classification groupings for animals – K for kingdom, P for phylum, C for class, O for order, F for family, G for genus and S for species.

One reason for using scientific names is that every species has only one unique Latin name. Many plants and animals have a number of common names, and some common names are used for more than one species. Using the Latin name clears up much confusion – one name, one species, end of discussion.

As a final point, why does the work of sorting out and naming species matter? For one thing, the detailed work of sorting out relationships between living things helps people better understand the diversity of life on earth. This information is increasingly being used to help decide where best to focus urgent conservation efforts and scarce dollars around the world. Linneaus would be happy that it all starts with a name.

Please feel free to report any observations to Lorraine Julien at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or Steve Blight at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.