“BINGO!”

A thrilling night out in Drayton Valley as told by my column-writing alter ego Wander Woman:

Bingo night in DV 

By Maria Church, Drayton Valley Western Review

Monday, April 22, 2013 12:09:19 MDT PM

 

I wouldn’t consider myself a gambler. Most of the risks I take in life are calculated.

Neither would I consider myself a hipster. It seems like a lot of effort and I’m simply too lazy.

But something about bingo peaked my interest last week when a friend suggested we check out Drayton Valley’s bingo scene

“It’s the newest hip thing for young people,” she said.

Whether or not she was being ironic, it sounded like an adventure with the potential for a good time.

Can’t play bingo without a dauber!

“YES,” I responded, emphatically.

So a date was set and after a last minute combing of the town for a necessary dauber, we headed down to the Drayton Valley Legion for Thursday’s bingo night.

As we entered the legion, many of my suspicions were confirmed. Bingo is intense.

Fully of giggles and naïvety, we walked past the rows of elderly bingo aficionados surrounded in piles of daubers of every colour with their game faces on.

I’m sure they were wondering what we were doing there as it quickly became obvious we had no idea what we were doing.

Lucky for us Drayton Valley’s bingo scene is full of friendly fanatics and we were taken under the wing of one of their golden ones, Lil Humber.

“I’ve been playing bingo for hundreds of years,” she assured us with a chuckle.

Humber quickly set us up with our bingo sheets, noting which ones are played when and how they each work.

As the bingo announcer started calling out the numbers, we began furiously daubing away at our sheets.

“You missed 55, here,” Humber would say, reaching over to help us out when the numbers started getting ahead of us.

When I said don’t consider myself a gambler, I should clarify that was before I had gone to bingo. I was not prepared for the excitement of bingo.

LEFT TO RIGHT: Lil Humber and Reinisa, my bingo fan friends

“Ahh, I only need two numbers!” I would note to my bingo neighbours, following that up with a hushed maniacal laugh.

“Bingo!” someone would call out in the room.

“Arrrrg so close!” we would say each time, knowing all the while that close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, certainly not bingo.

As the night continued our bingo inexperience wore away. We cheered furiously when my fellow bingo newbie called out her first bingo. Followed by a win for our bingo tutor.

By the end of the night our sides were sore from laughing. One sheet was left to play.

“This one’s yours,” my bingo friends say.

Heart pumping and legs tapping on the floor, I daubed my second last number, noting the final number I needed. Then it was called…

‘‘BINGO!” I shouted. Wander Woman for the final win.

I’m still not a gambler, still not a hipster, but I can pretty much guarantee that I will be back for more bingo in the future.

 

– 30 –

 

Update for Corrie Clark

Former Banffite Corrie Clark just learned while she didn’t win the 2012 Banff World Media Festival’s competition for the spot of official blogger, she was offered a prize as one of the top four bloggers.

“The Banff Media Festival provided me with a ticket as one of the runners up and I couldn’t be happier!” said Clark in an email. “So I’ll be there at the festival this year. Let’s see if the Banff World Media Festival can discover me not once, but twice!”

The festival takes place June 10 to 13 at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel.

Former Banffite blogs to win spot in 2012 Banff World Media Festival

A former Banffite is one of four finalists chosen from the Canadian blogging scene who eagerly wait for the announcement of Tuesday’s final vote tally to determine the 2012 Banff Media Festival’s official blogger.

At stake is a pass to the 2012 Banff Media Festival, valued at around $1800, as well as airfare and a room at the Banff Springs Hotel during the festival from June 10 to 13.

Photo provided

Heralding from Vancouver but with close ties to Banff, Blogger and single mother Corrie Clark is one of the four hoping to win.

“I specifically started this blog because I want to go back to Banff,” she said.

Clark lived in Banff in her early teens and it is here that she began her career in media. At 12 years old she saved up her babysitting money for the entrance to the Banff Television Festival.

“It actually really inspired my whole career,” she said. Clark worked as a writer and an actor but is currently focused on producing. “I joke that I want to be the Betty White of Banff.

“I am passionate about television and film and I actually hope in the future I am one of those people who actually changes that world,” she said. “I can’t imagine a better place to be than in a peaceful surrounding talking about something that you love.”

If Clark doesn’t win? “I’m open to sponsorship!” said the mother of three daughters. “I would probably need help getting there but I’ll wear a banner that says ‘so-and-so brought me to Banff’ the entire time!”

The voting for the blogging competition ended Tuesday at midnight and the announcement of this year’s blogger will be up by Wednesday, May 23.

Canmore student wins silver for science

Bow Valley student Ty Godfrey brought home a silver medal from the Canada Wide Science Fair in Charlottetown last weekend, his second time competing in the national science fair.

“The science fair was the same… but this year I would say the projects were way better,” said Godfrey, a grade eight student from Lawrence Grassi Middle School in Canmore.

Godfrey’s experiment studied the effect of the ultraviolet spectrum on the feeding habits of winter birds in the Bow Valley, a continuation of his experiments on birds and colour that sent him to nationals last year.

This year he used black light paint to access the UV range, colours visible to birds but invisible to humans without a black light.

“I think the judges really enjoyed it,” said Godfrey. “They said that it was really good and I controlled lots of the variables,” he said. Their advice was for him to further study the behavior and habits of the birds.

Godfrey’s prize for silver includes a medal, $700 dollars and a $2000 entrance scholarship to the University of Western Ontario.

While the young student says he is not ready to be thinking about university yet, a $700 cash prize is nothing to sneeze at for any age. No word yet on how he plans to spend his prize money.

Notre Dame Des Monts celebrates 10

More than 100 students at Notre Dame Des Monts celebrated the school’s 10th anniversary last week, highlighting its growth from only 16 students in 2002, something Principal Sophie Leclairs attributes to growing francophone community in Canmore.

“The francophone community is really supportive, really active,” said Leclair. “They are quite involved in the school as well as lots of other organizations.”

Unlike a French emersion school, Notre Dame Des Monts requires one of the student’s caregivers to be native francophone. Leclair said this ensures the mandate of the school is not only to preserve the language but the culture as well.

“To me time flies and I am amazed that it has already been 10 years,” said Leclair who has been the principal at Notre Dame for eight years.

When the school opened 10 years ago there was only one teacher, 16 students and a part-time receptionist. Today Notre Dame Des Monts runs two kindergarten programs and grades one to 11 making up 120 students. Of their current 10 teachers four have been nominated for Alberta Excellence in Teaching awards.

Last week’s anniversary celebrations included bilingual clowns, student performances and a potluck for the parents.

“I’m really proud of the school,” she said. “It is still a small school so we are always experiencing challenges but we have overcome those challenges.”

Next year Notre Dame Des Monts will expand their curriculum further by adding a grade 12.

Parks Canada keeps May Long dry

May Long campers on Tunnel Mountain said the Parks Canada alcohol ban in Banff National Park actually kept the park dry this year thanks to increased enforcement from police and Parks Canada staff.

“I think it is great,” said Mike King about the alcohol ban. King and his extended family

The King and Reid family gather around the fire pit at their Tunnel Mountain campsite of Sunday, May 20, 2012.

have been coming to Banff for their May Long camping for years.

Despite the fact that it is the third year of the Ban, King said last year they saw a lot of people breaking the rules, partying with liquor in the campsite. But this year was cracked down on.

“The RCMP have come around a couple of times to the park,” said King, adding that this was the first year the Tunnel Mountain campsite was “dead quiet” at night. King and his family agreed the extra enforcement was a welcome change.

“I say stay away from the public places where there are children,” said Sandra Reid, grandmother of the King family sharing the campsite on Tunnel.

Patti Vickers, communications officer with Parks Canada, confirmed that Parks staff has stepped it up this year.

“We made some minor tweaks,” she said. “We were ensuring that our staff were scheduled to have regular interactions with campers to educate and explain the camping etiquette within the national park.

“Park wardens and Banff RCMP lent a hand in the successful long weekend camping experience as well.”

But Vickers also said another reason may be that campers are just settling into the alcohol free routine.

“Because it is a third year of the alcohol ban, both visitors and campers have come to expect the efforts of Parks Canada to ensure that camping on the long weekend remains a family friendly experience,” she said.

Despite many vacancies in the campground this year, Vickers did not attribute this to the ban saying that the visitor numbers were on par with last year.  “May is always weather dependent,” she added.

Where did the dedicated May Long partiers go? Kayla King said some of her friends chose to go to Drumheller Alta. to camp and drink for May Long.

While the King family said having a beer around their campfire would be nice sometimes, the ban is worth it to keep shenanigans away and keep them coming back.

Business women break through ‘glass ceilings’ in Ottawa

When Business Woman of the Year nominee Jennifer Cross graduated from Sheridan College with a degree in interior design, she had no idea she would be running a multimillion dollar company.

Cross is the managing partner for Premier Executive Suites and one of nine nominees in the Women’s Business Network of Ottawa’s (WBN) upcoming Business Woman of the Year Award.

But according to statistics that surfaced thanks to the hype of International Women’s Day, Cross represents a shrinking number of women who successfully take on the business world.

A recent World Bank report, titled Women, Business and the Law, highlights what many see as a growing problem. The report indicates that globally, women do 66 per cent of the work, produce 50 per cent of the food, earn 10 per cent of the income and own one per cent of the property.

In Canada, where the number of female adults in the work force is higher than any other G7 country, women in senior management roles are still far behind, sitting at 28 per cent this time last year according to research from Grant Thornton’s International Business Report.  As of March 8, the number has fallen to 25 per cent.

“I’m not surprised,” says Erin Crotty, co-chair of the Awards and owner of a consulting firm.

Crotty explains that women in business often have to blaze trails in their communities and break through a “glass ceiling” of stereotypes in a field that is often seen as a man’s world.

But Crotty remains optimistic that with support from groups such as the BWN, the numbers can improve. “As long as we continue to persevere and challenge the status quo I think we can continue to change those statistics,” she says.

Crotty says the Business Women of the Year award is an important recognition of successful women in Ottawa.

“I think one of the biggest challenges we have (as women) – and I can speak from my own experiences – is that we don’t toot our own horn enough,” she says.

As an award nominee and Centretown resident, Cross is an excellent example of what it takes to be successful, says Crotty.

Sitting up straight at her white, glass-topped desk – the centrepiece in an office filled with subtle pink and floral details – Cross explains how she went from designing rooms to managing Premier Executive Suites in Ottawa.

Not one to take baby steps, she says her business career began when she started up an interior decorating store in Ottawa called Inside Out, fresh out of college.

“Sometimes not knowing the end result and just having some guts and going for it serves you better than weighing it all out, all of the options, all of the risks,” she says. “If I had known how hard it was going to be, I probably wouldn’t have done it!” she says, laughing.

For the next eight years, Cross built a clientele and rapport with suppliers in Ottawa. But life caught up with her, she says.

“The biggest challenge that women face, and specifically myself, is the balance between all of the roles that you play,” she says. “For me I am a mother of two, a single mother, and so the balance of building your career as well as being there for your children is an incredibly difficult balance.”

Raising the children and going through a divorce forced Cross to look for more stable employment. She says it was her experience and connections from developing her business that qualified her to become a business manager with Phillip Van Leeuwen – a furniture showroom in Byward Market.

After three years, she switched jobs again and became a managing partner, her current position with Premier Executive Suites.

According to Kim Grimes, VP of Sales at Premier Executive Suites, Cross has been a blessing to the Ottawa branch of the company. “When Jennifer came into the office and started here staff morale was quite low but she came in and kind of boosted the whole environment,” she says.

Grimes has worked under male management and says the difference between the two seems to be Cross’ team-centric attitude. “Women are mothering even if they don’t have kids, it is that nurturing instinct,” she says. “When Jennifer is faced with something everything is a team effort.”

The awards Gala will be held April 12, 2012 at the Hampton Inn and Conference Centre in Ottawa. Grimes says she will be at the ceremony to support her boss when the winners are announced.

For Cross, she says she is looking forward to hearing the stories of other women at the event.

“If you read about women who built themselves from nothing it is because they believed in themselves and they didn’t buy into their own circumstances,” Cross says. “I think that is a worldwide theme.”

This story was reported for Centretown News

Bank Street re-opens for business

People and cars are running smoothly again today in the Glebe community.

The section of Bank Street opened yesterday for the first time since construction blocked off traffic in late May.

After rerouting traffic and bus routes through small community streets in the Glebe, drivers and bus riders are both saying they are happy things are back to normal.

And for businesses in Bank, they are breathing a sigh of relief that customers are drifting back to their stores.

Jordan is the assistant manager at PomPom clothing boutique in the Glebe. She says in the beginning people were supportive but once they street became dirty and dusty from the construction, they stopped coming.

“Business definitely started to die down, but now that the street is finished and everything is nice and clean, everyone is really curious to come out and see what it looks like,” she says, “I definitely think business has picked up a little bit and will pick up a lot more in the future.”

But not everyone is quite as relieved. Some residents of the Glebe say they enjoyed the peace that settled on the usually busy bank street.

“We loved it being closed because you could just walk freely and even in the evening, walking just felt so unique on such a busy street,” says Claudia Vanwick, a resident of the Glebe. “But of course it is much better now that it is open and life is a little bit back to normal.”

Vanwick says she is excited to see the street decorated for Christmas.

And this Christmas season will be business as usual for the Glebe but the traffic flow will only last so long. The next section of the Bank construction is set to begin this upcoming spring.

This story was reported for Midweek on CKCU 93.1, broadcast noon Wednesday, November 16. http://www4.carleton.ca/jmc/midweek/

Dogs for veterans – Courageous Companions looks for funding

The department of Veterans Affairs has a new funding request coming at them this year, but it is not the usual request – these guys are barking.

Local members of the project Courageous Companions brought their service dogs with them to appeal for funding last week.

Eat less meat?

A new international study came out today in the journal Nature questioning Canadians eating habits.

McGill’s University’s Navin Ramankutty is one of the lead researchers of the study, which looks into problems of global food distribution and environmental impact from production.

One recommendation — eat less meat.

I spoke with farmers around Ottawa, an expert in agricultural economics as well as Navin Ramankutty. Here is a mini documentary which broadcast on Midweek yesterday.