Campaign tops $25,000

 

In the interest of clarity and legibility, the proposed new design for South Dundas municipal signs will have a more streamlined appearance.

Gone from the signs area the pictorial displays, the township logo, and any other extra information that at speeds of 100 km/h are little more than just a blur to the 1,000 motorists an hour who pass by the signs on the 401.

Even left off the sign was the municipal website information.

“It’s 2013,” said Tom Graham of TD Graham and Associates, the consultant hired to complete the sign design. 

He explained that while it was once trendy for municipalities to boast about their websites, everywhere, including on their signs, now people understand that all you need to find a website is a name. 

“What we need is for people to remember the name South Dundas,” he said.

With that, the focus of the process was also to implement the Upper Canada Region name, which is being shared by South Dundas and South Stormont.

“That’s where all of our marketing is being shifted,” said South Dundas economic development officer Nicole Sullivan.

The new sign design is a key piece of promoting South Dundas and the Upper Canada Region.

 

South Dundas council was presented the new design at the March 5 council meeting. 

The names Iroquois and Morrisburg will be replaced on the 401 signs with the name South Dundas. 

South Dundas councillor Evonne Delegarde questioned that change. 

Graham indicated that the Iroquois and Morrisburg names are already clearly marked along the 401 on the MTO signs and that those will always say Iroquois and Morrisburg. “Those signs will never say South Dundas.”

Informal discussions at the meeting even brought up the possibility of moving the location of the Morrisburg South Dundas sign to the Upper Canada Road exit. 

“We are promoting the whole area,” said Sullivan.

Of the picture of the boat on the existing signs Delegarde said, “I think that boat said a lot.”

Graham suggested that it might mean something to those who live here, and already have a knowledge of the area, but it means very little to those driving by at speed.

“This work represents a shift in thinking for the sake of promoting the township,” said Graham.

“This is a big change from the decorative signs we have now, with the boats and the apples,” said South Dundas councillor Jim Graham.

Tom Graham mentioned that roadside signs are the wrong place to tell a long story. “At speed, simpler is better. What you need to do with your signs is claim your identity.”

This simple sign design is meant to be uniform across the region and across the township, including town and hamlet signs, park signs and facility signs. 

Those signs will carry the name of the location along with the South Dundas name and the Upper Canada Region name. 

The pictorial of the McIntosh apple will no longer be included on those signs.

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A Civil War Re-enactment planned for Upper Canada Village has been cancelled. The special event was planned for August 6, but last week, it was announced that the re-enactment will not take place. “The organizer […]

 

“We were quite the threesome.”

Ida, Lucille and Doris are quite the threesome,  and audiences will be forgiven for instantly entering into a love affair with them all. The Cemetery Club, now  running at Upper Canada Playhouse until September 29, is a show that makes you very glad you chose to spend two hours sharing the lives of these marvellous women.

The title of Ivan Menchell’s play is deceptive. Far from being gloomy and dark, this production embraces life. Life is precious. Time is precious. Friends are precious. Ida, Lucille and Doris make that very clear.

Actors Linda Goranson, AnnaMarie Lea and Patti Kazmer are wonderful as colourful, outspoken widows, whose decades old friendship is now rounded by monthly visits to the grave sides of their late husbands. Each woman has her own particular reasons for the cemetery ritual, reasons the audience begins to understand in the course of the evening.

Not that these women are long-suffering, mournful saints. Not by any means. 

One of the great pleasures of Menchell’s script is how incredibly funny it is. 

From the moment Lucille bursts into Ida’s comfortable living room,  draped in her latest outfit, a mink, the laughter never stops.  “Do you really need a mink coat?” Ida asks. “A mink you buy because you want it. Support hose you buy because you need them!” Lucille retorts. 

AnnaMarie’s Lucille might be described, in the kindest way, as a bit outré. Clothes and make up and attention matter to her. “Can I help it if men find me attractive?” “Lucille, you never stay with one man long enough for me to meet him,” Ida sighs. 

Opinionated, outgoing, ready to say exactly what is on her mind, however outrageous, Lucille grabs at life with both hands…and generally gives it a good shake.

Linda Goranson, as Ida, is gentler, more introspective. She adored her late husband, Murray, but sometimes “it worries me that the memories are still so strong…sometimes it seems like (Murray’s) still right there.” Tentatively, however, she has begun to consider the idea that it may be time to get on with this life. “I need to be with someone…to give to someone…I’m not going to spend the rest of my life feeling guilty.”

The sudden, unexpected possibility of a new love leaves Ida almost giddy, and the audience rooting for her. 

Doris, the third widow,  memorably portrayed by Patti Kazmer, can be sharp even cantankerous. Her whole life revolved around her ‘Abe’, her one, her only, her forever love. Visits to talk to him at his grave are deeply and emotionally necessary. Indeed, these trips to the cemetery are “the high point of Doris’ month,” as Lucille puts it. “She prepares for them for two weeks ahead and thinks about them for two weeks after.” 

To Doris, true love can happen once, and only once.

Then Sam, the widowed butcher, arrives, and stirs up this established threesome. Sparks fly in all directions. Doug Tangney brings warmth and humour, and a vulnerability to Sam that is deeply appealing. “Instead of looking at what a woman was like, I kept looking at how she wasn’t like Myrna,” he admits.

A strong cameo appearance by Brenda Quesnel creates a pivotal, and critical moment in the play. 

Yet the laughter in The Cemetery Club is contagious. 

This is a play of boisterous one liners, and of outrageously hilarious comments that only those who truly love each other can make. It is a play that shares with us wickedly funny situations (like the latest wedding of the much married Selma, where the threesome have all been summoned to be bridesmaids…again), or a post wine, spontaneous cha-cha by the women that brought Friday’s house down. 

This is also a play that can deeply, very deeply, touch your heart. Trust me.

Staged on a versatile set by Sean Free, with lighting that seems to effortlessly take the action from  the indoors to the outdoors, director Donnie Bowes’ production of The Cemetery Club is a wonderful end to the Playhouse’s summer season. 

Ida, Lucille and Doris: quite the threesome indeed. And isn’t that lucky for audiences!

The Cemetery Club runs until September 29 at Upper Canada Playhouse.

Contact the box office  at 613-543-3713 or on line at www.uppercanadaplayhouse.com.  

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