Month: May 2013

 You know it’s summer when the Upper Canada Playhouse parking lot is packed with cars and buses from miles around and the sound of laughter fills the theatre. Based on busy box office activity, it looks like the area’s popular entertainment attraction will be celebrating its 30th Anniversary by surpassing last year’s record attendance of over 43,000. 

Getting the ball rolling from June 6-30, will be the hilarious comedy, Whose Wives Are They, Anyway? by Michael Parker, who also penned past Playhouse hits The Amorous Ambassador, The Sensuous Senator and last year’s Hotbed Hotel. 

Whose Wives Are They Anyway? guarantees to keep the audience in stitches with its laugh-a-minute plot, great set and unforgettable characters brought to life by a terrific cast of audience favourites and some talented new faces. 

John and David are executives of a major cosmetic company who are about to get a new boss. Fearing this may be the last long weekend they’ll get for awhile, they send their wives on a shopping trip so they can enjoy a golfing weekend. When David unexpectedly runs into the new boss at the same club, he learns that management frowns on employees vacationing without their wives. The boss demands to meet them. 

John desperately recruits the receptionist to be his wife while David convinces John to be his! All goes well until their real wives show up and the hilarious cover-up begins. 

Heading up the cast are Garfield Andrews as John and Perry Mucci as David, a combination that director Donnie Bowes is delighted to unleash on Playhouse audiences.  Andrews and Mucci were last seen co-starring in the hit comedy, The Sensuous Senator. Andrews has entertained audiences in such shows as The Odd Couple and Don’t Dress For Dinner while Mucci’s career has taken him from Shakespeare to episodes of CBC’s Detective Murdoch series. 

Joining them are Kate Gordon as Tina the receptionist, Cornwall actress Brenda Quesnel as Mrs. Carlson, the manager, and Bruce Tubbe as Wilson the handy-man.

Gordon was last seen in A Nice Family Gathering while Quesnel was featured in last season’s opener Hotbed Hotel. Tubbe starred in The Playhouse’s recent holiday family show Everything I Love About Christmas.

Rounding out the cast are Erin MacKinnon as John’s wife, Laura, Viviana Zarrillo as David’s wife, Karly, and Ottawa actress Mary Ellis. 

MacKinnon also appeared in Hotbed Hotel, while Zarrillo and Ellis return to The Playhouse after a two-decade absence: Zarillo appeared in the musical I Do! I Do! and Ellis appeared in Ned Durango Comes to Big Oak.

Bowes could not be happier with this season starter. 

“It’s a nice big cast of very talented and funny actors who are skilled in all the things that make comedy work. The audience is in for a treat.”

Whose Wives Are They Anyway? runs Tuesday through Sunday with 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. shows. 

Contact Upper Canada Playhouse for more information by calling 613-543-3713/1-877-550-3650 or log on to www.uppercanadaplayhouse.com. 

Flex Passes are available until June 6 and regular tickets are available all season.

[…]

The last speaker scheduled for the Morrisburg & District Canadian Club 2012-13 season, drew a full and interested house on Wednesday, May 15, at the Morrisburg Legion.

 Speaker Wayne Domanko, a partner at the St. Lawrence Medical Clinic, a university lecturer and researcher, has been a doctor in the area and at Winchester District Memorial Hospital for many years. Dr. Domanko has served on numerous hospital committees, but has also devoted much time and effort to activities and projects in the South Dundas community over the years. 

In his presentation to Canadian Club, he traced the history and origins of the St. Lawrence Medical Clinic, then examined the current challenges and concerns inherent in ensuring ongoing quality rural medicine in the years ahead. He remained optimistic about the future of health care in this area, stressing that the Clinic (in its two new facilities) will continue to be a vital part of the lives of all patients and their families.

An accomplished speaker, Dr. Domanko spent a few moments talking about how he, a young man from Saskatchewan (“where you see the sunsets through the cows’ legs!”), ended up in Eastern Ontario. 

“I met Gerry Rosenquist at the University of Ottawa, and he basically convinced my wife and me to come to Morrisburg for ‘one little year’. Well, that was 44 years ago. We are proud members of this caring and compassionate community.”

The St. Lawrence Medical Clinic was established in 1960 and “has flourished for 55 years.” It was built on the principles of all encompassing care for patients, on collegial support, a fair sharing of the workload and a guarantee of continuous learning. The ties to Winchester District Memorial Hospital are very strong.

However, Dr. Domanko told the audience, the struggle to attract new physicians to what is essentially a rural area, is a tough one. While 2,500 new doctors graduated from Canadian schools in 2010, and a further 4,000 are enrolled in international medical schools, only about 16 per cent of those graduates will choose to  become family doctors practising in rural areas. 

The competition to attract and hire these few willing doctors can sometimes be fierce. 

“Many larger communities literally have  recruiting teams out there. And these larger areas can often offer incentives that smaller areas like us cannot.” He had the crowd laughing when, tongue in cheek, he remarked that “Paul Coolican and I go to Recruiting Fairs with a bushel of MacIntosh apples.”

While he made it clear that the experience of doing their rural training at St. Lawrence and WDMH is a very positive one for medical students, and stressed that people in our community are always very welcoming to the future doctors, the struggle to recruit remains a tough one. 

Young doctors coming into a rural area face more demands on their time (most St. Lawrence doctors carry a patient load of  2,000), less access to specialists and more travel. They expect collegial support, “and, this is often a key, they want jobs for their spouses.” 

The St. Lawrence Clinic, which will be utilizing new, upgraded space in both the former Morrisburg High School, and in the former St. Cecilia’s School in Iroquois, has great potential for both doctors and patients.

“These sites are spacious, providing much more privacy for patients and doctors. They will allow us to set up ancillary services such as addiction counselling. We actually have four new associates coming to join us. The new clinics also provide teaching facilities,” Dr. Domanko said. 

The Clinic carries a payroll well in excess of $1 million, and pays taxes. Each facility purchases its own furniture, equipment and medical supplies. In 2009-10, the South Dundas council purchased the Clinic properties, thereby easing some financial issues. “The doctors have made a commitment to the community, too,” Domanko said. “We have signed a 20 year lease.” 

With LHIN (Champlain Local Health Integration Network) now co-ordinating health services, and stressing that those services be well organized, appropriately funded and meet the needs of residents of all ages, the whole issue of health care remains under intense scrutiny. 

However, despite the challenges, and the reality that finances are probably going to get tighter in the years ahead, Dr. Domanko stressed that the St. 

[…]

Morrisburg’s old high school now has a new name. It will be the South Dundas Municipal Centre.

South Dundas council decided on the new name after a very brief discussion at the May 8 council meeting.

The word Centre in the name was the only part that was debated. Council bandied about the words centre, complex and building and the majority decided centre was most appropriate.

It took only minutes for council to make this decision.

[…]

 The SD&G County Library Board held a public information meeting in Williamsburg May 9, at the Williamsburg Oddfellows Hall.

Over 75 people attended the meeting where Library Staff provided a power point presentation concerning the upcoming consolidation of the Williamsburg and Morrisburg library branches.

Staff and the library board members were focussed on showing the public the plans for the new branch location in Morrisburg. 

They spoke about the need for rural libraries, like rural communities, to find creative ways to sustain themselves.

With the opportunity to consolidate at a new high traffic location, the board made the decision to consolidate the two branches.

With the prospect of a new location that will see much higher foot traffic past the door of the library, which will include everyone using the St. Lawrence Medical Clinic or visiting the South Dundas Municipal Centre, the board seized the opportunity.

Using the Kemptville library as a model for a difficult changes that have had a positive outcome, the SD&G Library Board initiated similarly difficult changes. 

Eric Duncan, who is a member of the library board, explained that the expansion of the Kemptville library included the closure of small branches in South Gower and Oxford Mills.

“There was a huge outcry from the public and disaster was predicted. People were furious when it happened,” explained Duncan.

But through the change, they moved to a higher profile, higher traffic location and were able to get more usage and increase membership to 62 per cent.

“If we are one fifth as successful as Kemptville that would be huge for South Dundas and County-wide for the library system.”

That one branch in a place with one-quarter the population of the Counties now has more visits than all 18 branches in SD&G combined. That speaks volumes,” said Duncan. “This is not negative. Give it a chance to show it can work.”

“We need to make the library system better,” said board chair Bill McGimpsey.

Presently about 12 percent of the population of South Dundas uses the library. The board aims to double that usage by attracting some of the large majority of the local population who does not presently use the library.

They plan to offer a new, comfortable and inviting space, longer hours, more staff and more programming including children’s programming and one-on-one technical programming aimed at seniors.

While the board sees this decision as a positive one, those on hand at the meeting felt quite the opposite.

“Our library money is going to Morrisburg,” shouted someone from the crowd.

“You live in South Dundas,” said McGimpsey. “South Dundas is getting a better library.” 

That was definitely not what the crowd of Williamsburg library supporters wanted to hear. 

They expressed their frustration, anger and disappointment with their small town losing yet another service and with having no opportunity to have a say in the decision until after it was already made.

They repeatedly stressed the importance of the Williamsburg branch of the library in their every day lives and its importance for their children.

One of the most important questions asked at the meeting was whether the board would reconsider their decision.

No one would directly answer that question, but most left the meeting with the impression that the decision has been made. “This decision has been made, and our opinions don’t matter,” shouted someone from the crowd.

The library board is hosting a public information session Thursday, May 16, 7 p.m., at the Morrisburg library to show the community what they have planned for the upcoming consolidation.

[…]