South Dundas Fire stations celebrate Fire Prevention Week

The issue of who will operate the Iroquois Beach Canteen this summer was raised at the March 20th South Dundas council meeting.

Clerk Brenda Brunt recommended “that council authorize the Iroquois-Matilda Lions Club to operate the Iroquois Beach Canteen for 2012.”

According to Brunt, the Lions Club has already received approval for a provincial grant to hire student workers. 

“It’s the same idea as last year, they’ll keep it clean,” she said.

The recommendation was accepted and Mayor Steven Byvelds closed the deal, saying, “we wish them good luck.”

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Effective Friday, February 13, 2015, South Dundas councillor Bill Ewing resigned from South Dundas Fire and Emergency Services.

Ewing was assistant deputy chief at SDFES Station 1-4, the Iroquois fire station.

Ewing has been an Iroquois firefighter since January 1980. 

“I became a firefighter because I wanted to help the community,” Ewing told The Leader.

Now, being a South Dundas councillor, Ewing’s community service role is in a different capacity, and it is his council role that moved him to make the difficult decision to resign from the fire service, a job that was extremely important to him.

After attending a recent council seminar and seeking the opinions of three different lawyers, Ewing determined that as a firefighter, “I could not speak to any fire service issues without being in conflict.”

In order to avoid any complications, and to ensure that his voice and expertise in the fire service would still be able to benefit the community, he chose to resign from the fire service.

“People voted for me to represent them, so it’s important to have my voice part of the discussions. With my years of service I have a lot of knowledge in all aspects of the fire service,” said Ewing who worked his way up through the ranks to become assistant deputy chief.

Although Ewing was a member of the fire service, when he served on council before, at that time he was not advised that being a firefighter put him in a conflict when making council decisions.

“It was never perceived as a conflict in the past, but perceptions have changed since then,” said Ewing.

Also, the last time Ewing served on council, South Dundas did not have a full time fire chief, this time it does.

With South Dundas having recently updated their fire master plan, and considering changes to the fire station in Morrisburg, Ewing says, “There will be a number of issues, going forward, that I feel I need to speak to.”

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“We were very privileged to have these authors join us December 3 at the Basket Case to launch their new books,” said Hanne Rycroft co-owner of the Basket Case. 

Discussing their latest works with local visitors were authors Bill Smallwood, Craig Armstrong, Joel Fawcett and Pat Jamieson, along with Jamieson illustrator, Gail Stephenson.

Craig Armstrong, who was born and raised in Morrisburg, described his book, Shadows on Your Right Hand, as a work which celebrates the three “passages we all go through in life, the morning when people make decisions, the afternoon when we are in the fight of life and the evening, when we are meant to enjoy life. My emphasis is that we all possess one gift, one special skill which we need to find and make better all our lives to find contentment.”

Joel Fawcett’s Stained Glass concerns a young man’s picaresque journey across North America. Also owner of Chickadilly Bookbinding, Fawcett said of his novel, “I met many characters in my travels, became a character myself, I think, as the story took shape. This is a novel for young and old alike, colourful and often funny. I am currently turning it into a screen play”

The Raindrop That Wanted to be a River, a children’s picture novel written by Pat Jamieson and illustrated by Gail Stephenson, is the tale of a tiny raindrop with very large ambitions. “Eventually, he learns that everyone must work together to do a very big job,” said Jamieson. Illustrator Stephenson said that collaborating with the children’s author “was exciting and fun and its own adventure.”

 Author Bill Smallwood, after careers with the armed forces and civilian support, finds inspiration for his books in the events of Canada’s history, particularly those reflecting the rich heritage of Nova Scotia. “The stories in my novels, like Abuse of Power: The Acadians, are based on real events, the expulsion of the Acadians by the British, and how that expulsion affected settlers, soldiers and native peoples alike.”

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