News Leader News for October 21, 2008
PXA PLANS SALUTE TO VOLUNTEERS
Anyone who volunteered their help this year to any of the events at the fairgrounds will be honoured at an appreciation dinner hosted by Princeton Exhibition Association (PXA) and the three major user groups. The volunteer appreciation dinner will be held at the Legion Hall on Friday, November 21 at 6:00 PM, and each group will identify the volunteers to be invited.
2008 has been a very active year for events at the fairgrounds. The Rodeo Club hosted two events, the BCRA rodeo and the BC bullriding finals. 4-H horse club had an event, and Rotary hosted Taste of Ales in conjunction with the bullriding finals. Princeton Racing Days Association hosted the annual race meet, and the Fall Fair Association put on the annual fair. ATV-BC hosted a weekend of fun and plans to do so next year on the second to last weekend of June.
At the October 14 PXA meeting, Mike Theal reported an excellent year for the Rodeo Club, which included their trail ride. The club managed a good financial year.
PXA President John Bey praised the Rodeo Club for their fast clean-up of the grounds following the bullriding finals.
Construction continues at the fairgrounds, completing this year's projects. Plans are being made for next year's projects, which will include a new office space and first aid room. Discussions regarding improvements to the concession area will take place during the winter months.
Some regrets were expressed due to there not being a Halloween event at the grounds this year. It was noted that no volunteers have come forward to take over this event, and the volunteer fire brigade no longer has time to arrange the event. PXA members would cooperate, but cannot do the entire spook house and bonfire event on their own.
The annual general meeting will take place at Town Hall November 18 at 7:00 PM. This will wrap up the PXA activities for 2008. Except for the Ag barn, the remainder of the grounds are shut down for the winter months.
CHAMBER PLANS TWO ALL CANDIDATES FORUMS
The Princeton & District Chamber of Commerce invites residents to attend the All Candidates Election Forums for the positions of Mayor, RDOS Area H Director and Town Council.
The School Board Trustees have been elected by acclamation, which means a forum is not necessary for those candidates.
There will be two forums, however. The first is for Mayor and Area H Director and is scheduled to take place at 7:00 PM on Tuesday, October 28th in the Royal Canadian Legion Hall.
Doors will open at 6:40 PM and the program will start at 7:00 PM sharp.
The second forum for Town Council will be on Wednesday, October 29th at 6:30 PM in the Princeton Secondary School Gym.
The doors will open at 6:10 PM and the program will start at 6:30 PM sharp.
As there are so many candidates and huge time constraints, the Chamber of Commerce will not be accepting questions from the floor. They request all questions to be submitted to the Chamber office by 4:00 PM Monday, October 27th.
You can submit your question(s) in one of many ways:
- fax to (250) 295-3255
- e-mail to chamber@nethop.net
- mail to PO Box 540, Princeton, BC V0X 1W0
- drop off at the Chamber office on Highway 3.
No questions will be accepted via the telephone.
To provide the best possible overview of the community the Chamber asks you to provide your input into this process via questions or issues you wish addressed during the forum.
The Princeton & District Chamber of Commerce provides these forums as a service for the community and businesses that they serve.
All safe guards and precautions are taken to maintain confidentiality and neutrality during these proceedings. These forums are designed to help you make an informed decision when you go to exercise your right to vote on November 15.
PRINCETON BC NEWS #02 HITS THE STREET
The second edition of 'Princeton BC News' will be available this week says Similkameen News Leader Owner/Publisher George Elliott.
"I can't believe the response we had to the first issue, which made producing the second issue just a little bit easier."
The theme of Issue #02 is loosely based on 'Colourful Characters and Places' and features more interesting photos from Princeton Museum and more facts and history from the area.
"There's so much incredible history in the Princeton area that we may never run out of material but I'm trying to keep each issue an interesting read which gives the product value to the advertisers who participate."
The first issue, published in July, was considered by many to be almost too late in the season to be an effective marketing tool but out of the thousands of copies printed and distributed throughout the Similkameen Valley only a few remain.
"We've had e-mails and phone calls from throughout the Province from people who picked up a copy and found it interesting enough that they don't want to miss future copies," Elliott says.
"That tells me we have tapped into something that obviously wasn't available before in this format."
A school teacher in Victoria is using the 'Historic Information Guide' as a tool to teach history in her Grade 5 class.
"We didn't expect this sort of thing to happen and we are pretty excited about what this could be in the long term."
If you missed the first issue, you can download the complete guide at www.princetonbcnews.com which takes you to the News Leader website.
Scroll to the bottom of the home page and you'll see the Princeton BC News Guide. The guide is printed in two-page spreads and you can click on any of those which will open up as a pdf.
You can copy those files to your hard drive or print them out.
GROUP PRESENTS LIFE MEMBERSHIP
In November of 1991 a notice and a display of mounted birds, photos and various books on natural history topics was placed in the Princeton Library.
A sign up sheet and the question "Was anybody interested in forming a naturalists club? Activities of the club would range from birding, botany, study of fossils, insects to hiking."
Fourteen people signed up. This was followed by a get-together to discuss arrangements and by the end of the meeting we had a club, as yet unnamed, but ready to go.
Irene Logan was one of those founding members.
Throughout the years she has contributed much time and energy to the Vermilion Forks Field Naturalists. For many years she coordinated the field trip program, leading many herself into areas most of us had not explored before.
Her knowledge of the natural world was amazing! She taught us how to recognize tracks and scats; what not to do when you met a bear; how to start a fire without matches.
And who can forget those hamburgers, cooked over a wood fire, the sun shining brilliantly on the powder snow?
Over the years she also maintained a long stretch of bluebird boxes along Highway 3, going west. And she helped with the Swan Lake Project. Through Irene our club members were so fortunate to be able to sometimes see nature films, produced by the Turner branch of her family.
She is an accomplished photographer herself and many of her pictures have graced notelets, calendars and books, produced by some of our club members.
We owe a great deal to Irene and by presenting her with this framed certificate, we wish to honour her for all the contributions she has made, not only to the club and its members, but also to the community.
