friends of dufferin grove park
November 2003 Newsletter

In this issue:

Skating news:

DUFFERIN RINK OPENS: SATURDAY NOV. Nov.29 AT 9 A.M. Same story as last year and every year: pleasure skating all the time (the gate is never closed), shinny hockey on the hockey side Monday to Saturday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., some shinny permits 9 p.m. to 11 p.m., fire in the wood stove inside, chess and checkers, some toys for the little kids, organic coffee and hot chocolate and mini-pizzas and slices of fresh park bread, snow hills for climbing and sliding outside, and free skating under the sky in the bracing Canadian winter. Fun!

BEGINNERS' SHINNY FOR ADULTS with Lawrence Barichello. Starts SUNDAY NOV.30, 7-8.30 P.M. This was a hit last year and it filled up really fast. If you want to get started playing shinny hockey this year, get your place early. Lawrence is taking calls for registration now. The class costs about $70 for 12 weeks, and you need skates and preferably a helmet and a stick if you have one. Otherwise Lawrence has extra. Men and women are both welcome. Call Lawrence at 416/530-4810 or e-mail him: lawrence@pathcom.com.

SKATING LESSONS:

Last year we had none but this year we've found a terrific teacher. If you want to enroll your child, call the rink (416 392-0913) and leave your number and the age of the child. We'll call you back within a week and let you know the time (Sunday mornings for sure) and the cost.

We have no adult skating lessons. However, for some years we have had a "skating practice" time on Sunday mornings between 10-12.30. That means that, to protect learners, we don't allow fast skaters or wild kids on the ice, and we have two rink staff on the ice as resource people -- i.e. if an adult (or child) wants to be out on the ice learning to skate (with a chair or without), the resource person will help them. It actually works very well, and it's free. It's also possible to arrange for a private lesson (for $20 an hour) with one of those resource rink staff after their shift, i.e. after 12.30. Usually people don't need such a thing more than a few times -- skating, like walking, is mainly learned through practice. We try to make the rink a friendly place to practice.

Recaps:

The Farmers' Market Tasting Fair, Oct.19:

Although the farmers' market is doing very well, it seemed like a good idea to try and get some media coverage to let even more people know of its existence. So the park cooks devised a fair at which chefs would be paired with farmers to show a variety of the delicious things that could be made with the farmers' produce. Plans were made, menus were set, and press releases were sent out. But NO media people wanted to come and do a story, not even one reporter. They said that Dufferin Grove Park is old news, and so are farmers' markets. So we had to rely on posters and word of mouth and e-mail lists to let people know about the fair. A small turnout would not have surprised the farmers or the chefs. But the huge turnout startled everyone: about 1700 food tickets were sold at $2 each, enough to cover all the materials and park staffing, and even to give the chefs small honoraria for all their work. The different foods were wonderful, and all afternoon the food booths were swarming with recreational eaters. So - who needs the media? It's more fun without them.

Night of Dread, Oct.25:

On the morning of the big community parade (Oct.25), it rained, and the forecast for the rest of the day was nasty too. At noon, David Anderson and the other main organizers of the parade were sitting around the table at the rink house, trying to make a plan. The giant puppets can't be used if it's raining, because the papier mache melts if it gets wet. Park friend Ann Bjorseth passed by and said, "you should have the party anyway, the big fire and the music and burning the fears and all those good things. I was raised in Seattle and there we don't cancel parades just because it's raining."

But then it stopped raining anyway, and hour by hour the weather forecast improved. By 5 p.m. the first band (Lev, Beam and Orlando) was making music by the bonfire, and by 6 o'clock the parade grounds (a.k.a. the basketball court, the volleyball court, and surroundings) were packed with people in costume and samba bands and stilt walkers and giant puppets. The parade was so big it took a while longer to get it all lined up, and suddenly, off it went --in the wrong direction. It was halfway across to the east side of the park when the parade marshals realized what was happening and ran after it. At the head of the parade, they found the problem: a man whom no one had ever seen before, had marched up to the front, held up a big flag, and shouted "Here we go!" and the bands and all the people had begun to march behind him. This man was extremely reluctant to let go of his personal parade, but the marshals took the parade back anyway, turned it around and led it in the right direction, and the Night of Dread pageantry unrolled as it was intended to.

Then, half an hour after all the post-parade festivities were finished, the rain began, and it kept on raining right into the next day.

WOOD DONATIONS:

Since we put out our wood S.O.S. last winter, people have been very generous with bringing clean wood over for us to burn in the bake ovens. Now we have a new problem: we need more wood for the inside woodstove for the winter. If you have sections of a tree trunk that are dry, we can split it. (But we can't pick it up.) If you have a way to get the wood to the park, just drive up to the rink garage and put the wood there any time - we'll take it inside as soon as we find it. And the next time you come to the market, identify yourself and pick up your free bread. This also means that all campfire permits for the rest of the season have to bring their own split campfire wood - we can't spare any.

IN MEMORIAM: RYVA NOVICK

Ryva Novick died in October. Ryva ran the drop-in Children's Storefront on Bathurst Street near Dupont, but her influence reached far beyond that. The Dufferin Grove Park sand playground would not be the same, the rink house would not be so family-friendly, the pizza oven, the gardens, the campfires, would not be so welcoming, if it had not been for the inspiration of Ryva's work at the place everyone called just "the storefront."

One of the first things one noticed at the storefront was that there was no office, no client/professional divide. (Ryva, and the friends who worked with her to set up the storefront in 1973, turned away a very big wad of government money that would have buried them in assessments and reports and client-number massage.) The second thing was that the adults and the children who went there could gather around food (at the storefront kitchen table), and wherever there was food, talk would follow, between strangers; and friendship would often follow after that. (Sound familiar?)The third thing was that the storefront was not at all a grand structure, just a very ordinary building ingeniously (but not expensively) adapted to the hospitality that filled the place. (We did our rink house renovations inspired by that example: the simple changes cost so little time or money, and they helped a lot.) Ryva demonstrated that if there were interesting things for kids to play with - simple things like paints, a climber, storybooks, good costumes from the Goodwill Store - then the kids would be busy with play and with each other. That meant the adults could take a break and look at a book (a luxury for a parent of very young children!) if they didn't want talk. But the conversation was often too interesting, the people one met too engaging, and so the book would be put down and the newspaper folded up. At the very same time that magazines were full of sympathetic articles about horribly depressed parents stuck at home with young children, the storefront drop-in was (and continues to be) like a wonderful local pub without the beer, but with the laughter and the continuous thread of stories that ties the most diverse people together, including people inclined to deep shyness. Ryva - and her colleagues Maryann and Karen - never social-worked people, they didn't "handle" them or recite "how can I help you." They just welcomed them, with true hospitality. In the world where even people using a park are called "customers," Ryva's approach had the genius of a quiet revolutionary. Thankfully, she left her mark on us.

ALEXANDRA RINK: Our sister rink needs a door and a window.

The outdoor rink that's most heavily-used after ours, in this neighbourhood, is Alexandra Park rink, right near the corner of Dundas and Bathurst. They have good shinny hockey there, and lots of people who use our rink like to play there too.

For several years we've been talking with recreation supervisor David Hains about collaborating with the rink staff at Alexandra Park, to make that rink more family-friendly. We decided to make the two rinks sister rinks this winter, sharing some staff and some ideas. But then we ran into a problem with their rink house. In order to become family-friendly, the Alexandra rink building needs a simple access door and an eye-level window put into the blank brick wall that faces onto the rink. That way the skaters can change their skates and get warm in the pleasant room right beside the rink, instead of having to use a dingy, dangerous, more remote room with no visibility. And non-skating parents can keep an eye on their kids from indoors, instead of standing shivering beside the rink. But the money to make this small alteration (which would take a day and a half to do) is not to be found.

Who can make sense of how public money is spent in parks? It's not that there's no money to do things. Last summer Christie Pits got a $50,000 "entrance feature," (actually leading only to an unused patch of grass in a corner of the park). Also last year, Scadding Court Community Centre, right beside Alexandra rink, put in a new front reception desk for $40,000. This year, the parks budget calls for a $100,000 rebuild of the very adequate playground near Alexandra rink, within the next two months. Safety issues - a big concern in asking for this new door and window - have some money attached to them, but only on a broader scale. This year the city found $70,000 to commission a consulting company to produce a safety manual for Toronto's parks and recreation facilities. Someone forgot (no kidding) that a recent safety manual already exists, commissioned by the city less than 10 years ago, and so thorough that it has wide international circulation. (Our park is in there too.)There must be stacks of that excellent booklet gathering dust in a storage room somewhere at city hall.

Right now, Alexandra Rink needs a door and a window, to open up a winter of great skating and family enjoyment. Such a small alteration would cost a fraction of the money allocated for the architectural entryway, the gold-plated desk, the formulaic playground, the duplicate book about safety. The fact is, a million-dollar rebuild of Alexandra rink is also planned, for sometime down the road. But that may be postponed for quite a while, by budget problems. Meantime, the money for small things like this door and this window - which would allow our sister rink to welcome skaters and their families NOW, this winter, in the way that has made such a difference at Dufferin Rink - that money is not there. How can it be found?

This troubling story is a good example of what needs to be fixed in the stewardship of our tax-supported public spaces, our collective treasure. The story provides us with an interesting test question for both the mayoral candidates and the local candidates in this area (ours and Alexandra rink's). So we've sent this story to Barbara Hall, Tom Jacobek, David Miller, John Nunziata, and John Tory. We've also sent it to Ana Bailao and Adam Giambrone in our ward, and Olivia Chow and Joe Pantalone. We've asked them: if you get elected on Nov.10, how will you look out for small, humble initiatives like this door and this window -- even if it means cutting back on the bigger, more glamorous projects, while government budgets are restricted?

To see who answers, and what they have to say, go to the Hot topics page on our Bulletin board. We'll post any answers we get, and after the election, we'll keep you informed on the progress of our sister rink.

THIEVES:

On the day of the provincial election, in October, Jutta rode over to the John Innes Community Centre in Moss Park to meet with the supervisor there, and had her bike stolen - the second time in four weeks. Not only was the bike locked up with a very good lock, but the Centre was a polling station and it was the middle of the day.

Park friend Belinda Cole decided to set up a stolen-bike fund for Jutta, and a week later Jutta got a surprise gift of $190, including a checque for $50 from the teachers at St.Mary's High School. (Thank you to the anonymous people who gave this money!) And then Pete Lilly, from Cyclepath on Bloor at Brock, gave Jutta a substantial discount on her replacement bike. All that kindness took the sting out of the loss - it's only stuff, not real heartache. But it certainly injected some paranoia about thieves.

Then a week later, during the farmers' market, a thief broke into the locked park office and emptied park staff Anna Bekerman's purse. By the time Anna realized the purse was gone, the thief had already run up over a thousand dollars on Anna's credit card, across at the Dufferin Mall. (Thankfully such credit card thefts don't have to be paid by the individual cardholder.)

On the Sunday weekend following, two houses on Havelock Street were robbed in the middle of the day, during a short period when the residents were out. They realized the thief must have been watching, possibly from the park, to pick the right moment and break into a backyard basement window. So: watch out. Time to be nosy about who's grazing here.

EDITORIAL: Supporting our municipal candidates.

In this time of elections, when the lawns bristle with candidates' signs, there's lots of talk about who to vote for. We are lucky that in this ward we have a real contest between good municipal candidates. Two of the candidates have been around the park frequently: Ana Bailao and Adam Giambrone. They both came to the big Night of Dread parade, and Adam Giambrone brought mayoral candidate David Miller with him to the farmers' market, and has been back a number of times since then. (A few people were dubious about whether political candidates should be campaigning during such public events: Yes! Yes! City councillors have a huge influence on how things go in our parks, and they need to be where the people are, to talk to them, and listen to them.)

Both Bailao and Giambrone asked me to write something to quote for their campaign literature, which was easy to do, since both candidates have strengths that are obvious. I don't just mean that they're both young and good-looking (although that's a fact), but also that whatever their differences in policy and ideas, they both seem to be hard-working and ambitious to fix things that need fixing. So I wrote about Adam that he tirelessly made himself available everywhere to talk to people and help out during the days of the hydro blackout in August, while everyone else at city hall seemed to have disappeared. And I wrote about Ana that when she was working as Councillor Mario Silva's assistant, if we had a problem, she followed up on it. Follow-up - not letting things drop when there's a complicated problem that city hall must address - is worth as much as rubies (and it's just about as rare).

Since those pamphlets came out, Adam Giambrone's next pamphlet printed my name as one of his supporters. This was unfortunate, since they did not ask my permission (and I would not have given it). And in the opposite direction, a woman called the rink house, unhappy because she felt that the Friends of Dufferin Grove Park were endorsing Ana Bailao. This woman said that Bailao's next campaign event was booked into a local club where there may be gambling, and she felt it was not suitable for us to be endorsing any candidate who would go to such a place.

Well, we don't know anything about gambling, but in a general way, it's quite true that it's not in the interest of the Friends of Dufferin Grove Park (including me) to endorse any of the local candidates. In a general way, we should honour the candidates all over the city who are running municipally, their voices hoarse by now with the effort of talking to so many people. But looking in detail, since none of the candidates in our ward have held office before, we don't know how good a councillor they'll be. What we do know is that (1) Bailao and Giambrone both have considerable political experience, and (2) whoever gets elected will have big problems to deal with. The city budget is messy, the mess is maybe bigger than people want to know, and finding solutions will be a strain. When the elections are done, then it will be time to support our new councillor, to do good work for our ward and for the city.

Jutta Mason

FARMERS' MARKET:

The farmers' market runs year-round Thursdays 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.. It began last Nov.7, so this month is its one-year anniversary. During that year the market has grown a lot, and that means this year when the market goes inside, it will fill the rink garage as well as the rink change area. The garage has been cleaned up and the new community kitchen in one corner will be completed just before the zamboni arrives to take up its winter parking space. How many farmers' markets share a space with a zamboni? But on Thursday afternoons the zamboni will have to park outside, to give the meat vendors and the bakers space for their wares. We'll post a map at the main doors to orient people to the table locations.

Market news: Every Wednesday evening, a group e-mail goes out about what's special at the market that week, when Angelos is coming back from his olive harvest in Greece, whether Heather has baked chocolate-sourdough this week, or if Beretta's will have bacon. If you would like to be on that list, e-mail us at dufferinpark@dufferinpark.ca and we'll put you on.

First-Thursday vendors: on the first Thursday of every month, in addition to the farmers, there will be non-food vendors from the neighbourhood. That's the day to buy homemade kids' clothes or cottage-industry hand creams or bead jewellery and other nice things. We'll accommodate as many special vendors as we can fit into the rink house or just outside the door. This is an experiment. To book a space, email dufferinpark@dufferinpark.ca.

Market posters: During the last two months, we've been putting up a lot of posters about the market, all over the neighbourhood. This is in response to people who discovered the market by accident, and who complained: why didn't you let us know? A few weeks ago we had the first complaint about messing up the neighbourhood with posters on mailboxes and poles. No question, our posters are glued up all over the place. We have sought out the city's official poster removers and they gave us a lesson in poster removal. We're going to Home Depot to buy a special scraper and a spray bottle, and then we'll remove some of the mailbox posters, and ease up on putting new ones there. The poster campaign was amazingly successful: who knew that so many people read posters? But we'll try to be more sparing and less messy. Word of mouth is definitely cleaner.


For ongoing updates on Dufferin Grove Park, and to share your views on community issues, join our Friends of Dufferin Grove email listserve. Just click here to join: dufferingrovefriends-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Newsletter prepared by: Jutta Mason

Illustrated by: Jane LowBeer

Web site: Caitlin Shea, Joe Adelaars, Henrik Bechmann; E-mail: dufferinpark@dufferinpark.ca

List Serve: Emily Visser, Bernard King

Park phone: 416 392-0913

Street address: 875 Dufferin Street