friends of dufferin grove park
January 2002 Newsletter

In this issue:

Rink use:
In December there were many days and evenings when the rink was very crowded, and some other days that were not. Then during the holidays (Dec.24 to Jan.6), attendance broke all records. This was apparently true at many city rinks, perhaps because of a combination of excellent skating weather and the long break many parents took this year to do things with their kids. Also this year the city started centralized skating class registration. People from elsewhere in the city were assigned to classes at our rink, liked what they saw, and came back in large numbers the next day. There's a lesson here: if you like Dufferin Rink, dont tell too many other people about it, so we don't get swamped. Second lesson: if you live near a city rink that isn't run very well, tell that Park supervisor to do better. Everyone's local rink ought to be a welcoming, comfortable place that enforces skating rules and makes things easier for families. Too many people tell us about rinks where shinny hockey is played during pleasure skating times, where the change areas are dreary and even frightening, where the teenage staff are surly or invisible. A poorly-run rink is a shameful waste of a beautiful winter resource. We'd be happy to pass along our experiences to people in other areas who want to make their rink work better. (Call the rink at 416/392-0913 and ask for Jutta.)

Hours of rink operation:
Monday to Saturday, the rink clubhouse opens at 9 a.m. and closes at 9 p.m. Sundays, the rink clubhouse opens at 10 a.m. and closes at 6 p.m. The shinny hockey side has the same hours as the club house, except when theres a permit.

Shinny hockey has a (strictly enforced) age schedule (see centerfold). (If you ever see the wrong age group on the shinny ice, do us a favour and notify the rink guard right away.)

The pleasure-skating side is always freely available, except: on Saturday morning from 9 a.m. to 12 noon, when there are skating classes (by registration only), and on Sunday morning from 10 a.m. to 12 noon, when there is "skating practice" for learners (no registration and no fee). Both sides of the rink are open for pleasure-skating (no shinny) on Sundays until 6 p.m. But skaters wishing to skate fast are requested not to come on Sunday mornings, until after skating practice is over.

The pleasure-skating side is never locked except during a snowstorm or when the ice is not good enough to skate on. After hours, the pleasure-skating side is unsupervised. It's like skating on the pond — shinny and pleasure-skating are sometimes happening at the same time and people use the rink on their own responsibility. The large rink lights are not on, and illumination is only from the small building lights and whatever moonlight happens to be there.

The rink staff can be reached at 416/392-0913. The phone message about rink ice conditions is updated daily (hourly when there are problems) and you can leave a message there too.

Rink shinny hockey schedule:

DECEMBER 1-MARCH 3

Monday shinny
9:00am - 3:30pm all ages
3:30pm - 5:30pm 14 to 17
5:30pm - 6:30pm 13 and under (and parent)
6:30pm - 7:45pm all ages
7:45pm - 8:55pm 18 and over
Tuesday shinny
9:00am - 3:30pm all ages
3:30pm - 5:30pm 14 to 17
5:30pm - 6:30pm 13 and under (and parent)
6:30pm - 7:45pm all ages
7:45pm - 8:55pm 18 and over
Wednesday shinny
9:00am - 3:30pm all ages
3:30pm - 5:30pm 14 to 17
5:30pm - 6:45pm 13 and under (and parent)
6:45pm - 8:15pm week-by-week shinny permit (ask rink staff)
8:15pm - 9:30pm 18 and over
Thursday shinny
9:00am - 3:30pm all ages
3:30pm - 5:30pm 14 to 17
5:30pm - 6:30pm 13 and under (and parent)
6:30pm - 7:45pm all ages
7:45pm - 8:55pm 18 and over
Friday shinny
9:00am - 3:30pm all ages
3:30pm - 5:30pm 14 to 17
5:30pm - 6:30pm 13 and under (and parent)
6:30pm - 7:45pm all ages
7:45pm - 8:55pm 18 and over
Saturday shinny
9:00am - 12:00pm Learn to skate
12:00pm - 1:30pm 13 and under (and parent)
1:30pm - 3:45pm all ages
3:45pm - 5:15pm 14 to 17
5:15pm - 7:00pm all ages
7:00pm - 8:45pm 18 and over
Sunday(No shinny, pleasure skating only)
10:00am - 6:00pm Pleasure skating
Permits:
Seasonal permits at Dufferin Rink cost $65 each time and they are:
Mondays 9 to 11: Tim Freeman group
Tuesdays 9-10.30: Jeannie Stiglic (womens shinny hockey)
Wednesdays 9.30-11: St.Wenceslas Church, Father Libor Svorcik
Thursdays 9-11: Randy Heasman (over 35 neighbourhood shinny hockey group)
Sundays 6-7: Tracy Heffernan (family shinny hockey group)
In addition, there are three weekly (booked by the week only) shinny hockey permit times:
Wednesdays: 6.45 to 8.15
Fridays: 9-11
Saturdays: 9-11

For adults the permits cost $65; for children and youth, there is no charge. To book a permit, call the rink at 416/392-0913 and leave a message for Jutta Mason.

No Citizens Hall meeting in January: now postponed to February.
The community meeting about the future of our park, which was to have been held in November, still can''t be scheduled. The parks department has given us no additional budget numbers, and so it's impossible for us to have an informed meeting.

This is what we are asking:
How much money is spent on our park every year:
1. to clean up litter and take away the garbage?
2. to cut the grass, reseed and sod?
3. to care for the trees and replace them?
4. on the playground, to maintain the equipment?
5. to keep benches and picnic tables, water fountains and trash receptacles in good repair?
6. to staff the rink in the winter?
7. to maintain the rink in good condition?
8. to staff the wading pool in the summer?
9. to deal with special problems - for instance, vandalism damage, field house/ rink house/ rain shelter/ shed repairs, soccer field irrigation, new signs?
10. to do walkway and stair maintenance, including wheelchair accessibility?
11. to staff and support special events, such as pizza oven days, festivals, giant puppet performances?
12. to make park improvements (and how are these decisions made)?

EDITORIAL:
The parks director, Don Boyle, maintains that it's not possible to get those figures. We maintain that "not possible" is not the right answer. Mike Hindle, the supervisor in charge of maintaining our park, asks: why do we want to know? Besides the obvious housekeeping reasons -- for a taxpayer, it's a serious concern if the people who look after our park don't know what they're spending -- here are two other reasons:
A very big reason: our fourteen-acre park has at least as much activity, for as many or more people, as the busiest community centre. But parks get only a fraction of community centre budgets. If parks are being starved of money compared to indoor community centres, we want to know the extent of that starvation.
One example of the many smaller reasons for our questions: recently our nice old-fashioned "Dufferin Grove Park" sign (actually less than ten years old) was removed. Two new signs were put in the park that say "a city within a park." They have a computer-generated picture of lots of Walt Disney-style flowers. In this same year, there was not one flower planted in our park by a park staff person. The park gardening budget has apparently disappeared completely. How much did these new signs cost? Who, in some far-off office, has the power to redirect money to replace real flowers with Disney-flowers on a signboard?
A neighbourhood that wants a good park has to take care of the park. To take responsible care of the park we have to know, in clear detail, how our taxes are being spent here. A Parks Department is entrusted to look after the citizens interests, and it must be accountable. During the remainder of January, we will energetically try to help the Park staff come up with the budget information we need for our "citizens hall" meeting. For more information, please call the park clubhouse at 416/392-0913, and leave your name and number.

Really bad turkeys
In the middle of December the rink staff got a call from Councillor Mario Silva's office, to let us know that they were giving away 1000 free turkeys in the west end, and they would be dropping off ten vouchers at the park. These vouchers were given to some park friends with low income. They were told to come to a neighbourhood festival at Margueretta Park, jointly sponsored by Councillor Silva, M.P.P. Tony Ruprecht, and the Business Improvement Association on December 15 and pick up their free turkey. Afterwards we got some very distressing reports. Apparently there was a huge crowd, with very little effort at crowd control. Some people had four vouchers and some people had none but were still lining up because they had been told they could get a free turkey anyway. The start of the give-away was delayed because the media were late in arriving, and then when the crowd finally began to move, the crush was so great and the mood so angry that some of our voucher-holders were afraid they, or the children with them, might be injured. In the midst of all the frustration and delays there were people who went straight to the front of the line saying that they had a special relationship with the politicians. In the end some of the people holding vouchers turned away without getting their turkey, rather than be involved in such a depressing spectacle. And the ones who stayed to the end have said they would never go again. They asked us to warn people in this newsletter.

Food in the park:
Besides the bread and the mini-pizzas and the park cookies, this winter there has been hot soup at the rink on the weekends. This soup is community soup in the sense that sometimes raw materials for the pot are brought over by people in the neighbourhood. Cathy Meckes gave us her Good Food Box surplus. Heidi Bechmann donated left-over Christmas vegetables, not needed for Christmas dinner. Joe Longo of Longo's Groceries gave us sacks of free-range chicken bones for making stock. Councillor Mario Silva donated the delicious Portuguese sausages left over after his Christmas tree lighting ceremony.

And it's not just soup stuff we get. Judy Simutis brought over bags of caramel popcorn that she made, and rice crispy cookies, which we sold for 25 cents to the kids. This is a treat Judy cooked up just for the Christmas holidays, and kids who had only a quarter when they came skating couldn't believe their good luck. And one day Dr.Alan Abelson dropped off some truly astonishing cakes left over from a party.

Of course, most of the materials we cook with have to be bought, and the sale of the things we make covers the cost of the materials and some of the labour involved in preparing them. This year, as in other years, we notice how much friendlier kids can be when they're not hungry as bears after two hours of playing hockey. At our rink there's always some food to put in their stomachs. Even the kids who have almost no pocket money can usually afford slices of bread and butter, at 25 cents a slice.

Our winter rink staff are multi-talented. They can clean ice, tidy the building, put band-aids on skate blisters, unlock stubborn lockers, and cook soup. We're lucky to have them.

Bake-oven schedule: the oven is hot on Sundays for sure. The other days when we put a fire in are unpredictable, depending on what else is happening at the rink. If you are interested in using the oven, call the rink at 416/392-0913 and leave a message for Jutta.

People who cooked in the park oven during the Christmas holidays: Annick Mitchell and her son Jake Mitchell cooked Christmas dinner for twelve guests, including the turkey, all the vegetables, and fresh bread. Jake has also frequently baked flatbread in the oven during the past two months. Barbara Morris cooked New Years Eve dinner of cassoulet. She had done this once before, and she said that even though she used the identical ingredients, the dish tasted very different this time. It was delicious, but in a different way. Jutta Mason cooked a stew of pigs feet and beans overnight, for a post-new-year dinner for fourteen relatives.

A fantasy oven: The Discovery Channel is filming a series about flatbread, and they heard that there's a public oven at our park. They sent over a cameraman to film the crowd of people bringing their flatbread to bake on winter Sundays. Of course, these people don't exist. We were puzzled how they would get the idea that people in the neighbourhood all come and bake together in the winter. No one who uses the oven has ever claimed that we always use the oven in a bunch. But the way the movies work (including the movies in peoples imagination), "community oven" means something like one might see in an old picture taken in Sicily. Its a kind of fantasy formula of community, existing nowhere. The cameraman said, no worries. Well just get a few people who happen to be around, and well put a bread pan in their hand and on our film it will look as though theyve come to bake.

But he's wrong. We won't do that. Why build a television fantasy when reality is so much more interesting? The producer agreed, so theyll be filming some REAL oven scenes on Sunday January 13.

Mimo in the winter:
Mimo
, the homeless man who spends a lot of time in the park in the summertime, is still out on the street. He still gets much of his food from several generous restaurants on College Street. He also gets to shower there, something he likes very much. Walter Brierley, his caseworker, hopes he'll have some good news by next week, about a shelter suitable for Mimo. If you see Mimo in trouble, call Walter at 416/785-9230, ext.2148, and leave a message.

Almost a visit from Superintendent Paul Gottschalk, of Fourteen Division, Toronto Police Service:
When Supt.Gottschalk was first transferred to Fourteen Division almost two years ago, he called to say he wanted to visit the park, to find out a bit more about our neighbourhood. Before he could make it, various problems arose with the police, including a serious public beating on the basketball court that got very little investigation. Since then we have requested a meeting a few more times, but nothing happened. Then, out of the blue, last week, Supt.Gottschalk called to say he was coming to visit the rink on Tuesday January 8. This time it was really a close call. The coffee was on, the Solicitor-General crime prevention grant report was laid out, the picture display was set up - but then 10 minutes before the expected arrival, the superintendent's secretary called to cancel.

But since we got that close, we think the visit will definitely take place, maybe even soon.

The danger of speeding cars. Part 2:
The remarks made about speeding cars at St.Marys School in the December newsletter were upsetting for the some of the young people involved in the story. Some young people are under the impression that the Young Offenders Act prevents adults from even speaking about annoyances or dangers that young people may cause in their neighbourhood. Anger about the newsletters mention of these speeding cars led to the destruction of newsletters posted in the park, and ultimately to the temporary expulsion of some youth. However, all that has blown over for now. (To be continued in spring, if necessary.)

School watch officer Rondi Craig called six weeks ago and then again about three weeks ago to say that the poster he offered to do, about the legal and insurance consequences of dangerous driving, was on its way. However it has not yet appeared. Hopefully he has not abandoned this task, since the failure to follow up with speeding cars is part of the problem: it signals that people can get away with that kind of behaviour.

Events:
Michelle Oser and Ian Small have just returned from Uzbekistan (near Afghanistan) and they decided to have a yurt shipped back home. (A yurt is a traditional dwelling, a huge, six-meter-diameter circular tent, ingeniously constructed of felt and wood pieces.) In the middle of February they would like to erect the yurt for display near the rink, for a week. They plan to have traditional foods, films, games, and whatever else develops, to accompany the display. (One of our contributions will be a flatbread-baking session with Ursula Franklin Academy classes on February 20.) There may be live music too. Plans will be posted as they develop. If you'd like to get involved, call the rink clubhouse at 416/392-0913 and leave your name and number.


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.

Newsletter prepared by: Jutta Mason; Illustrations: Jane LowBeer

Technical support: John Culbert

Web site: Joe Adelaars, Henrik Bechmann, Caitlin Shea

Park phone: 416 392-0913; street address: 875 Dufferin Street

E-mail: dufferinpark@dufferinpark.ca

List Serve: Emily Visser, Bernard King