friends of dufferin grove park
December 2003 Newsletter

In this issue:

Rink News

Our rink was one of the first two neighbourhood rinks in the city to open this year. So it was even fuller than usual in the first week. Often there were over 50 shinny hockey players on the ice, with several different games going on at the same time. Permits for the 9-11 period filled up fast (those for youth are free), and after the building closed, there was usually a crowd of shinny hockey players on the pleasure-skating side as well. After eleven when the lights go out and the hockey side is locked, hockey players would jump the fence, and another whole game would take place in the moonlight. The players would try to play as quietly as they could so as not to bother the apartment building next door. - That's how much youth want to play hockey.

By December 13 all city outdoor rinks will be open, and hopefully that will take the pressure off our rink. It seems that the city park management hasn't quite grasped how popular skating and shinny hockey are. City outdoor ice rinks used to open on Nov.22, and perhaps they should go back to that schedule. Outdoor rinks work just fine when the ice is made artificially, i.e. with the help of compressors. When the sun is as low and feeble as at this time of year, it can be 12 degrees celsius and still the compressors can keep the ice frozen. If you like to use the rinks, let your city councillor know they should open earlier. There's no need for this crowding - we have a treasure of artificial ice rinks in the city, and we should use them. It's a winter country! Plus rinks cost a fraction of swimming pools to operate. And this is the right time to connect with your new councillor - hopefully it's a different season at city hall too.

After snow or bad weather, if you wanted to know which rinks have re-opened, it used to be that you could call the rinks and ask. But over the past six years most of the individual rink listings have been removed from the phone book. Lawrence Barichello, the shinny hockey teacher at our rink, pointed out that some rink phone numbers are listed on the NOW web site. But sadly, those are not numbers for the actual rinks, just for the community centres that administer them. We've found that usually if you call such a centre, they don't know much about the rinks at all. As a temporary solution, Dufferin Rink staff are running a voluntary rink hot line this year, as in other years. This is to augment the city's rink "lukewarm line," which only records the rink schedules at the beginning of each season. You can call 392-0913 and we'll try to get the information for you. Hopefully all the rink numbers can be made public on the city's web site next month (or failing that, on our park's web site), if the park management gives us permission.

Rink romances: Early one evening after the rink opened this winter, a man named Mike came into the rink and was showing his wife all around. They said they live in Thornhill, and they had intended to go to Niagara Falls. But the traffic was so bad that they bailed out of their trip and decided to look around Mike's old neighbourhood instead. Mike lived in this area from 1958 to 1971, and he said he used to come to Dufferin Rink all the time. He remembered the usual fights and ruckus, but also the Saturday evening skating. There was pleasure skating on both sides, there was organ music on the loudspeakers, and the boys would ask the girls to skate in the same way you'd ask girls to dance. Mike said, when a boy would go up to a girl and ask her to skate, all his friends would watch to see if he was accepted or rejected. Everybody went skating on Saturday night, he said. That was where romances started.

DUFFERIN GROVE PARK OUTDOOR ARTIFICIAL ICE RINK - HOURS OF OPERATION:

Rink clubhouse: open Monday to Saturday: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. , Sundays: 10 a.m. to 8.30 p.m.

Shinny hockey: same hours as the rink clubhouse except Sundays. There is a (strictly enforced) age schedule. If you ever see the wrong age group on the shinny ice, do us a favour and notify the rink staff right away.

Pleasure-skating: always freely available. The gate never closes except during bad weather. After 9 p.m., skating is unsupervised. Then it's like skating on a pond: shinny hockey and pleasure-skating are sometimes happening at the same time and people use the rink on their own responsibility. The large rink lights turn off after 11 p.m., and illumination is only from the small building lights and whatever moonlight/ snow-light happens to be there.

Parking: the best place to park is east of the rink on Dufferin Park Avenue (at the north boundary of the park). You have to walk west a short distance along the pedestrian walkway at the north side of the rink. Or you can park at the Dufferin Mall across the street.

Rink shinny hockey schedule:

Shinny hockey schedule:

Monday - Friday:

9:00am - 3:30pm all ages

3:30pm - 5:30pm Level 2 (about 13 to 17, medium pace)

5:30pm - 6:30pm Level 1 (12 and under and parent or caregiver, or novice adult)

6:30pm - 7:45pm all ages

7:45pm - 8:55pm Level 3 (usually 18 and over, fast-paced)

PERMIT FOLLOWS

Saturday

9:00am - 12:00pm all ages

12:00pm - 1:30pm Level 1 (12 and under and parent or caregiver, or novice adult)

1:30pm - 3:45pm all ages

3:45pm - 5:15pm Level 2 (about 13 to 17, medium pace)

5:15pm - 7:00pm all ages

7:00pm - 8:45pm Level 3 (usually 18 and over, fast paced)

WEEKLY PERMIT FOLLOWS - CONTACT STAFF

Sunday

10:00am - 6:00pm No shinny hockey. Pleasure skating both sides. (9.45 - 1.30 learn-to-skate program on part of the ice)

6:00p.m. - 7:00pm FAMILY SHINNY SEASONAL PERMIT

7:00 - 8.30pm LEARNERS' SHINNY SEASONAL PERMIT

PERMIT FOLLOWS

Weekly permits: (booked by the week only) shinny hockey permit times:

Tuesdays: 9p.m. - 11p.m.

Fridays: 9p.m. - 11p.m.

Saturdays: 9p.m. - 11p.m.

For adults the permits cost $67.51. For children and youth, there is no charge. To book a permit, call the rink at 416/392-0913 and leave a message.

HOLIDAY HOURS: same as regular hours, except: Christmas Eve, Dec.24, the rink house closes at 4 p.m.; Christmas Day Dec.25, the rink house is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; New Year's Eve Dec.31, the rink house closes at 6 p.m.; New Year's Day Jan.1 the rink house is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

IN THE EVENT OF SNOW, IF RINK USERS HELP STAFF IN CLEARING THE ICE, THE RINK OPENS FASTER. WE HAVE LOTS OF SHOVELS, OR BRING YOURS FROM HOME.

RINK PHONE NUMBER: 416 392-0913

RINK PHONE MESSAGE WILL TELL YOU CURRENT ICE SKATING CONDITIONS

Rinkhouse Suppers

They're starting again, only a bit different. Anna Bekerman and Lea Ambros decided they really wanted to get away from the big jam, the line-ups and turning people away. So they want to try something new: to spread it out more. This winter there is Friday night supper, Saturday night supper, (both 6p.m.to 8p.m.) and Sunday lunch (12.30p.m. to 5p.m.). There's a $5 main plate, plus a vegan soup, a salad, and a dessert. No need to make a reservation. It's not lap-eating or eating-out-in-the-cold like at the rink opening celebration -- but the tables are set up only around the edge of the change room, to leave more space for the skaters.

So you can still skip the after-work cooking on Friday, or alternatively, the Saturday-after-household-chores cooking, and meet your friends at the rink, but you don't need to call ahead. You don't have to skate, either -- you could just enjoy the winter moon, around the campfire afterwards. Beautiful, crisp, Canadian winter. We're so lucky.

DECEMBER STORY: MARY AND JOE AND THE BABY.

Mary (not her real name) is a young woman of 17 who had a baby with her "babyfather" Joe, four months ago. The new mother, father and their baby come to the park a lot with their friends. Many of this group of young people are from the Caribbean. Mary and Joe (not his real name) could be the poster parents for good parenting, teenage or otherwise. They are obviously devoted to their baby and take wonderful care of it. Sometimes there seems to be glow over the three of them.

On a Friday evening about a month ago Mary was at the park for a brief visit with her friends while Joe was at home with the baby. At about 9.30 p.m. Mary was walking out of the park to go home and nurse the baby, when two young police officers on bikes stopped her and asked for i.d. Jutta was also at the park that evening, baking some late bread in the park ovens. When she noticed the police, she got on her bike and rode over, wondering what was going on with Mary. One of the officers was talking on a cell phone, and then she turned to Mary and said there was a warrant out for her arrest. Mary said that couldn't be. She said she had been involved in a fight a year and a half before, and had got probation, but that she had just seen her probation officer the week before, and everything was fine.

Officer 5404 (she had no name, but a number) said Mary might be lying, and she handcuffed Mary's hands behind her back. Officer 5404 searched Mary's pockets and found a cell phone and two twenty-dollar bills, and asked her why she had so much money, and - when the cell phone rang - why the phone rang so much. Then officer 5404 summoned a cruiser and prepared to take Mary away. Mary was not permitted to call home to let Joe know she was arrested, but a friend who was watching this had called Joe.

Jutta asked the officer if Mary would be allowed to nurse the baby before she was taken away. The officer asked Jutta who she was, and when she said she worked in the park, Officer 5404 said Jutta should move along then, and go about her business. Jutta asked again if Mary could nurse the baby, but then Officer 5404 said she should be quiet or she would be arrested too - for obstructing the police.

The police car and Joe arrived at the park about the same time, Joe running along the sidewalk with the baby in his arms. The baby was crying and Jutta asked the officers if Mary could just nurse the baby in the police car before she was taken away. The officer driving the car joined with Officer 5404 in warning Jutta again: if she didn't stop talking to them, she would be arrested and her bike would be confiscated. They said Mary could not nurse the baby, that Mary would be taken to Eleven Division, and Joe could take a cab and go to the station separately - that was none of their concern.

Mary asked Joe to hold up the baby so she could kiss it goodbye. But Officer 5404 jerked Mary away by the handcuffs, and put her in the cruiser.

So Jutta went home and got her car and drove Joe and the baby to Eleven Division. The baby had cried itself to sleep. When they got to the station, there were eight officers behind the desk, just chatting, and Jutta realized that maybe it was a slow night for police.

Mary was there only a short time. As soon as she got there, the people at Eleven Division checked her name and realized this had all been a computer error - there was no arrest warrant. Apparently the computer was acting up - this was the fifth such error that evening. Mary was told she was free to go.

It was bitter cold by then and Jutta took them all home - Mary and Joe and the baby sleeping in her car seat. Mary said she couldn't believe how the police had treated Jutta - they and their friends in the park had assumed that only black people get that kind of treatment. It's true that it's mainly black youth who get randomly i.d.'d in the park by police. But it may be that, in Jutta's choice of staying and witnessing this kind of police activity, she may be in some danger of being arrested too, for being there, the next time. She is careful to speak respectfully but that may not help. It's sad, that "community policing" has come to this: a neighbourhood where so many people know one another; a police force where close to 70 per cent of the officers live outside of the city; and a certainty, on the part of these new young police staff, that they must ward off attempts at bridging the gap: if necessary, by arresting people who try to tell them something about the place where they are, and about how people are affected by their behaviour.

But this time, nobody went to jail. Instead, Mary and Joe took their baby back to their warm apartment. Jutta went back to the park, to take the midnight bread out of the oven. She felt like Mary and Joe and the baby had come safely through the flight into Egypt. And the bread was just fine.

Jutta told this story to the Superintendent Kaproski, of Fourteen Division, Officer 5404's boss. He said he'd look into it and call back, but he never did. Now we'll tell it to the Police Services Board (in case it's changing) and also to Ontario's new Solicitor-General. One of these days maybe a constructive conversation about these kinds of park stories will begin, with people who have the ability to make such stories stop happening.

PARKS AND REC REVOLUTION PUT ON HOLD:

In the third week of November, after the election but before the new city council was sworn in, the senior management of Parks and Recreation called together all the neighbourhood-based supervisors and local-area managers and told them in confidence that their jobs were about to be transformed or to disappear. They intended to radically change the entire structure of this public-space enterprise. They outlined their plans in a document called "Renewing our focus - Moving forward with Structural Change in Parks and Recreation."

Of 172 managers and supervisors listed in the new plan, 37 people would be working in "strategic planning." In other words, over 20% of the people who work for Parks and Recreation would be employed mainly in thinking and talking. The other part of the plan called for managing according to function rather than district. Many of the existing relationships built up between citizens and parks staff over years would be wiped out, and the new relationships would be very odd: for instance, in the day-to-day concerns of Dufferin Grove Park, we would move from dealing with 1 manager and 3 supervisors to dealing with 3 managers and at least 10 supervisors (one for children's programs, one for youth, one for seniors, one for sports, one for arts, one for park buildings, one for summer camps, one for skating, one for park maintenance, one for community relations), each of whom would be responsible for a specific function but spread over a large geographic area. There is an analysis of the re-structuring document on the "hot topics" page of the "bulletin board".

So many people inside and outside of the Parks and Recreation Division thought that the "Renewing our Focus" plan had very serious problems, that city council asked senior management (Joe Halstead, Commissioner, and Claire Tucker Reid, General Manager) to put a hold on the plan until the next budget is considered.

That means that until the end of March there is a window of opportunity for both citizens and parks and rec staff, to take a searching look at what we want of our parks and community centres. For the past six years, Parks and Recreation management have seen their mandate as producing "health and wellness for all." It may be that it's time to take a less grandiose view, to get the litter picked up, the facilities running better, the flowerbeds put back in. If you have a thing you want changed or a thing you don't want to lose, you can get it posted on the "hot topics" page by e-mailing dufferinpark@dufferinpark.ca. This is definitely the right time to speak up. More news on this in the January newsletter.

A SURPRISE FROM THE HOMELESS MAN:

Last winter, a 37-year-old homeless man from Hong Kong sat outside the rink house in all weathers. He wouldn't talk to anyone nor take food nor accept overnight shelter in the rink house. But he managed to live - we could see him eat sandwiches, he seemed to have a source of warm clothes, he used the rink house washrooms to keep clean, and he seemed to have some money. Two homeless-care workers from an organization called COTA - Walter Brierely and Moira Hynes, who have become important friends of the park over the years - came and checked on him from time to time. All of us admired this man's fortitude, even as we wished he would let us help him. But he didn't want that.

When spring came, the man moved down to the other end of the park, and then during the summer he disappeared for a month. When he returned in September, we were shocked at how poorly he looked. He had lost a lot of weight and we seldom saw him eat. He sat on the same bench every day, and if it was raining, he didn't even try to cover himself. If anyone tried to talk to him, he would hide his head in his knapsack. Sometimes he hit himself, and sometimes he screamed. Moira, who often stopped off to see him, said perhaps he was full of lice, and the itching was torture. We agreed that the homeless man was not likely to survive another winter in this condition. But what to do? Walter and Moira said we had to get a "Form 1" to get him into a psychiatric ward, and in order to do that, a doctor had to see him. But how to get him to a doctor? He wouldn't even talk to us.

Somebody remembered that Dr. Alan Abelssohn lives in the neighbourhood, and we called him on the chance that he might be willing to help. He was. Early one morning the doctor went out and spent some time in the park with the homeless man, and then he filled out the form we needed. Walter and Moira called the police and they came to take the man to the hospital.

But the hospital didn't admit him! We were dismayed, until we found out that the man had talked to the hospital staff (who knew he would even talk?) and had asked them to call his brother. The brother had come to get him, and taken him back to his home. The ex-homeless man has a warm place for the winter, and apparently he's going to regular appointments with an out-patient counsellor at the hospital. A therapy based on talk! That's a surprise ending, but a good one.

FARMERS' MARKET NEWS:

The organic market has now passed its first year. It grew over the summer, so this December it's in both our indoor spaces - the change-room/ clubhouse and the zamboni room. We'll see whether we still need both rooms after the farmers' root crops are done. For now, Plan B Organics and Ted Thorpe are selling fruits and vegetables in the zamboni room, and Beretta's Meats and Stonehenge Farms (poultry, lamb, goat, cheese) are also in there. Plan B also brings Heather and Lenny Karmiol's sourdough bread, from Vineland. In the main room, Greenfields Farm has vegetables and fruit (including imports in the winter), WOW Foods has organic main dishes, spelt breads, and sweets, Sosnicki Farms has potatoes, cabbage, cabbage rolls, perogies, and salads; Puiu Ilisei has honey and beeswax products, Scott Phillips has rainbow trout, Angelos Kapeleris has olive oil, olives, and cheese from his organic farm in Greece, plus heritage vegetables from his organic farm here; Molly B has jams and chutneys, Birds and Beans has organic fair trade coffee, Camros Foods has Persian-inspired salads made with grains and beans, and Oh Soy has soy-based cakes, cookies and fine pastries. Also there is park oven bread and foccacia, sold out of the rink snack bar. Occasional vendors in the winter are: Colette Murphy, herbal teas and ointments; Forbes Wild Foods; and Kate Williamson for organic dog treats. If you want to be on the weekly "market news" e-mail list, send your e-mail address to dufferinpark@dufferinpark.ca and you'll be put on.

On the first Thursday of every month, craft vendors are squeezed into the market as well, plus on the two additional Thursdays in December, if you want to buy locally-made presents for your gift list.

Thursday December 18: first-ever outdoor Christmas market:

3.30 to 7, along the front of the rink house, with a campfire, hot cider, and all the local craftspeople we can muster. We'll even accept good second-hand things - got an old train set, a pretty doll, a chess set, a good puzzle with all the pieces, a nice vase, a fondue pot you rarely use? There are no fees for tables for outside vendors. Tell your craftsy friends: they're welcome to come and sell - they can call and book a space at 416 392-0913.


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