Morning Coffee – By Aaron Hall

Weather forecast for Monday, March 5, 2018

Today – Sunny. Wind northeast 20 km/h. High plus 2. UV index 3 or moderate.

Tonight – Clear. Increasing cloudiness after midnight then a few flurries. Wind east 20 km/h. Low minus 3.

International Plowing Match & Rural Expo coordinator hired

Organizers of the 2018 International Plowing Match and Rural Expo (IPM 2018) and the Ontario Plowmen’s Association (OPA) are pleased to announce that Allison Terfloth has been hired as coordinator of the event.

IPM 2018, to be held in Pain Court September 18-22, is expected to draw many thousands of visitors from across Ontario and beyond.

Event committee co-chairs Leon Leclair and Darrin Canniff say Terfloth will assist the volunteer committees already working on the project to meet their objectives. She has an extensive background in administration and management in the entertainment industry, both in Canada and the United States. The Chatham-Kent native speaks French and English, and is a resident of Pain Court.

She will begin her duties immediately.

Darrin Canniff says Terfloth certainly has her work cut out for her.

“A conservative estimate puts the expected attendance at 80,000 people,” says Canniff.

“But given the history of previous IPM matches, including the one held in Chatham-Kent in 1979, I’m optimistic that this year’s event will attract many, many more people than that. It’s a huge undertaking! We’re basically creating a city for a five-day event ̶ and Allison Terfloth will play a key role in its success.”

IPM 2018 will include plowing competitions and a 100-acre Tented City featuring displays of life in Chatham Kent, exhibitors’ products, agricultural education displays, and entertainment. An RV Park will provide approximately one thousand sites for the motorhomes for visitors from far and wide.

Terfloth said she is looking forward to the challenge.

“I know how much this event means to the community,” she says.

“Darrin and Leon have assembled a great team and I’m excited to be able to work with all the various committees, communities, businesses, and the many hundreds of volunteers. I can’t wait for September!”

The International Plowing Match and Rural Expo is hosted in a different part of Ontario each year. Information about the 2018 Chatham-Kent event can be found on its website at www.plowingmatch.org/ipm2018 on Facebook at
www.facebook.com/IPM2018/

Here are the winners of the 90th annual Academy Awards

CKPL is hosting a Bad Art Event for Tweens

Leave your talent and good taste at home and join us at our Chatham Branch as we make some really ugly animal themed art on Friday, March 16 at 3 p.m.

Are you a tween who loves animals and is bad at making art?

This is the event for you!

We’ll provide the supplies, you provide the badness. Leave your inner critic at home and have fun creating something terrible.

Then you can show off your creation in our Bad Art Gallery Show for your chance to win our Trophy of Terribleness!

This is the perfect opportunity for you to win an art competition even if you lack artistic talent.

This is a tweens only event (grade 5+) and registration is required.

To register for the program, visit search.ckpl.ca and search Bad Art or call your local branch.

To find out more about programs and events at Chatham-Kent Public Library, visit www.ckpl.ca.

Ontario launches new strategy to end gender-based violence

Ontario is building on its commitment to create a province free from domestic and sexual violence by launching a new strategy that will help support survivors and end the cycle of violence.

Harinder Malhi, Minister of the Status of Women, was joined by Michael Coteau, Minister of Community and Social Services, and Yasir Naqvi, Attorney General in Toronto recently to launch It’s Never Okay: Ontario’s Gender-Based Violence Strategy.

This comprehensive new strategy will help survivors and families get the support they need, when they need it, as well as help to prevent violence by intervening early.

“Ontario has made significant progress toward ending gender-based violence — awareness is higher than ever, perspectives are changing, and more people are coming forward for support and services,” stated Malhi in a press release.

“That’s why we’re launching It’s Never Okay: Ontario’s Gender-based Violence Strategy, to guide our work toward a province where everyone is safe.”

The strategy will focus on four key areas:

– Improving services and supports for survivors, families and communities. Support services like counselling will be expanded, as well as access to emergency shelters, transitional housing and Indigenous shelters and healing lodges.

– Intervening early and effectively to help youth who have seen or experienced violence by providing consistent and flexible supports for children who find themselves in shelters and greatly reducing the waitlist for the Child Witness program.

– Changing attitudes and norms through public education, along with training for service providers, communities and bystanders so they can recognize and respond to gender-based violence.

– Improving the justice system response by providing free legal advice to survivors of sexual assault. In addition, alternate justice options for survivors of gender-based violence that are trauma-informed and survivor-centred will be explored in partnership with the violence against women sector.

“We have listened to agencies and to people with real life experience who told us Ontario needs a consistent, comprehensive and sustained strategy to prevent violence against women and to support survivors,” Coteau stated.

“Across Ontario, this new strategy will help people get the supports they need to build a safer life for themselves and their children.””

It’s Never Okay: Ontario’s Gender-based Violence Strategy is an up to $242-million framework that will build on the government’s work in the Domestic Violence Action Plan, It’s Never Okay: An Action Plan to Stop Sexual Violence and Harassment, Walking Together: Ontario’s Long-Term Strategy to End Violence Against Indigenous Women and Ontario’s Strategy to End Human Trafficking

“Gender-based violence is heinous, completely unacceptable, and must be stopped,” stated Naqvi.

“But actions speak louder than words, and that’s why it’s so important we have an actionable and comprehensive strategy in place. Our plan not only includes vital services and supports that help survivors recover and heal, but it also works to ensure our justice system is more accessible to survivors and responsive to their unique needs.”

To help develop the strategy, the province held 15 engagement sessions and heard from more than 200 agencies that help people who have experienced gender-based violence, as well as people with lived experience and Indigenous partners.

Gender-based violence is any form of violence that is based on an individual’s gender, gender expression or gender identity and is intended to control, and harm the individual. Gender-based violence can affect anyone.

The majority of people affected by gender-based violence are women and children. Indigenous women, racialized women, new Canadians, women in rural and northern communities, transgender/gender non-conforming people, persons with disabilities, and sex trade workers are at even higher risk.

The award-winning multi-media public education campaign to prevent sexual violence and harassment titled #WhoWillYouHelp launched as part of It’s Never Okay: An Action Plan to Stop Sexual Violence and Harassment in 2015.