By Dan White – Special to the Sydenham Current
Last week Joni and I travelled to four sites that my youngest son Jacob is working on, in and around Sarnia.
Jacob does “hardscaping”, which he informs us is the fancy term for interlocking stone work.
What he does and from designing to building the projects is truly an art.
Jake and a buddy own Bluewater Stone in Sarnia and I offered to do drone footage for them and put together some promotional videos.
My drone is a small one by DJI, the Mavic Mini 2.
I have been working on developing my skills both as a drone pilot (I even got my drone operator’s license this spring) and as a videographer and there is nothing more rewarding than assisting your offspring.
Jacob turned 30 this past week and so this is my opportunity to publicly wish my youngest a Very Happy 30th Birthday.
I have previously used my drone for bits of our Wallaceburg Brass Quintet videos and our next one will feature a great deal of drone footage showing off the Wallaceburg waterways while the quintet plays.
There will, of course, be the usual amount of silliness as we film.
Some day I would love to film a golf course… what’s a good song for our quintet to play there?
Colonel Bogey comes to mind.
Any suggestions?
Recently a significant new project was announced in Chatham.
I’m quite sure everyone has heard about it by now: a Community Hub and Entertainment Complex is being proposed in downtown Chatham.
I won’t regurgitate the details that are readily available without much effort but I did want to write about a couple of things.
I have heard several invested people (politicians and business people alike) trumpet how great this hub is for all of CK.
Now, I am not from CK, but an announcement like that really helps me to understand the anti-Chatham sentiment I hear in many of the smaller communities across CK.
A hub in Chatham is not: convenient for anyone not in Chatham, as accessible as it is to residents of Chatham, or inviting patrons to businesses anyplace but in downtown Chatham.
Yet that is the tag line that is used.
I have read about the investors and looked at the artists rendering and I can see why it could be exciting for Chatham.
But it is not great for the entire municipality.
A significant issue for me personally is that the Kiwanis Theatre is not mentioned in any of the planning, in fact the new chairs that were ordered for that small, intimate venue in 2020 (the same time as Theatre Sarnia ordered new chairs, coincidentally) have been delayed until a few months ago when the order was cancelled.
(For those who are curious, Theatre Sarnia has had the new chairs installed in the Imperial Theatre for close to a year now.)
The fact that plans are being made to move other occupants of the Cultural Center into this new Hub without mention of the theatre leads me to believe there is not a plan to sustain one of the few small theatres in this community.
We have already lost the ability to perform live theatre in the Jeanne Gordon Theatre here in Wallaceburg.
In fact, the Wallaceburg Museum now refers to it as the Jeanne Gordon Hall on their website.
Joni and I worked with Dave Babbitt and Karen Debergh to mount what turned out to be the final live theatre performance on that stage.
It was a lovely little venue and we would have been thrilled to help revitalize theatre in town.
With the loss of that space, we became involved with Theatre Kent in Chatham.
It is concerning that the only small performance venue in that city may now be shuttered.
Perhaps I am wrong and there is a plan.
I hope so.
The point here is that there needs to be advocacy for the arts leading up to the municipal election.
Watch in this space for information on how people who see the value of arts in their community can get involved and reach out to those who hope to represent them as we approach the fall election.
I know the Chatham Kent Arts and Culture Network is planning arts advocacy and you can follow those plans on the website or Facebook.
Now, let’s double back to that “Chatham gets everything” sentiment in Kent County.
The Municipal Council has 17 councillors and only six of them represent Chatham.
Basic math and an election year should tell us that Council can be persuaded to represent the interests of the entire region.
If every community around Chatham contacted their councillor and let them know that they wanted money and investment spread across the county, local politicians hoping to have a seat on October 25th would be inclined to listen and collaborate with other small community politicians.
Municipal politics are the last vestige of true representation and I do believe most local politicians want to serve the community in which they live.
As we prepare for this election, we can either become informed and organized to ensure that our voices are heard, supporting those running for council that show a tendency to listen, or we can stand on a street corner waving a flag and screaming “freedom”.
As you read this, we are coming up to Canada day – Happy Canada Day.
