Across the Nation
Reports from the Regions
BC Banter
Ab/Sk Action
Manitoba Moments
Ontario Offerings
Quebec Quotes
Maritime Memories
BC Banter ….
- Linda Stewart-Quesnel
Hello Everyone,
Wow! What an exciting time in
Ottawa! I was so proud to see that all our BC Executive members were in
attendance - Bev Campbell, Lee Naylor, Murray Doull and myself. I know there
will be plenty of reports on the Ottawa Convention and the Memorial Wall
unveiling so I won’t go into details here. However, we do want to say “Job well
done, everybody!” The BC Region would like to extend our most heartfelt
appreciation to everyone involved in the success of the Convention.
Our Vancouver Annual Spring Luncheon was held on June 27th and we were honoured to have four HK veterans and four widows attending. The HK Vets were Gerry Gerrard with wife Ev, John Lowe with his wife Florence, Bill Doull and wife Claire, and Jan Solecki and his companion Olga. The widows in attendance were: Pearl MacPherson, Loretta Baty, Eileen Cambon and June Naylor. They were surrounded by family and many HKVCA members. Again this year, we had Adrienne Alford-Burt (District Director for the Vancouver Regional Office of Veterans Affairs Canada), who addressed us. Lee Naylor, our BC Education Chair, gave a video presentation after lunch.
Murray Doull has this report:
On
September 5, 2009, Lee Naylor and I were privileged to represent the HKVCA at a
65th Anniversary Celebration honouring all Canadian veterans. The
event took place at the George Derby Centre in Burnaby BC. The Centre is an
amazing care facility for Canadian veterans located in a quiet area in the city.
Here is a picture of Murray and Lee in front of our display at the George Derby Centre.
The event took place amidst displays of all types of military memorabilia, everything that a soldier, sailor, airmen or airwomen wore, used or operated. There were over a dozen military vehicles including a full size replica First World War bi-plane courtesy of the Canadian Museum of Flight. Lee and I set up our Region’s extensive display complete with audio and video components.
Lee and I met at 8:30am to set up the display and the activities officially started at 11:00am with a Service of Remembrance at the George Derby Centre Cenotaph. The official opening ceremony immediately followed the service. Amongst the dignitaries who took part was Mrs. Anne Bason who tragically lost her son two years ago in Afghanistan.
After the ceremonies were completed, the displays opened and a barbeque lunch was served. There were military musical performances throughout the afternoon until things started winding down around 4:00pm.
Lee and I had the opportunity to talk to many people and hundreds viewed our display asking many questions. We were surprised how knowledgeable many were about the story of ‘C’ Force, particularly the veterans in attendance.
Lee is to be congratulated for the tremendous work he is doing as the BC Education Chair. Lee has enhanced the incredible educational display that Linda Stewart made a couple of years ago and works very hard making contacts and exploring avenues to promote the story of ‘C’ Force and raise funds for the Memorial Wall. We have a great team in BC with Linda, Bev and Lee and many more hard working members and I am proud to be a part of it.
Here
is a photo of attendees at the George Derby Centre waiting for their BBQ lunch.
Please take note of the “Honouring our Veterans” banner.
As I promised, there is a new name at the end of my report. Ron and I had a 21-day honeymoon, which included the unveiling of the Memorial Wall, of course. We visited with Ron’s family in various locations in Ontario and spent time with mine in Manitoba. Our driving trip across Canada was amazing. We kept saying to each other, “Look at that” when we saw more fantastic scenery around every turn. Through each province, BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario – we just kept saying “Look at that” over and over again. Just outside of Thunder Bay, we stopped to visit the Terry Fox Memorial and we again said “Look at that” and added, “What a great Canadian”.
It got me thinking, now that the Hong Kong Veterans of Canada have their Memorial Wall, I know for a fact that many visitors from across Canada and from the far corners of the world will be visiting the site and saying, “Look at that – What great Canadians”.Please take very good care of each other. May God bless you and keep you, until we meet again.
Warmest regards,
Linda Stewart-Quesnel – submitted on behalf of Murray Doull, Bev Campbell and Lee Naylor
Ab/Sask Action...
I am happy to report that we had several people from the Alberta/Sask Region who made the trip to Ottawa for the Convention and Dedication of the Wall. There were 4 Veterans, John McGee, Ralph Maclean, Doug Rees and John Deardon. Way to go guys. I know the rest would have loved to be there. I meet Mary Macauley from Saskatoon and Leona Kashton from Edmonton for the first time in Ottawa. Isabel Saunders and Leona Michalkow were also there, however I never did find them in the crowds. We were able to visit with family members and Veterans from across Canada. What a weekend! The Wall is so beautiful. A BIG thank you goes out to Carol Hadley and her committee for all the work they did to get the Wall ready for August 15th. I am sure the challenges were great; however, the result was outstanding. Also thank you to convention committee for all the work they did to get ready for the weekend.
We have been contacted by the Military Museums here in Calgary to provide information for a 12 x 20’ Mural Mosaic. The Mural was recently unveiled and the development of the interactive displays is well underway. I have been speaking to a Volunteer who is preparing the historic narrative for the digital displays. You can see this mural by going to the Calgary Military Museums website. Look for the Title “Heroes” Veterans of Canada. Our panel is #93(there are 240 panels) and it is still untitled. They interviewed one of our Veterans, Gordon Durrant, last summer and are hoping to speak with more this fall. This is a great way to have the story of Hong Kong told. We may be asking for your pictures and stories to put into the digital display. Please go online and have look at it.
We have a luncheon planned here for September 12. We are going to share our experiences and pictures from Ottawa. We are hoping to see lots of our members and of course our Veterans that day.
Thank you again to all of the devoted members who worked on the Convention and Dedication.
Norma Fuchs,
Secretary AB/SK Region.
Manitoba Moments ….
Hello one and all
Just a few lines to let you know you are thought of often. To those of you who were not able to attend the Convention you were with us in our hearts. It was an experience to remember, to be able to honour the HK Veterans the way they should be honoured. It was great seeing so many familiar faces and so many good friends.
The Memorial Committee did a Great Job on getting the Monument done for the Convention. Carol Hadley had many road blocks put in front of her but was determined to work with the Committee in achieving this goal. The Convention Committee did a wonderful job of making every thing run smooth. Ron McGuire had the memorabilia and as per usual did a fantastic job. THANKS TO ALL OF YOU.
Manitoba Region had VJ Day on August 23 with 66 people in attendance. Thank you to Bonnie Wiebe, Linda Sloan, Eleanor Myschuk, Cliff Friesen,and David Fehr for all your help on VJ Day. Thanks to the Colour party (Vince & Stan Lopata & Alex Taylor) for the great job you always do.
We will be attending Bardals Funeral Home on September 20 for a dedication to the Hong Kong Veterans.
September 19th is the ladies Tea and Tidbits and it is a great time for the ladies to get together.
Oct 24 is the Manitoba Branch HK Reunion Dinner in Winnipeg and we would love to see many of you attend.
Please remember to renew your memberships. Take care in the mean time, remember we are a family brought together by our fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins, etc help keep their memory alive by becoming part of the HKVCA.
Regional Director MB Juliet Lafortune
Ontario Offerings….
Our Regional Director, Mike Babin reports: On Saturday, August 8 a wonderful event took place at the Toronto Centre for the Arts: the "Let There Be Peace on Earth" concert.
The Hong Kong Children’s Symphony Orchestra – 66 young people aged 10 to 16 – performed this benefit concert to raise funds for the HKVCA and the Memorial Wall. These children (or their parents!) paid for their own travel from Hong Kong to Toronto! An audience of over 800 people heard an absolutely fantastic performance of classical music, highlighted by two solo violin performances and a piano solo, which were simply superb. The level of musicianship of the orchestra was very high, as was their maturity and professionalism.
The MC for the evening was a well-known Toronto TV and radio personality, Peter Silverman. Peter knows the Hong Kong story well and was a good friend of the late John Stroud.
The orchestra then travelled to Ottawa to perform at the unveiling of the Memorial Wall, and later the same day a concert at the Canadian War Museum for over 350 people.
We were able to sign up a number of corporate sponsors to defray the costs involved, and the net benefit to the HKVCA was $20,000! This is money that will help complete the Memorial Wall project.
We worked very closely with Toronto’s Chinese-heritage community to make this event happen. Many Canadians of Chinese descent are not aware that Canada sent troops to Hong Kong in 1941 to help defend it. When they hear the story, they realize that perhaps their fathers or grandfathers fought alongside Canadians in that fateful battle, and want to learn more. All of our members should approach the Chinese-heritage residents of their cities and towns to make this connection.
In addition to the $20,000, we received a great deal of publicity for this event, which is helping us in our mandate of educating Canadians about the Battle of Hong Kong.
Caption:
Veterans George MacDonell and Alfred Babin, along with Senator Vivienne Poy,
accept cheque at Toronto concert (subsequently increased to $20,000!).
Our Area Reps do a great job of keeping in touch with our Veterans, widows and other members in their geographic areas. We’ve divided the province into six areas. In three of the areas we have new Area Reps: West Central (Gordon Coyne); GTA (Bud Mann); and Southwest (Marilyn Morgan). We welcome these new reps, and thank the former reps, Leon Sokalski and Barbara Cunningham-Drew, for their excellent work over the last several years.
The reps in the other areas are: North (Jackie LeDrew), North East (Ron McGuire); and Central & Southeast (Maureen Dwyer-Kline). Thanks to these folks as well for their continuing interest and work on behalf of our members!
Gordon Coyne, our new Area Rep for West Central Ontario reports: Veteran Ken Pifher living in Grimsby, Ontario attended the Ottawa Convention and Memorial Wall Unveiling & Dedication accompanied by his daughter Mrs Pam Newhouse. Ken is enjoying good health and remains quite active; his main hobby is woodworking.
Veteran Gerry "Sunny" Sunstrum lives in Niagara Falls, Ontario. He remains quite active at age 92, and has no serious health problems. He has a regular lunch group that meets at Tim Horton’s every day and uses a walking trail in a nearby park, as well as a treadmill, for daily exercise. For many years he says he was a "golf addict".
Widow Agnes Fehr has just sold her house and moved into the Niagara Retirement Manor in St Catharines, Ontario. She is very appreciative of the effort made by the HKVCA to stay in touch.
Esther Geraghty lives with her daughter and family in Burlington, Ontario. A grandson recently joined the PPCLI and is readying for basic training. Through a combination of two knee replacements and a walker, Esther remains quite active.
Widow Irene Grimshaw lives with her daughter in Hamilton, Ontario, following many years living in Quebec her granddaughter. Melissa who lives in Kitchener, has developed a keen interest in the story of Canada’s "C" Force, and is doing a lot of research.
From Jackie Le Drew, our Northern Ontario Area Rep: Last month's HKVA convention that was held in Ottawa was the first convention I have had a chance to attend. I was amazed at the organizing and volunteering done throughout the weekend. Thanks to all the vets who took the time to talk and share. It was very well planned and of course the unveiling of the Wall ceremony was very emotional. I was proud of the veterans who were able to be a part of history and hope they felt the gratitude of those who attended.
A wall bearing their names hardly seems thanks enough for what they had and have gone through. My father Augustin Cyr, along with my uncles Wilmer Cyr, Clement Cyr and Leo Cyr have their names inscribed on the wall, so for me it was a chance to represent them and remember them for their sacrifice. Congratulations to all the HKVCA members for their tireless work and for the vision of what this wall would do for the veterans and their families. It truly was an inspiring ceremony and one that will live on in our memories forever. God bless our veterans who are still with us.
That's all the news from the Ontario region.
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Quebec Quotes ….
Greetings from the Quebec Region,
Time sure runs by us at full speed. It seems that just a little while ago we were welcoming summer, and then came the Ottawa Convention and now we are presently thinking of the fall season.
At this time the talk is about the Memorial Wall Unveiling and Dedication and Convention, which took place a few weeks ago in Ottawa. This was a great event thanks to all who worked to make the Memorial Wall happen and to all who made the Convention possible.
Saturday’s event was the highlight of the weekend. The weather was very warm but fantastic for the occasion. Our Veterans, Dignitaries, Widows, and Family members as well as many Friends of our Hong Kong family were present for the Unveiling and Dedication. It was a nice, very emotional ceremony for our Vets and all. The Wall, with all the names of our veterans, will be there for a long time to help us all remember the ultimate sacrifices these men and women made for the freedom that we enjoy here today. WE WILL REMEMBER THEM!
On a lighter side, it was a great weekend to meet old friends and make new ones. There were the usual business meetings, presentations and of course the Memorabilia exhibits with book and product sales.
Back home, business is back to usual with the planning of our next executive meeting and upcoming activities. Since the convention we have received many notes and letters from the younger generation asking for info about certain veterans and about the HKVCA in general. It is nice to see that the media coverage of the Memorial Wall created such a great interest.
That will be it for this time, take care and hope to meet you all again for the next Convention. Again a great “Thank You” to all who worked to make the Memorial Wall happen and make the Convention possible.
Lucette Mailloux Muir, QC Regional Director
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Maritime Memories…
Editor: no Atlantic report at this time – but all our members wish to extend sincere condolences to Bernard LeBlanc, Treasurer of Atlantic Region on the passing of his mother.