MALCOLM GLADWELL

Malcom Gladwell, an Elmira native, is a staff writer at The New Yorker and best-selling author of The Tipping Point, Outliers, Blink and What the Dog Saw. Martin, who grew up in Wallenstein, is now dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and author of three books of his own. He’s also been named one of the 10 most influential business people in the world. Both men seemed to check their rightfully earned egos at the door, however, preferring to chat with the captive audience like the boys next door that they once were.

The talk was part conversation, part Q and A, part free-association session following a buffet dinner to raise money for the Woolwich Counselling Centre, the organization which Gladwell’s mother helped to found, serving as its first executive director.

After an enlightening introduction by their mothers, the featured presenters, who both once attended Elmira District Secondary School, took to the stage to discuss everything from the ethics of football, the Canada vs. USA final Olympic hockey game (which Gladwell sheepishly admitted to missing), and more weighty topics such as the economic crisis and Canada’s role in the current war.

“I enjoyed it tremendously but then I am a bit biased,” said Joyce with a laugh. “I found it very interesting to see the way that Malcolm and Roger interacted. They were allowing each other, stimulating each other, engaging each other and enabling each other to come up with their thoughts. It wasn’t just the ideas that you were listening to, but instead, observing a relationship.”

Mary Wilhelm, executive director of the Woolwich Counselling Centre, said the homecoming raised about $30,000 for the agency, much of which will be used for preventive programs in local schools.

Neither Gladwell nor Martin were paid to come and speak, but simply received a warm welcome home.

The students had five hours to build a small functional landscape following drawings and using pavers, wall stone and plants before being judged by industry professionals. The competition is a partnership between the Waterloo Region chapter of Landscape Ontario and the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program.

Charlie Malson of Waterloo-Oxford District Secondary School checks the placement of some wall stone during a regional landscaping competition held at Elmira Farm Service Tuesday.

Woolwich played host to a number of budding landscape horticulturists on Tuesday, as St. Jacobs Country Gardens welcomed Grade 9 and 11 students from Glenview Park and Waterloo Oxford Secondary School for workshops and a tour.

The students completed workshops on landscape design, softscape and hardscape before heading to Elmira to see the results of the competition.

Rob Tester, who sits on the board of directors for Landscape Ontario Waterloo Region, has been involved in the education side for a number of years. Ten years ago, there was just one horticulture class in Waterloo Region. Now three or four schools offer the program, and their classes are full.
This is the first year that the high school horticulture competition will be held at the national level, albeit as a demonstration. The winners of the provincial competition in May at RIM Park will advance to the nationals and showcase what the trade is all about.

Landscape horticulturist just became a Red Seal trade a year ago, meaning the trade is held to a standard of excellence that is recognized across the country. The national competition for high school students builds on that.

This is the second year the regional competition has been held at Elmira Farm Service.

“This is a way for them to see what they’ve learned,” Tester said.

All of the judges are industry professionals, so the students are not only being judged by people who know the business, but get exposure to potential employers.

“A lot of these kids will end up working for one of us here.”

“The horses are in the latter stages of their training now,” said Elmira detachment Sgt. Siegfried Peters. “They are expected to be deployed on the weekend of the Maple Syrup Festival if all goes according to plan.”

Two officers from the Waterloo Regional Police were in Elmira Mar. 10, prepping a pair of horses for regular duty. The new unit is set to be deployed at the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival Mar. 27.

The horses around town this past week are not officially on duty yet, as they’re still in training.
Experienced officers have been working with the horses in order to prepare them for everyday riding. The training for police horses takes about 16 weeks and is designed to ensure that the horse will not be spooked easily, build a bond of trust and respect between the horse and its rider, improve the horse’s tolerance to sensory obstacles and improve the horse’s show performance.

“The biggest challenge isn’t controlling the horse as it moves,” explained Const. Ron Derksen, who led the Niagara Regional Police Service when they recently deployed horses in their region. “It’s keeping the animal calm and obedient when directed to stop.”

Since the Waterloo Region pilot project was announced last year, there has been some controversy about the need for such measures in this area, especially given the cost.

“With our heritage in the region, with our Mennonite background, it’s really what we should be doing in Waterloo Region,” said Insp. Steve Beckett, of Waterloo Regional Police in a statement at the time of the launch.

The price tag associated with adding horses to a police force includes the cost of a horse trailer, riding equipment and boarding fees at a stable near police headquarters. Cost of setting up the two-horse program was set at $40,000. Early estimates predicted the horses would cost $20,000 a year to maintain.

Todd Leuty, agroforestry specialist for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, said he heard reports of small sap flows Feb. 20 and 21 before a winter air mass moved in and dumped several inches of snow on Waterloo Region.

Kitchener-Conestoga MPP Leeanna Pendergast and Woolwich Mayor Bill Strauss tap a maple tree under the watchful eye of Albert Martin on Feb. 26. This year’s tree tapping ceremony – held at George Martin’s farm on Apple Grove Road – produced no sap, but warm weather this weekend should see plenty of the sweet stuff in advance of the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival Mar. 27.

Most producers don’t bother tapping for warm spells in January and February, preferring to wait until the bigger runs in March and early April. Taps have a lifespan of five or six weeks, so syrup producers try to time their tapping to get the best flows.

Producers are hoping for another season like last year, which saw record sap flows. Syrup production in Canada increased to 9.1 million gallons in 2009 from 4.9 million gallons in 2008. In Ontario, production increased to 417,000 gallons from 262,000 in 2008.

However, last year’s bumper crop wasn’t enough to build up syrup supplies after poor seasons in 2007 and 2008, while demand was higher than ever.

“Everyone’s hoping for a good year,” Leuty said. “If we can draw out the kind of weather we’re having this week, if we can have that for the whole month of March and even early April, that would be perfect.”

There are about 2,600 maple syrup producers in Ontario, with Waterloo-Wellington and Lanark County in eastern Ontario being the highest-production regions. Ontario’s production, however, is a fraction of Canada’s output as a whole; Quebec boils up 91 per cent of Canadian maple syrup.

In addition to keeping an eye on the thermometer, syrup producers are also monitoring their woodlots for signs of the Asian long-horned beetle. The invasive insect, native to China, Korea and Japan, attacks and kills broadleaf trees like maple, elm and willow.

“It has a number of other hosts, but it prefers sugar maples,” Leuty explained.

The larvae of the Asian long-horned beetle feed on the trunk and limbs of the tree and can kill healthy trees in a season or two. If the beetle were to spread, it could lay waste to the maple syrup industry.

The beetle was found in Toronto and Vaughan in 2003 and was contained by destroying infected trees and all susceptible trees within a 400-metre radius. Now producers are keeping a watchful eye on an outbreak in Massachusetts, where officials have removed 26,000 trees and are monitoring a 75-square-mile area.

“Everyone knows the beetle doesn’t respect borders, so if it gets out of hand there, it can move,” Leuty said.

Over the longer term, producers are also trying to gauge what impact climate change might have on maple syrup. Climate change could mean warming and a shift north; it could also mean more erratic and extreme weather patterns.

Information sessions and workshops on maple syrup almost always include a speaker on climate change, but at this point it’s largely guesswork, Leuty said.

“We’ll have a few bad years for syrup production and everyone starts looking at climate change, and then there are a few good years and everyone forgets,” he said.

And when it comes to what type of season 2010 will be, producers all have the same response: “Ask me in May.”

“It’s really too bad that our events are the same weekend,” said Martin. “The daffodil team in New Hamburg, a town of similar size to Elmira, sold more than three times what we did last year. It just seems like everyone is already volunteering somewhere here that weekend.”

Watch for Susan Martin, daffodils in hand, around town this month as she helps raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society. The daffodil sale is one of the organization's most visible campaigns.

This will be the sixth year that Martin has chaired the campaign; she got started when a friend from the Elmira Curling Club and staff member at the cancer society asked her if she wouldn’t mind helping out for one evening and delivering some daffodils.

“And then I was the chairperson!” Martin said with a laugh. “I got involved just a little bit and it grew from there.”

But Martin was no stranger to the society when she became chairperson: she had been involved with their fundraisers and services on both a professional and personal level. Both Martin’s father and grandfather died of cancer; the 15th anniversary of her father’s passing from pancreatic cancer was just last week.

“It seems as though there is no avoiding it – it is in my family,” she said. “I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been affected by cancer in some way.”

Several years ago, Martin, a retired teacher from the Waterloo Catholic District School Board, had been chairperson for the Great Ride ’n’ Stride fundraising event.

Because of her personal experience, Martin is very familiar with the costs associated with treating the disease. The support systems provided today courtesy of fundraising campaigns are much more thorough than when her father was in treatment, she explained.

“I think when my dad had cancer, we weren’t even aware that those kinds of services were available through the cancer society, if they were at all. It’s good to make sure people know that there are support services available for victims and their families.”

Since beginning her stint as a volunteer, she clearly sees the benefits that can be provided to patients.

“The society provides a whole range of services to people – things you don’t even really realize that you need until you need them,” she explained. “They provide funding for research, as well as things like drivers to take you to appointments. I have had friends with cancer, and I was the person driving them to their treatments. But there are a lot of people who don’t have anyone who can take them – it can get expensive if you don’t have support.”

So expensive that some are not able to access the many treatments and services available, a fact that fuels her enthusiasm to volunteer when she can. The cost of a clinical trial for one patient is equal to the profits from 10 boxes, or 500 bunches of daffodils sold.

Daffodils, said Martin, are the sign of hope that many cancer survivors can relate to.

“In the springtime, the flowers are out and everyone is so looking forward to so many things. It’s a new beginning, and the hope that we can conquer whatever it is we are facing.”

But before she can sit back and enjoy her own bouquet – and the feeling she gets from knowing that she, in a small way, has helped someone gain access to proper care – she needs a few more people to come out and help with the sale, Martin noted.

In addition to the annual sale to businesses which occurs every year in Elmira, volunteers are needed between Mar. 25 and 28 to work a two- or three-hour shift at one of the cancer society booths.

“I have exhausted my friends and acquaintances,” she laughed. “And I think volunteering that weekend is a lot of fun. I don’t think of it as a job. I get a chance to be creative and I meet all sorts of different people.”

People interested in volunteering their time, or purchasing flowers can contact Martin directly at 519-669-1351 or by e-mail at suedeanmartin@hotmail.com. Daffodils are sold for $7 per bunch or alternatively, you can purchase two bunches for $12.

The Kings clamped down on Listowel’s offence, allowing only 22 shots while firing 43 of their own. They also locked out the Cyclones on the power play, denying the visitors any goals on seven opportunities.

Head coach Geoff Haddaway praised an “outstanding effort” from his players, noting the win put them back on track after a 6-3 loss in Listowel on Tuesday.

“[The Cyclones] did what they were supposed to do the other night, and it was important that we come back to our barn and do what we’re supposed to do.”

On Tuesday, the Cyclones went ahead by two with a pair of goals early in the first period. Listowel added a third goal on the power play before the Kings got on the board late in the second frame with a power play goal of their own from Zach Salomon.

The Kings tied things up in the third period with goals from Brad Kraus and Riley Sonnenburg, but Listowel pressed back and reclaimed the lead with four minutes remaining. A minute later, they added an insurance goal and finally slid the puck into the empty net to cap the 6-3 win.
Back at home Wednesday, the playoff atmosphere was evident: the pace was faster, the hits were harder, and every play carried a little extra intensity.

The Kings quickly set the pace, scoring the first goal of the game four minutes in. Michael Therrien intercepted the puck and fed it to Sonnenburg, who pounded it into the net.

The Kings held on to that lead through the first period and added to it seven minutes into the second. Josh Woolley broke down the ice, trying for a shorthanded goal, and was taken down by a Listowel player, who was called for interference. Woolley was awarded a penalty shot, which he ripped past Listowel keeper James Prigione.

The Kings made it 3-0 at 12:29. Jon Jutzi fired a shot from the point, which bounced off Prigione’s pads. Woolley fired it back in again, and Kraus put that rebound away.

Brennon Pearce thought he had the Kings’ fourth goal midway through the third, but it was called back. Five minutes later, he again finagled the puck in the side of the net, and that one counted.

Elmira keeper Brandon Gorecki faced his toughest test in the second period, when the team killed off four penalties, and came up with some big saves to maintain the shutout. Throughout the game, the Kings did a solid job of shutting down Listowel’s shooting lanes and blocking shots. Gorecki faced only six shots in the first period and four in the final frame. On one power play, the Kings fired more shots on goal shorthanded than the Cyclones did with the man advantage.

The Kings were back in action Friday night in Listowel before returning home for Game 4 on Sunday. The Kings are hoping for a large – and loud – home crowd in the Dan Snyder Arena.

“If we could pack this place on Sunday, that would be great,” Haddaway said.

Game time Sunday is 7 p.m.

A pedestrian was struck and killed in Wellesley Township around 7:55 p.m. Feb. 25.

Samuel Martin, 34, was walking westbound along William Hastings Line near Manser Road when he was struck by an eastbound Ford pickup truck driven by a 39-year-old Wellesley man.

Emergency services responded, but the pedestrian was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police do not believe that speed or alcohol were factors in the collision. No charges have been laid, but police are still investigating.

Anyone with information on the collision is asked to contact the Traffic Services Branch at 519-650-8500, ext 8516 or ext. 8629.

The hundred or so who packed a meeting in Elmira Tuesday night left smiling when councillors quashed a report calling for the extension of water and sewer services into the older parts of the village. Outraged by forecasted costs of some $92,000 apiece, homeowners voiced their opinions in no uncertain terms.

Mathew Lisk, 8, provides some visual aids for his mother Krista's presentation to Woolwich council Tuesday evening. Like most of their neighbours in Breslau, they came to oppose plans for municipal services.

Tempers flared. Longstanding grievances about Breslau being ignored boiled over. People in the gallery cheered accusatory presentations from neighbours, at times heckling councillors. But all was forgiven when council voted unanimously to do nothing, pledging to put any plans aside unless residents themselves ask for it.

The report calling for full municipal services to replace private wells and septic systems flowed from an incident in the fall of 2007, when several shallow wells ran dry. Residents blamed the problem on construction of the new Empire Communities subdivision at the village’s south end, noting some additional grading work at the site solved the problem. The township, however, continues to maintain drought conditions were to blame, noting full services would eliminate a reoccurrence.

After the immediate crisis was dealt with, Woolwich began looking at servicing options. An initial estimate of $15,000 per household for water and $30,000 for water and sanitary sewers met with mixed reviews from residents. More recently, as costs grew, a survey of homeowners found 63 per cent opposed to the idea. Still, engineering staff recommended pushing ahead with the project, with costs to be passed on to residents.

When recent estimates put the total cost at more than $92,000, including $20,500 for the first 20 years of water and sewer charges, there was shock and anger, leading to the outcry seen Tuesday night.

“We feel abused, we feel violated – trust is shot. We can’t afford this, plain and simple,” said resident Deana Gloor, who accused the township of using the word “drought” to scare people.

Her comments were indicative of the tone taken by some 15 people who pleaded with council to drop its servicing plan.

Fellow resident Rudy Hane said it was “absurd” to force everyone in the older part of Breslau to pay for the installation of services because some people may need new wells or new septic systems in the future. As with many other residents, he blamed the dry wells on the Riverland subdivision, saying the expensive services would amount to existing residents subsidizing dry basements in the new subdivision.

He also dismissed the township’s rationale for installing services, calling the process and resultant report slanted in favour of its plan.

“To shove these things down our throat is absurd. I think you’re trying to shape the image to make it palatable to us. It’s not working,” he told councillors.

The frustration with the township was summed up by longtime resident Robert Slater: “When are you going to start looking out for us?” His comments drew tremendous applause.

Council certainly heard the message. Shortly after the public presentations, councillors indicated their support for the residents rather than the engineering report.

“I can’t imagine why we would ask these people to pay for this service if they don’t want it,” said Coun. Ruby Weber.

Her motion to drop the idea eventually won unanimous approval, though councillors were realistic enough to note the issue would one day return to the agenda. Coun. Murray Martin noted the township is likely to be criticized 20 years down the road for doing nothing today.

In the near term, residents will have to take ownership of any problems that occur now that they’ve asked the township to butt out, added Coun. Mark Bauman.

“If you run out of water, or you have bad water, it’s not Woolwich Township’s responsibility.”

“A lot of the guys around here are in construction and they laugh when they hear that song come on the radio,” he said with a smile.

Having worked with some of his musical idols, and scooped up a variety of awards doing it, Jason Barry has every reason to be happy with his current setup in St. Clements, one he would like to see continue.

When he is not singing about local furnishing companies, Barry spends his time mixing and producing records for some of the biggest names in Canadian country music. On Wednesday, for instance, Barry was heading into Fergus to play alongside Shane Yellowbird, whose current hit “Bare feet on the black top” is quickly climbing the country charts.

Barry’s career in music production started as a stroke of luck, he said, and it was a long road to get to where he is now. He was born deaf, and for the first six years of his life, he was believed to have had a learning disability. His mother didn’t want to accept that answer from the doctors and took him to see a hearing specialist who was able to restore his hearing with a few simple procedures.

“I remember that moment when I was first able to hear,” he explained. “Everything was so loud. I could hear the air going past my ears and the clock ticking on the wall.” A few years later, he picked up the guitar and followed the lead of his father, who was a fairly well-known guitar player at the time.

After a decade or so of playing recreationally, he was introduced by a friend to producer Rick Hutt. When Barry arrived at the studio, Hutt was just putting the finishing touches on a song that Tom Cochrane had recorded in the studio that day. Instead of a cursory visit, Barry was pressed into service.

“He said to me, ‘You’re a guitar player, can you help me with something? Everyone else has gone home already.’”

Barry ended up playing one part of the song that hadn’t recorded properly. Before he left the studio, Hutt asked him if he could come back the next day, and then the next. From that point, Barry continued to return to the studio as a guitar player, then as a backup singer and then as a producer himself.

Since then he has been presented with a plethora of Canadian Country Music Awards, including ones for studio of the year in 2009, producer of the year four times and guitar player of the year for 13 years running.

Although Barry has been in the business for almost 20 years, he still gets some nervous butterflies upon meeting some of his own idols.

“When I started, Charlie Major was one of the big acts of the time,” Barry noted. “I remember watching him on TV and thinking, ‘Wow, wouldn’t it be cool to play those songs?’ Getting the chance to actually play on his record felt like winning the lottery for me.”

Barry grew up in the rural community of Derby Junction in New Brunswick before moving to this area to marry his wife Melissa – he’s no stranger to small-town life. The area is, however, sometimes a bit of a change of pace for performers who come out this way from Nashville.

“Charlie Major and Terri Clark both came here and they loved this place. Everyone who comes here falls in love with the town,” Barry says of the musicians who have come to visit his home. “People who live in big cities just get used to being solo and reclusive. It’s easy to get used to not looking at people and not saying hi to anybody. Here it is just the opposite; it’s like a vacation for them.”

Recently a neighbour of Barry’s complained about the noise coming from his garage, and Barry was forced to approach Wellesley council to request permission to use what is now a shed in his backyard as a rehearsal space for visiting musicians. The ‘noisemaker’ who drew the neighbours’ ire was Aaron Lines, a chart-topping Canadian country musician who was once named Male Artist of the Year at the Canadian Country Music Awards.

“That was a bit of a drag,” noted Barry.

But it seems as though the majority of community members aren’t annoyed by the music coming from the garage, but entertained, and some even come over to visit.

“A lot of people in the town here are country music fans. Some of the guys (Aaron Lines and fellow Canadian artist Yellowbird included) will come over here for a beer and a campfire and the neighbours will come by to say hello.”

If the township approves Barry’s request to continue using his garage as a practice space, he plans to play guitar here for many more years.

“It’s a lot of fun and I hope it never ends,” he said as he knocked on the wood paneling of his small practice room. “I have been very fortunate.”

The Elmira store is a branch of William Knell and Company, founded in Kitchener in 1906. Last year Knell’s consolidated its three Victoria Street locations into a new building on Shirley Drive, near Bingemans. Now the stock and employees from the Elmira store will be moving to the same location.

Dave Clutton, Brian Bishop and Rod Beer are some of the familiar faces at Knell's new Kitchener location (right).

General manager Robert Dippell emphasized that Knell’s will continue to serve customers in the Elmira area.
“The whole idea when we purchased this building was to be accessible to the region – Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge and even into Guelph. We are sort of in the centre of that triangle and Elmira is close enough that we can service it well out here.”

William Knell founded the company in 1906 to supply hardware, plumbing and heating supplies to the area. With the recession of the 1990s, Knell’s found itself squeezed out of the wholesale hardware sector by the growth of big box stores like Home Hardware and Rona. The Elmira location opened in the late 1990s as Knell’s refocused on door installation and design and distribution of industrial supply products to manufacturers and contractors.

Dippell explained that while the store gets some customers off the street, the bulk of Knell’s business is commercial. With those customers now accessible by phone, fax, e-mail and courier, the Elmira distribution point became less essential than it was in the past.

“When we consolidated all our Kitchener locations, we fixed a lot of distribution problems that we’d had. … I think it’s unfortunate that the branch had to be closed, but I believe that we can better service our customers from this facility.”

Elmira BIA chair Krista McBay lamented the loss of another business downtown and expressed hope that the owners will find a new tenant quickly.

Prior to Knell’s arrival in Elmira, that location had been home to a Canadian Tire store.

“I hope they find something soon and I hope it’s a merchant. We can’t have another professional business downtown. We need as much traffic in the downtown merchant-wise as we can muster, something to pull more people downtown.”

McBay would like to see the township doing more to attract businesses to Elmira’s core, perhaps some sort of tax rebate.

“I don’t see them offering anything like that. The taxes just keep going up; they don’t seem to be focused on downtown,” she said. “Right now there are so many roadblocks to new businesses moving in.”

The store closed Monday, but Knell’s won’t be fully moved out of Elmira until mid-March.

The Knell’s building in Elmira is owned by the great-grandson of Knell’s founder William Knell. The company will be looking for a new tenant in the near future, Dippell said, but there are no plans in place yet.