Vol. 6, Nr. 5 — In this issue:
EVENTS IN JUNE:
THE LITTLE FOLK FESTIVAL - SUNDAY JUNE 5 11 A.M. TO 6 PM.
From organizer Laura Repo: “Named The Little Folk Festival for
its size - one stage only - and in honour of the little people who
inhabit the park, this FREE festival is for folk of all sizes! The
festival features musical performers who are also parents , most of
whom consider the park a second home. These are the performers:
• laid back edgy pop from Georgie Donais and a band of family
members (Georgie is also in charge of the cob building project);
• the passion and offbeat sense of humour of singer-songwriter Arlene
Bishop;
• Blair Packham's "refreshingly unpopular pop";
• Max Metrault's Rancho Misterio - conjunto dance band music
from Texas & Northern Mexico;
• the exquisite harmony of Zari, a trio who specialize in music
from the Georgian Republic;
• the dark melodies and poetic lyrics of Mia Sheard;
• Leah Salomaa's traditional music for kids;
• Ravi Naimpally's tabla-led Tasa;
• and finally, the country-folk of Laura Repo and The Blue Healers.
The festival winds up with a community dinner, cooked in the
wood-burning oven. $5 for the main plate - bring your own plate /
cutlery or it’s $6). The music continues unplugged with traditional
Irish music played by Karen Light and friends - Karen is a
mother and grandmother in the neighbourhood and Laura Repo's aunt.
Weather note: In the event of EXTREME weather, the Festival will
relocate to The Gladstone Hotel (Queen at Gladstone) at the same day
and time. Kids are welcome and the sound will be kind to small ears.
The Dufferin bus can shuttle people back to the park afterwards for a
community dinner inside the rink house. Call the park if you‘re not
sure.
The Little Folk Festival got special support from volunteers, including
all the musicians; and the generous support of local businesses: Long
and McQuade, Front Door Organics, Goo Factory & Kwik Kopy Printing.
Remember the event is FREE but donations are very welcome-expect a hat
to be passed your way!”
COB COURTYARD BUILDING: STARTS SATURDAY JUNE 11
Toronto Public Health inspectors have told us to get proper sinks for
food preparation by the wading pool this coming summer or stop doing
the playground food cart. Georgie Donais is directing the
building of a little courtyard around the sinks, and continuing on from
there, to create an outdoor gathering-place. The courtyard walls will
be built with a sand-clay-straw mix known as "cob" or "monolithic
adobe", which is mixed by foot and applied by hand.
From Georgie: “The first stage of the project will provide a spot for
the washing station required by Public Health. As the wall extends, it
can be built to include arches, doorways, niches, shelves, benches, a
puppet window, sculptures and mosaics, small roofs, and a lavatory.
Native plantings will be incorporated around and within the courtyard.
The project will be planned in stages, starting with the washing
station, and extending further as time and resources allow.
This project aims to engage all users of the park, especially the
parents and children who make the south end of the park their summer
home. They will be the main users of the structure once it is built,
and can make sizable contributions to its creation. Adults and children
of all ages will be welcomed and encouraged to participate in building.
For children who have less interest in participating than their
caregivers, there will be some supervised play while the adults build.”
Foundation work starts Saturday June 11.
CITY COUNCILLOR ADAM GIAMBRONE’S Parkfest: Saturday June 18. The
councillor’s staff were not sure of the time or other details at the
time of the newsletter printing. For more information call their office
at 416 392-7012.
NO ONE IS ILLEGAL COMMUNITY FAIR AND REFUGEE CAMP:
Saturday June 18th Noon - 8pm. From organizer Mac Scott: “Come
out and enjoy great music and food, and learn more about the struggle
for justice for immigrants and refugees in Toronto.”
CLAY AND PAPER THEATRE’S “DAY OF DELIGHT,” SUNDAY JUNE 19, 1-4pm.
From their web site: “A Festival of Love & Courtship is Clay &
Paper Theatre's newest celebratory performing arts festival. Each
spring, we put out a call for new submissions to be performed at the
festival and keep one or two as part of the festival's permanent
repertoire. The hope is to develop a ‘Toronto love cycle’ of new
Canadian works in honour of love and courtship.”
SECOND ANNUAL COOKING FIRE THEATRE FESTIVAL, JUNE 22 - 26.
Celebrating theatre, food and public space in the park. From the
organizers: “Five innovative theatre companies from Montreal, Ottawa
and Toronto. Every evening, a guide will lead the audience throughout
the park for performances that incorporate clowning, puppetry, physical
theatre, storytelling, and song. Delicious food served at the cooking
fire and the park ovens. Pay-what-you-can.
SCHEDULE: 5:30 PM: Dinner outside by the oven. (Pay what you can
also)
6:30 ~ Number Eleven Theatre (Toronto) ~ "The Stolen Child":
Created and performed by Number Eleven in collaboration with 15
children from Toronto's West End. This site-specific premiere is based
on the recurring mythological theme of child abduction by fairies.
7:00 ~ Stranger Theatre (Toronto) ~ "The World Turned Upside
Down" In 1649, the revolutionary English Diggers took over common land
held by wealthy landowners in order to build cottages and grow food.
Using their original songs and manifestos, this entertaining premiere
by Stranger Theatre will tell the tale of their heroic rise and
eventual downfall.
7:30 ~ A Company of Fools (Ottawa) ~ "Shakespeare's Interactive
Circus" Rap, improvisation, fine physical acting and other theatre
traditions blend together for an exhilarating, irreverent romp through
a number of Shakespeare's plays. Company of Fools recreate the
atmosphere of the Globe Theatre and interact with the audience in a
high-energy, fast-paced performance.
8:00 PM: Break
Organic desserts from the wood fired bake ovens.
8:30 ~ Le Petit Théâtre de l'Absolu (Montreal) ~ "Birds of the
Coming Storm"
Drawing inspiration from the Chicago Haymarket Riot of 1886, the
members of Le Petit Théâtre de l'Absolu will sketch out tragic
histories of rebellion against the status quo. From intimate toy
theatre to outdoor spectacle, they rely on the old techniques of
puppetry to engage with the contemporary moment, to lambaste the
powerful, and to remember the forgotten.
9:00 ~ red red rose (Toronto) ~ "Joan"
Joan is an eclectic and curious retelling of the story of Joan of Arc,
using puppets, song and "a hell of a lot of gusto" (eye weekly). While
the audience will witness high drama, wild creatures and a burning at
the stake, Joan is essentially about storytelling: the relationship
between the story and the teller, and the impact stories have on our
lives.”
ADDED EXTRAS: A Company of Fools, who have been performing
Shakespeare on the streets of Ottawa for the last fifteen years, will
be presenting the premiere of their new show, an all ages
adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew, on Thursday, June 23 at 1:00
and on Sunday, June 26 at 2:30. Both shows are pay what
you can. The show will open in Ottawa the week after The Cooking Fire
Festival.
On Friday, June 24, there will be a performance by Cuban
Salsa band Poquito Grande, beginning at 5:30 and going
through dinner. More information in other parts of this web site.
FOOD IN THE PARK
Food cart - Weekends in June when the weather’s nice, at the
playground. This year we’ll have more varied kinds of brunch/lunch
foods, using ingredients from the farmers’ market and the park gardens,
cooked in the park ovens.
Saturday morning baking: from the park bakers: “the bread cart
will be selling fresh park oven breads and breakfast pastries from 10
a.m. Saturdays, and will feature organic baguettes, brioche, and during
June, strawberry-rhubarb-filled brioche buns.”
Friday Night Supper: Every Friday from 6 to 7:30p.m., at
the bake oven. No need to make a reservation: there's lots of food. A
community dinner cooked in the park bake ovens with farmers' market
produce. $6 for the main plate unless you bring your own dishes ($1
off). The main plate is always a choice of meat or (usually) vegan.
There's always park bread, a salad, soup, and dessert (they cost extra
but it's hard to spend much more than $10 per meal). If it's raining
hard, no supper (call 416-392-0913 if you're not sure). If it's a cool
night, there's a campfire to linger at with your friends.
SPECIAL NOTE: THE FIRST PARK SUPPER IS ACTUALLY ON SUNDAY JUNE 5,
AFTER THE LITTLE FOLK FESTIVAL. After that it really is on Fridays.
Pizza days - during June, pizza days will be on Wednesdays
from 12 to 2 and Sundays from 1 to 3. For $2 a portion,
you can buy a small lump of organic pizza dough, sauce, and cheese, and
make your own pizza in the oven (staff help you bake it). You can pick
toppings in the park gardens to put on as well, or bring extra toppings
from home. A very nice way to meet new neighbours or get together with
friends.
If you want to include pizza at the oven in a birthday party, that’s
possible on Sundays between 11.30 and 1 and from 3 to 4. You can book
it with park staff Mayssan Shuja Udin at 416 392-0913. The
staff cost is $36 extra on top of the pizza cost of $2 per pizza. If
you have more than forty people, that will need an extra staff person
for another $18. To find out more, call the park or go to the web site
at www.dufferinpark.ca and click on “bake ovens and food.”
Picnics: now that the weather is warm again, the park is
sometimes full of picnics and family celebrations. There are plenty of
picnic tables - feel free to move them to where you need them, but if
you take them far from where they were, please move them back
afterwards (especially tables taken from the oven and the wading pool
area).
THERE IS NO CHARGE FOR HAVING A PICNIC AND NO NEED TO BOOK AHEAD.
Campfires: The friends of the park have a standing year-round
campfire permit at three park locations. Park staff will train you in
campfire safety, give you water, pails, and a shovel, and kindling if
you need it. You have to bring your own wood. For more information or
to book a permit, call the park at 416 392-0913 and ask for
Matt or Mayssan. You can also go to the park web site at www.dufferinpark.ca
and click on “campfires.”
SOCCER PERMITS:
The Toronto Eagles children's soccer club has the soccer field
permit Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings and Saturdays
until 2. On Thursday evenings, the permit belongs to the "Portugal
2004" children's soccer club. This has been the case for 4-5 years.
From Saturday 2.30 p.m. until Sunday evening, the permits
are there for community groups. These are the rules: two-hour time
slots/ usually only half the field/ include any neighborhood person who
wants to play soccer but doesn't have a group/ mixed-gender or all-male
or all-female. This is an experiment not carried out elsewhere in the
city, i.e. free "community" permits that have some participant
flexibility, a bit like shinny-hockey. Anyone who gets a permit has to
show up for a post-season get-together in late fall to talk about
whether this format works.
To get connected to an existing community soccer group, you can call
the park at 416 392-0913 or e-mail soccer@dufferinpark.ca
with your preferred time. We'll try to match you up.
Other soccer possibilities that don't need a permit:
* any day before 6 p.m. in the summer (St.Mary's has the daytime
booked during the school year),
* anytime in the Garrison Creek hollow over by Dufferin Street (a
cop from Fourteen Division told us that that's where everyone used to
play when he was a kid).
TRASH POLICE:
A City by-law enforcement officer has been going
through park trash bags to find out if household garbage is being
dumped at the park. In such cases, she often finds evidence of
addresses, and she then goes to that house and gives them a ticket for $375.
The park garbage bins also have new signs on them, warning of fines
between $5000 and $10,000 for dumping household trash in parks.
At the bottom of the signs it says: there may be a cash reward for
reporting illegal dumping. (Snitching on our neighbours for money?
That sounds like a direction we might not want to take.) The by-law
enforcement officer tells us that the problem is not bad at our park -
only two or three trash baskets tend to have household garbage, and
some of those folks have now been given a ticket.
THANK YOU’S TO:
Connie Chisholm, park friend and carpenter, who fixed the rink
house rocking bench that Leemala Ragubance donated last winter.
The rocking bench was really popular but not designed for use by so
many people. Connie reinforced it so well that it’s all set for the
next five hundred people who want to sit and rock in it (not all at
once).
Park supervisor Brian Green: despite (or because of) his
strained park maintenance budget, Brian scrounges things for the parks
he looks after, whenever he comes across anything lying unused in a
back corner of a parks service yard. So he found some old pieces of
plywood and his crew fixed the worn-out, holey tennis practice board on
the rink fence. Now he’s located some solid chess/checkers tables and
stools that are being removed from other parks (at the community’s
wish) (?!). Those tables will let Chris Schallert expand the
kids’ chess club this summer, down by the playground.
Shanti Nahata: he had the idea that every Sunday at 10 a.m.,
park friends who like exercising could meet at the rink for 20 minutes
of park cleanup followed by a 30 minute run/walk/stroll and
refreshments. Shanti’s motto: “Help your community and your body.” If
you want to join them, just come to the park at that time or contact:
Shanti at sln@itgsys.com or Bruce Whitaker at
whitaker@rogers.com.
Forestry supervisor Mark Procunier: he came to the park at our
request to do a tree inventory and figure out which trees may have to
come down (before they fall down on someone) and where some replacement
trees could be planted. After many years with no new plantings, Mark
was very encouraging about our chances of getting some new trees.
CITY PLAYGROUND-REPAIR SECRETS GO TO ARBITRATION - JUNE 22
A letter came by courier on June 1: the Province of Ontario’s ’s
Information and Privacy Commissioner is summoning Jutta Mason
(for CELOS, our little research group) and the City of
Toronto to a hearing about the playground repair money that is
unaccounted for. Working with Maya Littman's group of
playground advocates, we've been trying to find out for over a year:
how come so many park playgrounds lost equipment that was not replaced,
or replaced with cheap, dumbed-down equipment? The receipts for a
special playground repair fund of nearly $5 million are
missing. The City said they would look for the receipts if we paid them
$12,900 for the staff time to find them. It’s our contention
that finding out what happened to the playgrounds is in the public
interest, and we shouldn’t be charged for the City’s sloppiness, above
the taxes we already pay. We’ll see what the freedom of information
Commissioner’s adjudicator thinks: June 22, 9 a.m., 2 Bloor Street
East, Suite 1400.
MEDIA WATCH - hurray for freedom of the press
Trying to make the park work better can be discouraging at times. We’ve
been trying for a long time now to find out why our playground
equipment is endangered. We’ve also been wondering why, with a yearly
Parks and Recreation budget of over $200 million, there is never money
to fix the rutted thoroughfare that is the main promenade through our
very well-used park. And why, when it takes $600,000 a year to
run a rec centre with walls, the City can find only $80,000 a
year to run our equally popular “community centre without walls” (an
impossible task again this year - and this year we will not be going
hat in hand to park users to make up the balance). And how come
recreation staff in Toronto make less than half the hourly wage of the
litter-picking staff?
But trying to find out where the money goes is a long
mostly-boring-sometimes-astonishing game of snakes and ladders.
Near the end of May, all the media carried news of a study that
apparently vindicated the widespread dumbing-down of school playgrounds
(which also went on in City parks). We were familiar with the study,
which we think is so deeply flawed in its design that a first-year
statistics student would have received a failing grade if s/he had
presented it as an assignment. But the uncritical play it got in the
media made us wonder if publicists are everywhere now, and “resistance
is futile.”
We got a happy surprise when the Globe published a scathing
editorial about the playground study on May 25, entitled “Smoke and
Mirrors on Playground Safety.” They pointed out the huge flaws in
the data, and concluded “this damaging overprotectiveness in
child-rearing turns out to be more finger-wagging and hot air.” The
editorial is posted on our new wall-newspaper at the playground.
And then Robert Cribb of the Star called to do an
interview on our access-to-information troubles with the City. Our
example became one of countless other problem-stories in a
cross-country, multi-newspaper feature on the reluctance of governments
to comply with the freedom of information law.
So maybe resistance is not futile. To find out more, or to get
involved, you can go to the park web site www.dufferinpark.ca, and
click on “research.”
Newsletter prepared by: Jutta Mason; Illustrations: Jane LowBeer
Technical support: John Culbert
Webmasters:Henrik Bechmann, Joe Adelaars,
Park phone: 416 392-0913; street address: 875 Dufferin Street
E-mail: dufferinpark@dufferinpark.ca
Park photographer: Wallie Seto
Printing: Quality Control Printing at Bloor and St. George