posted December 10, 2006

Friends of Dufferin Grove Park Newsletter

Volume 7 Number 12, December 2006

Comments? editor@dufferinpark.ca

Winter Farmers' Market
see photo gallery

Park Events in December

posted December 10, 2006

Annual Rink Clubhouse Craft Fair

Sunday Dec.10, 11 am to 4 pm

Handmade items for holiday gifts made by neighborhood artisans, on sale in the market tents in front of the rink house, with a campfire and hot cider. Organizer: Abbey Huggan: abbeyhandmade@yahoo.com. Also some daybooks and calendars will be for sale, with a part of the proceeds going to the park.

posted December 10, 2006

A Special Friday Night Supper BOOK LAUNCH

Outdoor Ice Rink Handbook, Friday Dec.15, 5-7.30 p.m.

…Well, booklet launch: celebrating the publication of the Outdoor Ice Rink Handbook, with contributions by eight Dufferin Rink staff. Published by CELOS with the help of park cookie money. For anyone (rink staff and rink users) who wants their neighborhood rink to run well, this has everything you need to know. Buy one as a Christmas present for each staff person at your local rink (other than Dufferin Rink). They’re $2 each, 48 pages long, with Jane LowBeer’s cheerful illustrations – just the right size for a pocket. Buy one for each of your shinny-playing or pleasure-skating friends, too, so they can find out how their neighbourhood rink can be improved.

The booklet is available now at Dufferin Rink, or download the pdf and have a look!

posted December 10, 2006

Macgregor Park Solstice Celebration

Dec.21, 4 to 6 pm.

Master of ceremonies: Jane Wells. Story-music performances with students from West Toronto Collegiate. Young children who want to be part of the pageant can come to the hour-long rehearsals at 4-5 p.m., Dec.18, 19, and 20, to be held at the school beside the park. To find out more or sign up, call Anna Galati at 416-535-9032.

There will also be a campfire with hot dogs, marshmallows, and hot chocolate, and lots of lights – to mark the shortest day of the year. Dufferin Rink staff will be there too. Under the direction of MacGregor Park artist-in-residence Kristen Fahrig.

Coming Events In January

posted December 10, 2006

2nd Annual The Women Of Winter Outdoor Shinny Tournament

January 12th and 13th, 2007

From women’s hockey organizer Deirdre Norman:

“Celebrate Hockey Day in Canada at The 2nd Annual The Women of Winter Outdoor Shinny Tournament. On January 12th and 13th, 2007 over forty-eight women shinny players of all ages and levels of play will celebrate Hockey Day in Canada by taking to the ice at Dufferin-Grove Rink. This is Toronto's only outdoor, recreational shinny tournament for women. Organised by volunteers and supported by Parks, Forestry, and Recreation, The Women of Winter celebrates the thrill of playing the game we love in our own community. Last year’s tournament ended with an action packed overtime final – the puck bouncing both ways, spectators hollering, and snow falling. Don’t miss the excitement this year. New for 2007 will be a mom-daughter game and opportunities for players to sharpen their skills.”

Email Deirdre Norman at hockey@thewomenofwinter.com or go to the website: www.thewomenofwinter.com

Food In the Park

posted December 10, 2006

Friday Night Suppers

6 to 7:30 on Fridays at the Rink House

Friday Night Suppers Friday Night Suppers 6 to 7:30 on Fridays

Friday Night Suppers have resumed (6 to 7.30 p.m. on Fridays at the rink house, $6 for the main plate, between $2-$3 each for soup, salad, dessert, no reservations necessary). Also, seven days a week, the “Zamboni Café” snack bar will be serving substantial winter soups, sandwiches with park oven bread, organic hot dogs, mini-pizzas, and various sweets including park cookies. On weekends there may be more.

The price list at the Zamboni café reflects how much money we need to pay for the materials that went into the food, plus a bit extra for other park uses. But if your grocery money is tight, and you and your kids are hungry after skating, even the cheap snack bar food prices may add up too fast.

If you’re hungry, but you can’t pay as much for the snack bar food, pay less. Park staff also like to do trades – if you can do something for the park (help shovel after a snowstorm, wash dishes, sort tools in the tool cupboard, break up wooden skids for the bread ovens) the park staff will tell you that your money won’t work at the snack bar, and you have to eat for free. That goes for kids too.

On the other hand, if you find the food very cheap and good and think it should cost more, pay more. Every penny goes to the park.

posted December 10, 2006

Park Staff Want To "Take The Show On The Road"

The park staff at Dufferin Grove are often asked by people from other parts of town, how some of the nice things about this park could be put into other parks as well. That makes sense – Dufferin Grove is a neighbourhood park, that’s its strength, and if it inspires people to enliven their own neighbourhood parks – good! In November, the little research group that started through the park (The CEntre for LOcal research into public Space, CELOS) made an application to the Ontario Trillium Foundation to “take the show on the road.” That means, when the part-time staff are not working at this park, if another park has friends who want help getting started, the help is available. Trillium won’t make their decisions until March, and 3 out of every 4 applications are turned down, but we might as well try!

In the meantime, park staff have been practicing. One of their specialties is campfires. Near the end of October, five staff volunteered to make a campfire at a Trinity Bellwoods park planting day organized by the friends’ group there. Anna Hill, head of their Green Space Committee, got the permit lined up with help from the Councillor’s office, and the Dufferin Staff came with fire stands, buckets, shovels, firewood, and cooking utensils. One of the objectives of the planting day was digging up the burdock roots that crowd out the other plants. Burdock root is a delicious root vegetable common in Japan, so the Dufferin Grove park staff helped to dig the burdock. They cleaned it and cooked it into a stir-fry and served it to the numerous Trinity-Bellwoods park friends who were digging and planting and talking to one another. That was a very enjoyable adventure. Hopefully, if the grant application is approved, there will be many more.

posted December 10, 2006

Editorial: This Park Now Involves 12 Supervisors

Exactly three years ago, at the time of the 2003 election, Parks and Recreation announced a complete restructuring. The new system would be “structure by function” rather than by location, and it involved an alarming number of separate lines of responsibility, all running to centralized managers downtown. At that time, I prepared an analysis of the new structure and sent it to many councillors. I also gave it to Jane Jacobs, whom newly-elected Mayor David Miller had appointed to a committee of transition advisors. Jane read the analysis and then put the document into Mayor Miller hands personally, telling him that the new system was bad for neighbourhoods, and to please read the analysis. He didn’t have time, but other councillors were concerned about the plans too, and persuaded the mayor to delay the change. So the restructuring was delayed for two years while Parks and Recreation did more consultation.

But in the end, the system was installed in almost the identical form. So now we have to live with it. What it means is that, depending on the issue, Dufferin Grove Park has to deal with the following twelve management staff:

1. Active living supervisor – certification-type sports in the park, e.g. skating classes;

2. Customer Service supervisor – e.g. permits for the rink, soccer, etc., events;

3. Aquatics supervisor – who staffs the wading pool and what goes on there;

4. Youth supervisor - e.g. all matters relating to youth workers, policies affecting youth, the Youth garden;

5. Forestry supervisor – e.g. tree-planting and maintenance;

6. Recreation supervisor – supervisor for existing staff and supposed to be the “quarterback” for issues that need to go elsewhere;

7. Parks supervisor – maintenance of the outdoor parts of the park, responsibility (in part) for the Foodshare gardens and the bio-toilet project;

8. By-law enforcement supervisor – farmers’ market, dogs;

9. Community development manager – interface between the community and “neighbourhood teams”;

10. Facilities supervisor – rink house and field house repairs and maintenance including the Trades;

11. Technical services supervisor – rink compressor plant maintenance, painters and electricians (outdoor park repairs).

12. Rink supervisor – rink ice maintenance.

Back in 2003, Jane Jacobs asked the mayor to let me talk to him about why this complex and centralized kind of structure makes it harder for neighbourhoods to care for their parks. But he never did, and last year when I asked him again, to let me talk to him for only half an hour about parks, he turned me down. You can’t blame him, really – he has a huge city to run and why should he listen to just one person?

But in fact, many more than one person cares about what happens in parks. And Dufferin Grove is a kind of ‘mine canary’ for other parks. Trouble for us often signals trouble for other parks too. An example: recently the park staff here were told that all campfire permits have to be booked centrally and will cost $53.30 each. Then we heard that campfire permits can’t happen at all anymore, in any parks.

Campfires are a wonderful way for people to get to know each other, for neighbours and friends to come together, and – big side-effect – for parks to be safer at night. People at other parks want them too – this is not the moment to cut them. So the new ruling got alarm bells ringing. With the help of Tino Decastro (Recreation Supervisor), his Recreation Manager Kelvin Seow, and Councillor Giambrone’s office, the campfires were saved. They are now slotted as a community-building program instead of another way to charge people fees: $53.50 for adding something good to their parks. A helpful clarification, for other parks as well!

1. that our neighbourhood parks are a treasure that’s meant to be more like a community commons than a golden goose for permit fees.

2. that the new centralized structure needs to be adapted to local circumstances.

3. that this is not the opinion of only one person.

Canadians famously don’t like to complain, and that’s wonderful, but this next term of City Council is the time to let the councillors know when the Parks structure is causing a problem. (That’s not complaining, that’s feedback.) Councillor Paula Fletcher is the new chair of the Parks and Environment Committee, and she seems to understand the particular role of urban parks in strengthening neighbourhoods. We’ll invite her and the other councillors on that committee to the Outdoor Ice Rink Handbook launch at the December 15 Friday Night Supper, and maybe hear a bit more about their priorities for parks. Beyond that, I’ll be looking around for people who are willing to contact their local Councillor on behalf of parks. We might as well try. (Send your ideas to: editor@dufferinpark.ca).

posted December 10, 2006

Park Problems And Follow Up: The 3-1-1 Web Link

This is a database of requests starting in April 2006 to make it easier for park staff, Parks, Forestry and Recreation personnel, and neighbours, to track park issues at the park. The web link is here.

The City of Toronto intended to have such a database from December 2005, accessible through its 3-1-1 phone line. However this has now been postponed until 2007. Until then, we offer this local version. Dozens of park issues have their internal/external e-mail threads posted. That may be more detail than anyone wants, but it’s there if needed. Open-ness is more fun than its alternative, which is why our “3-1-1” section was started many months ago.

Skating Rink News

posted December 10, 2006

Skating And Shinny Hockey Schedule

Shinny hockey schedule

Monday - Friday:

• 9:00am - 3:15pm all ages (New: on Monday and Friday the rink doesn’t open until 10am, for extra ice maintenance)
• 3:30pm - 5:30pm Level 2 (about 13 to 17, medium pace)
• 5:30pm - 6:30pm Level 1 (12 and under and parent or caregiver, or novice adult)
• 6:45pm - 7:45pm all ages
• 7:45pm - 8:55pm Level 3 (usually 18 and over, fast-paced)

Night Schedule:

Monday 9p.m: Seasonal permit (plus open shinny on pleasure-skating side)

Tuesday 9 - 11 pm: Women’s open shinny (plus men’s open shinny on pleasure-skating side)

Wednesday 9-10: Seasonal permit. 10-11: “beginners only” drop-in shinny hockey (plus open shinny on pleasure-skating side)

Thursday 9 pm: Seasonal permit (plus open shinny on pleasure-skating side)

Friday 9 pm: Seasonal permit (plus open shinny on pleasure-skating side)

Saturday

• 9:00am - 12:00pm all ages

Pleasure-skating side (9.30 - 1.30 learn-to-skate program on part of the ice)

• 12:00pm - 1:30pm Level 1 (12 and under and parent or caregiver, or novice adult)
• 1:45pm - 3:45pm all ages
• 3:45pm - 5:15pm Level 2 (about 13 to 17, medium pace)
• 5:30pm - 7:00pm all ages
• 7:00pm - 8:55pm Level 3 (usually 18 and over, fast paced)
• 9 pm: single-occasion permit (open shinny on pleasure-skating side)

Sunday

• 10:00am - 5:00pm No shinny hockey. Pleasure skating both sides.
• 5-6.30 pm: parent/child shinny permit, pleasure skating other side
• 6.30-8 p.m. Seasonal permit, pleasure-skating other side
• 8-9.30 pm. Seasonal permit, pleasure-skating other side to 9, then open shinny
• 9.30-11: youth shinny league. (plus open shinny on pleasure-skating side)

Novice adult shinny hockey practice

Are you a wannabe shinny hockey player, but just starting to get the hang of it? Dufferin Rink offers an hour of protected drop-in shinny hockey time, Wednesday nights from 10 to 11 p.m. None of the Dufferin Rink hot shots are allowed on the ice during that time. No need to register, and it’s free, with a staff resource person on the ice who will pass to you and give you pointers if you want. Or you can just practice as you choose. For more information, call the park at 416 392-0913, and ask for Dan Watson.

posted December 1, 2006

Opening Day

Dufferin Rink opened on Dec.2, despite a run of very warm weather leading up to opening day. City rinks supervisor Brian Green and zamboni driver Roger Doble performed a miracle, with a little help from some providential rains two days before opening, plus a drop in temperature, plus the powerful cooling action of the rink’s two 75 hp compressors. Roger arrived at 6.30 a.m. on opening day and flooded the rink for three hours. Then the hockey players and pleasure skaters appeared out of nowhere, the rink filled up, and presto! It was winter.

posted December 10, 2006

Global Warming And The Rink Season

The first outdoor rink to open in Toronto this year was Harbourfront Rink, on Nov.19. Then City Hall Rink opened on Nov.25, then Dufferin Rink on Dec.2. Most others were not scheduled to open until Dec.9.

During the warm spells at the end of November, City Hall had water on it, apparently because of an ice maintenance error. But Harbourfront held up just fine – on Friday Dec.1, that rink had over 100 people on it at 17 degrees, skating under the pink and blue floodlights there. New York City did even better: they opened Central Park Ice Rink on Oct.20 this year, and had no trouble with late November temperatures of 18 degrees. The sun is very weak in November – exactly the low sun these compressor-run outdoor rinks work best in. That’s the sun of early to mid-winter. The outdoor rinks begin to struggle when the sun gets higher and stronger toward the end of February. The City rinks Web Site will chronicle the weather and ice conditions every day this winter until March 18, when the last outdoor rinks (including Dufferin Rink) are scheduled to close. Then rink friends will make another pitch to City Council’s “Parks and the Environment” committee, to bring the rink season back to the excellent mid-November-to-end-of-February schedule that they were built for. One of these years, we may finally carry our point.

posted December 10, 2006

Youth Ice-Games Trial

Kids of a certain age want to play British bulldog and ice tag, more than they want to breathe. The rink has a posted rule against those youthful, thrilling, obnoxious games, and the rink staff spend lots of energy taking kids off the ice for breaking the rule.

A few parents have suggested that maybe kids should be allowed to play exciting ice games for ten minutes of every hour: always on the hour, so that skaters wanting a relaxing, peaceful skate will know they can come at ten minutes after the hour and enjoy the next 50 minutes.

It’s an interesting idea. The young teenagers who love ice games have so much energy! Skating around sedately doesn’t do it for them. So the rink staff may try allowing an hourly ten minutes of kids’ ice games, at the beginning of the hour, as an experiment. Staff will still supervise, but with a lighter hand. Feedback from other rink users is encouraged. And adults are allowed to play too, but it’s not clear that they’ll want to.

posted December 10, 2006

Helmets For Shinny Hockey??

In 2002, the “Skating Harmonization Committee” advised the directors of Parks and Recreation to bring in a new mandatory helmet policy for indoor and outdoor arenas. The directors approved the policy, on the basis of general risk.

The policy has not caught on at all rinks. Many shinny hockey players insist that shinny is a unique sport with its own rules and customs. They say it’s a game not played with protective equipment, which is exactly why the players are not allowed to raise the puck or check each other. Many shinny players agree with Don Cherry’s assertion: more protective hockey armour results in more aggression and more injuries, and that’s why they love civilized game of shinny. Certainly the number of injuries during shinny games at Dufferin Rink, since it was rebuilt in 1993, has been very small. And most of those injuries resulted from players catching their skates on rough ice, especially along the sides and in the corners, and hurting a shoulder or a limb. That problem needs better ice maintenance rather than a helmet.

Some of the Dufferin Rink friends have asked the City to revisit the shinny hockey policy. They want the City to adopt some clear principles for their risk-based policies:

These are good guidelines for all risk-based policy making, not often observed – here’s a good place to begin.

So far, supporting documentation is not available from the skating committee. There was no public consultation with shinny players about altering the game, and there is no analysis of shinny injuries that would allow comparison. A freedom of information request turned up only two outdoor ice rink injury claims across the whole city since amalgamation (9 years), but no details on these injuries were provided. And for comparison, although soccer is by far the highest-injury (commonly-played) sport, there was no evidence that soccer risk had resulted in any helmets-for-soccer discussion.

In other words, the case for compulsory shinny hockey helmets has not been made. Back to the drawing board. On Dec.5, CELOS, our local research group hosted a meeting with rink staff and two City supervisors, to get started on this issue. This winter, CELOS researchers will collaborate with rink staff and City supervisors to actually look at the existing data, keep a better record, and consult with shinny players. To help with this task: contact rinkissues@celos.ca.

posted December 10, 2006

First-Ever Meeting Of All Dufferin Rink Staff, Nov.14

City Park staff get so busy with their day-to-day work, that sometimes it’s months or even years between the times when all staff involved with a facility actually sit down at the same table and talk to each other. Because of last February’s rink discord, Councillor Adam Giambrone recently convened a meeting of all the staff who have any role at Dufferin Rink. On-site rink staff had asked for such meeting for years, but their idea was not supported. However, when a Councillor says ”I’m getting too many complaint calls, all relevant staff please come to a meeting” – there’s no choice, City staff have to accept his invitation.

So on Tuesday November 14, the managers of recreation and of city rinks, and the supervisors of recreation, of city rinks and of technical services, and the city rinks foreman and a zamboni driver, and five on-site Dufferin Rink staff, and the city councillor and his assistant, and the rink historian, all gathered for coffee and worked out some new rink procedures. Now it’s time for follow-up.

One of the points that’s still contentious is whether technical services staff, when they come to Dufferin Rink to do their daily check on the compressors, should also say hello to the on-site rink staff and give them a two-minute update on the plant. (Some tech services staff – not all – rarely speak to the on-site rink staff, and may even refuse to respond to a staff question.) Although cordial contact between co-workers is generally thought to be a good idea, the tech services supervisor says his staff are too busy to say hello.

So management at this moment declines to instruct the tech services staff to check in with their on-site co-workers at the rink. Old institutional cultures fade slowly! And Dufferin Rink is a newer model. However, the rink staff are a friendly bunch, and so are a lot of the rink users, so they’ll keep trying.

Rink Clubhouse Bulletin Board

The pace of a rink visit is often a bit slower than the industrial tempo of many people’s lives, so there’s a bit of time to stare at the walls. To make that more interesting, the rink house bulletin boards will have postings about various park and neighbourhood issues. Here are some topics coming up:

posted December 10, 2006

The Foodshare Youth Teaching Garden

Foodshare, which for many years operated out of a warehouse on Eastern Avenue, has now moved in beside the Royal Conservatory of Music at the old Brockton High School on Croatia Street. Foodshare have always worked with youth in their food projects, and they want to put a 10 meter-by-fifteen-meter vegetable and flower garden into the southwest corner of the park, near the shortcut to the mall. It seemed like a nice show-and-tell display of non-standard vegetables, to be cared for through their youth projects, but some near neighbours of the park, who are also opponents of the bio-toilet, felt it was too much for the park.

Foodshare has a history of growing beautiful gardens, so this winter there will be a display showing what they do and why. Opponents of the project are welcome, even encouraged, to post their material too.

posted December 10, 2006

The Bio-toilet Project

This past summer and fall a small but hard-working group of bio-toilet opponents delivered house-to-house flyers that described the new playground toilet as a “cesspool” built with the help of “child labour.” The same folks also e-mailed their views to all of the City councillors and many heads of City divisions. The down side of that opposition was that the bio-toilet project was stalled over and over again. So only the foundation got built (but it’s a great foundation) before cold weather came.

The up side was that there was more and more detailed debate in the park about the merits/demerits of alternative ways to deal with sewage. Park users already know an amazing amount, and this winter they can upgrade their education even more. There will be displays about the project, press clippings from other parts of the world, and – hopefully – some postings by opponents, making for some lively hot-stove discussions.

Certainly there’s more material in the press now almost every week. It turns out that the largest Japanese zoo has had bio-toilets for some time (and very clean – the Japanese are famously fastidious). A town in Saskatchewan introduced the bio-ioilets and won a “2005 Sustainable Community Award” from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Partners for Climate Protection Network. World Watch Institute’s latest newsletter praises them as “the ultimate in treating waste as a resource.” We thought we were pioneers, but evidently not.

Both of these displays are a preparation for a City-run all-neighbourhood meeting about these issues in February or March (just when everyone is getting tired of winter and wants to think about playgrounds and gardens).

posted November 10, 2006

The Gerstein short-term residential crisis centre at 1045 Bloor Street West

This centre is connected to the very successful Gerstein Centre at 100 Charles Street East. The proposed crisis centre on Bloor near Havelock will have individual rooms and 24-hour staffing, with programs and referrals for residents. The Centre staff held an open house at the Gladstone Library on Nov.30, and they are also available to answer questions about their plans at 416-929-0149: Paul Quinn, Executive Director ext. 222, Susan Davis, Coordinator of Community Partnerships ext. 235, or Pamela Rodgerson, Coordinator of Finance and Administration ext. 226. Or e-mail admin@gersteincentre.org

Pamela Rodgerson lives in the neighbourhood and is a park friend, and she’s agreed to post more material about the plans at the rink house. She says one of their letters of support (which she’ll post) comes from the superintendent of police responsible for the area around Charles Street, praising the organization for their expertise in operating a mental health crisis service, their co-operativeness, and their successes.

Park staff are very happy that this centre is coming. They have made some frustrating attempts to find help for mentally ill park users over the years. One of these park users – an older man named Mimo, whom many longer-time park friends will recall, and who used to plug the men’s park toilet so regularly (God told him to do it) that the park washrooms had to stay closed for two seasons – finally went to the Gerstein Centre downtown and has now been long settled at an excellent nursing home in the Beaches. He has almost stopped plugging the toilets, apparently, and is regard with affection. The other story is not as nice. A young Chinese man, very ill with schizophrenia, lived in the park for several years and rejected all park staff attempts to give him food, blankets, etc. But they kept an eye on him. He was very skilful in living out of doors, until one late fall he began to get much sicker and seemed to be starving himself to death. The park staff tried for weeks to get him into hospital (a very hard thing to do if the person doesn’t agree). With the help of park friend Dr.Alan Abelsohn, who lives nearby, and two inspired Homeless Outreach workers from CODA, the man was finally taken into the Toronto Western Hospital for assessment.

But the hospital released this man after a few days and he came back to the park – this time in bedroom slippers. He sat in the park with his feet in the snow for a day before anyone realized what was happening. He had to have both his feet amputated.

If there is a close relationship with a nearby crisis centre, even just for good advice and connections, so that such a thing can never happen again, the park staff and park friends will be very happy. Find out more this winter on the rink house bulletin boards.

posted December 10, 2006

Farmers' Market News

Market vendor Jessie Sosnicki rents a church kitchen near their farm to make and freeze the perogies that she and her husband Ben sell at the farmers’ market (and that the zamboni café sells too). Jessie is Ukrainian and Ben is Polish, and between them they have conscripted enough relatives and friends to make 2000 perogies at a time (350 packages). Jessie writes, “I'm going to start a photo/video diary of our works at the hall, as these ladies are so great and we have so many laughs and most are so old now (the kitchen manager turned 80 this month).”

Jessie plans to heat and serve portions of their roasted sauerkraut, hot beans and corn with organic butter at their market table this winter, all their own produce that they froze this past growing season. She writes, “I do think this is important to carry on the tradition of eating local in the winter. And when folks taste my frozen vegetables, even though they’ve been blanched and have lost a FEW precious vitamins, they might think local instead of imports on those types of veggie anyhow.” The warm corn and the warm green beans and the roasted sauerkraut will be served on “cabbage plates” – cabbage leaves that can be composted afterwards.

Market manager Anne Freeman has been going to many market meetings (including in Los Angeles and New Orleans) in the past year, sponsored by a grant Foodshare got for promoting more farmers’ markets. Anne says that many farmers feel that suburban markets are much easier on them – not so much traffic, easier access to their trucks and produce. She writes, “We're so lucky, wouldn't you agree? We have a great group of farmers who hardly ever grumble--well okay, sometimes they do, but it's very good-natured--about the hard work of setting up the indoor market away from their trucks, and the long trip into town.”

Now that much of the market is back inside the rink house for the winter, Anne also writes: “We need your assistance in making the winter arrangements work. When you have a lot of great food to haul home, jumbo strollers, bundle buggies and wagons are very handy, but they do take up a lot of room. Please, if you need to bring a "vehicle" along, leave it outside when that's possible, or try your very best not to block the flow of people through those bottlenecks in the rink house. Nobody wishes to be grumpy about this; let's make it work.”

And skaters: sorry for the Thursday crowds. From 2 to 7 p.m. on Thursdays you need to change your skates outside. The rest of the time, the rink clubhouse is yours.

DUFFERIN GROVE FARMERS’ MARKET: EVERY THURSDAY 3 PM TO 7 PM

Credits

This newsletter is sponsored by the Norwegian Club and Scooter Girl Toys