By Patrick O'Gorman | Project Co-leader
What a wonderful summer of programs at the AlgomaTrad Centre this year! The concerts with the Andrew Collins Trio and Shane Cook and The Schotts were sold out; we had 2 community dances in July that were jam packed fun; the weekly tune sessions and song circles were well-attended, both by participants and listeners; and the Family Camp was epic, the largest gathering yet, with amazing weather during a week packed with workshops, dances, parades, concerts, sessions, and GREAT food. Thanks to all the artists, participants, learners, and general public who make our programs and events so life-affirming and community-building!
As well, the new gardens at the Centre produced so much food, some of which, like beans, parsley, basil, and arugula, were ready for Camp! Everything grew so well using a no-till method - rows of beautiful corn, bushes of red and purple tomatoes, huge pumpkins and squash, as well as eye-catching cosmos, sunflowers, marigolds, and mums. We processed most of the food for later use and consumption, either by canning tomato sauce or freezing the vegetables, at some of our fall and winter functions - imagine using our own hand-raised food for our volunteer and Robbie Burns suppers and at other events. It's what we always imagined! We also harvested the apples from the property and had an informal cider-making event - delicious!
The Centre also hosted 2 weddings for couples who literally grew up with the AlgomaTrad organization. The site was beautiful and worked so well, and guests who had not been there before expressed how impressive the Centre is! Weddings will be an important part of revenue streams as we continue to improve infrastructure and ramp up programming.
On the infrastructure improvement file, there have a been a few successes and a few hiccups. Snow dams and eavestroughing were successfully added to the Main Hall. Plans have been made to install a wooden floor in the Main Hall in the winter. The Septic System development, unfortunately, is still in planning - the tender needed to be re-issued as there were too few bids due to the short timeline we were requesting. In the meantime, we are going full steam ahead planning for the Dan's Hall construction plans for 2027, which includes arranging for the harvesting and cutting of the timbers need for the community-build, establishing dates for the build with the Timber Framers Guild of North America, and soliciting interest in the project from local contractors.
This all means we will be ramping up this fundraiser this fall - we've been working on a fundraising video and getting our timelines in order. Stay tuned for announcements to share with your family and friends so we can make this a successful one!
And, in the meantime, check out the website for all our Fall activities, which include monthly community dances and bi-weekly tune sessions and song circles. As we say in the music world - Stay Tuned!
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