All posts by Tara de Ryk

Davidson, featured

New Davidson Swimming Pool fund committee hosts Winter Gala

The new Davidson Swimming Pool fund committee is inviting revellers to come out this Friday for a few cocktails, a good meal and a little hypnosis all for a good cause.

Erin Gust, new Swimming Pool fund committee member, said the First Annual Winter Gala taking place Nov. 23 at the Davidson community centre is being held in an effort to raise $10,000 to $12,000 for the construction of a new pool for the town. She said 130 tickets at $50 at ticket have been sold for the night out so far, but there is many still available.

“I was talking to Sharon McDonald from RBC in Saskatoon and she used to volunteer on the Royal University Hospital Foundation,” said Gust. “They do a winter gala every year and its pretty high end at about $350 a ticket. I thought if we could just scale that down a little bit and hold something like that in Davidson to serve as a Christmas party type function, we might have a pretty good turnout.”

Gust said the Gala would be a “business casual or cocktail dress” event, but if people do show up to the party in jeans and a t-shirt they won’t be turned away.

“We’re going to have cocktails at 6:30 p.m. and there is going to be a regular bar and also a Bellini bar and then dinner is going to be served at 7 till probably about 8:30 by the time we get everybody through,” said Gust, noting a Bellini bar serves slushy type drinks. “Then we’ve got the hypnotist Sebastian Steel that is going to do a two-hour show.”

The ticket price covers the show and the meal, which will be Ukrainian style featuring cabbage rolls, perogies, ham, salads and desert, but not the cocktails. There will also be a silent auction including bid items from Pioneer Hi-Bred canola seed to art to massage sessions taking place at the event.

Gust said the Davidson Kinsmen Club is sponsoring the hypnotist part of the night at a cost of $2,500 and should produce a few sleep-induced funnies for the crowd.

“Steel is from Edmonton,” she said. “The testimonials I’ve received are that he does a really clean fun show. He performs for corporate groups, school groups, church organizations and fund-raising events.”

The committee is trying to raise $1.3 million through donations, community events and grants over the next two years in order to get shovels in the ground by 2015 to start construction on the new 84 feet long by 35 feet wide six-lane pool. The pool would be located adjacent to the current pool and campground site.

Gust said the committee has started working towards the desired amount and hopes people come out to the Gala to enjoy the festivities or even to volunteer if they so choose, while they try and raise a little more money for the cause.

“The fund-raising is going really well,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of support from the community.”

Craik

Craik Rink skaters see the light

The 100 skaters who step on the ice at the Craik Rink each week are going to see the light this winter when a new ceiling and lighting is put in.

Jason Nolting, president of the Craik Rink Board, said the arena would be shutting down for around two weeks sometime this winter to install a suspended insulated ceiling and energy-efficient lighting over the rink’s ice surface. He said the improvements would come at a cost of over $68,000, with the cost split down the middle between the rink and funding through the federal government’s Community Infrastructure Improvement Fund (CIIF).

“It is really dark right now and as far as the users go and (new lighting) will be the biggest benefit,” said Nolting. “It will really brighten the place up. With the way the rink is built, it’s hard (to improve lighting). You could paint the rafters somehow, but if you know the rink it’s almost impossible to do that.”

Nolting said the suspended insulated ceiling would have a “foil back” with insulation on the other side, which will reflect light down onto the ice surface “so it doesn’t disappear into the building.” He said there are quite a few rinks that have had the upgrade done and it really makes a difference.

The Craik Rink, which has been in operation since 1949 after the previous rink was destroyed by a cyclone in 1945, had its ice put in last week and saw its first public skaters of the 2012-13 season Nov. 13. The senior men’s Craik Warriors hockey team uses the arena as its home rink, a number of kid’s hockey teams from other towns come to play in the rink almost daily and there is also a rec. hockey team that plays out of Craik.

Nolting said the rink board is raising the $34,000 for its portion of the upgrade through a volunteer farming initiative that is employed every year to raise money to keep the rink going. He said the rink “has some land” and receives help from local farmers in the seeding, spraying and harvesting of the field with the money going back to the operation of the rink.

“What I’m thinking is we have the (Warriors), so we’ll probably try to pick two weeks when they’re not playing at home or they can switch their games or something hopefully so they aren’t playing at home (to do the upgrades),” he said. “I’m hoping that they can get it done in two weeks and then we’ll be off to the races.”

Sports

Hanley Sabers come up short in finals

The Hanley Sabers senior boys football team braved the cold and snow, but couldn’t handle a tough Ituna/Kelliher Trojans team losing 67-24 in the 1A 6-man provincial football championship held at the Jungle in Hanley Nov. 10.

Mark Anderson, head coach of the Sabers, said the Trojans played a “very physical” game on the frozen field at Hanley utilizing their strong running game to jump out to a commanding lead early in the match. He said Ituna/Kelliher made a “lot of long runs” in the first half, thanks in part to many missed tackles by the Sabers defence, which contributed to the 42-0 Trojans lead at the half.

“They are a power running team, so in those kind of (weather) conditions you can go,” said Anderson. “We’re a skill-based team with throwing and it’s a little tougher for receivers to catch the ball and handle balls with skill in those conditions. That’s not an excuse by any means, but cold weather does suit a running game better.”

Anderson said despite the lopsided score heading into the second half his boys didn’t give up and came out strong, but another comeback win in the playoffs for the Sabers just wasn’t meant to be. The Sabers came back in the semi-finals against the Raymore Rebels to earn a 40-26 win to advance to the championship.

The coach said with high school guys playing in their first final turning a game around against such a solid and experienced team is a pretty difficult thing to do.

“It’s interesting in games where they play LCBI and they only beat them by 10 and we beat LCBI substantially worse than that, but it has to do with the day, the field conditions and all that sort of stuff,” he said. “They went to the provincial final last year (losing against Raymore) too and were pretty used to the pressure. I think that got to some of our guys.”

To read more please see the Nov. 19 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Davidson, Sports

Raiders volleyball team loses in regionals

Raiders senior girls volleyball team captain Courtney Read crashed to the hard gym floor after making a spectacular diving save in the dying seconds of their second game against the Regina Harvest City Reapers in an effort to prolong her team’s season at the regional volleyball championship Nov. 10, but it turned out to be all for not.

Moments later the Reapers would score the deciding point in extra time, winning the second game out of a best of three match-up 28-26 and eliminating the Raiders chances of advancing to the next round in the 2012 West Regional 2A Girls’ Volleyball Championship held Nov. 10 at Davidson School. The loss also spelled the end of the Raiders season.

The Raiders had to win two straight games against the Reapers in order to advance after losing two straight earlier in the day to the Herbert Laurels. They won the first game 25-17, but despite their enthusiasm and determined play at all areas of the court in the second game, they were just unable to put Regina Harvest City away.

“I thought we played really good,” said Read. “We were excited and we really wanted to win because we knew that we had to win the first two games to advance. I think we played the best game that we could have played.”

The Raiders were all over the court in the second game against the Reapers, continually putting themselves in harm’s way by diving for any balls that had a chance of hitting the floor on their side of the net. Middle Taylor Wightman was particularly outstanding, getting to any shots that came her way and stopped any points against with numerous touches in the long volleys that occurred throughout the match.

“It was a little bit heartbreaking (losing in extra time), but what do you do,” said Wightman. “It was good. We played awesome. We couldn’t have asked for a better last game.”

The Reapers went on to lose the third-place game to the Leader Saints, while the Laurels and Asquith Athletics advanced to the final, thus securing themselves each a seat in provincials.

To read more please see the Nov. 19 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Obituary

Lyndon Willner

It is with heavy hearts that Lorne, Marilyn, Brady and Linnea announce the death of our precious young man.

Lyndon was born Nov. 28, 1990 and died Oct. 21, 2012. His schooling was all at Davidson School except for the year he obtained his Heavy Machinery and Transport Technicians course in Saskatoon. Lyndon loved the snow and couldn’t wait to take out his ski-doo and was looking forward to an upcoming snowboarding holiday with his friends. He didn’t like the heat but loved wakeboarding with his brother. He also loved to bug his sister about her being short.

Lyndon was a kind, patient, compassionate, loving young man who loved his family, friends, home and the farm. He touched many lives deeply and will forever be greatly missed.

featured

Province announces new rural health initiatives

The Saskatchewan Party government’s Speech from the Throne included three new initiatives intended to improve health care for rural residents of the province.

The throne speech, read by Lieutenant-Governor Vaughn Solomon Schofield to the legislature Oct. 25, detailed a plan to deal with the challenges of growth in rural areas of Saskatchewan in terms of increased physician recruitment and retention, an improvement to the availability of emergency services and the need to put to work all health care practitioners to the best of their abilities and expertise.

Randy Weekes, minister responsible for rural and remote health, said the plan will include a loan forgiveness program that will reward physicians and nurse practitioners to accept work in rural areas on a five-year-term, the development of collaborative emergency centres in different primary health care sites and a regional locum pool of physicians for each health care region.

Weekes said the loan forgiveness package for physicians and nurse practitioners is still in the works, but as of now it will give up to $120,000 to physicians and $20,000 to registered nurses or nurse practitioners if they agree to work for five years in rural Saskatchewan. He said the recruitment and replacement of doctors is an “ongoing challenge” and this package will help, noting the province currently has a shortfall of 120 needed physicians.

The second initiative announced in the throne speech involved the innovation of collaborative emergency centres (CEC) as another form of primary health care, which will reduce the workload of rural physicians while also using the expertise of registered nurses and emergency medical personnel.

“It provides emergency care in a health care facility by a registered nurse and a paramedic with oversight by a physician by telephone or e-health and so this takes the stress off physicians to provide 24/7 emergency care,” said Weekes. “The other part of a collaborative emergency centre is patients would receive the next day appointment in a clinic so it covers off the quality of life of physicians, which is one of the issues out in rural Saskatchewan, this is not on-call 24/7.”

Weekes said the CEC is based on innovation sites set up by Nova Scotia, which he along with the CEO of the Saskatchewan Medical Association (SMA) and a few representatives of various health regions toured this summer. He said this way of providing primary health care in Nova Scotia has seen a drop of “80 per cent” of calls going to emergencies in their province, with the calls instead going to non-emergency appointments.

The third part of their plan would see a region-based locum pool of doctors that could fill in for family physicians in the province on a longer-term basis if these physicians need to be away for a lengthy period of time. The province is currently only served by a short-term replacement program of physicians by a locum pool operated through the SMA.

To read more please see the November 12 print edition of The Davidson Leader.