Businesses in Davidson don’t seem too worried about the demise of the penny in Canadian currency.
Starting today, businesses will be rounding cash transactions up or down to the nearest five-cent increment according to a guideline provided by the Government of Canada. According to the guideline, only the final amount, after taxes have been added, are subject to rounding.
For example, if a final amount owing is $1.01 to $1.02 the figure will be rounded down to $1, while if the amount is $1.03 or $1.04 the figure will be rounded up to $1.05.
“We’re almost there,” said Natasha Larsh, co-manager of Gunner’s Gas and Convenience, on whether they’re prepared for the change. “When we first opened we were rounding everything off anyways. There are just a few products we need to change.”
Pennies can still be used in cash transactions indefinitely and the rounding off policy does not apply to cheques or electronic payments such as debit, credit or payment cards.
Kamal Saini, supervisor at Davidson’s A&W restaurant, said the tills have already been configured to take the rounding policy on cash transactions into account and there have been signs posted on the tills leading up to the change to inform customers. He said the prices of food would not actually change.
“The tills are going to change, but not the prices on the menu boards,” said Saini.
By phasing out the penny as a Canadian coin, the government states it will save taxpayers $11 million a year. This savings comes from the rising cost of production of the one-cent coin compared to it’s worth, the amount of pennies that are lying around Canadian households right now and the handling costs imposed on retailers with the penny.
Judi Packet, co-owner of Packet’s Foods, said the phasing out of the penny is not going to affect them in any way as they’ve already been rounding off transactions for about the past four years.
“We’re a coffee shop,” said Packet. “We didn’t want to deal with pennies in the first place.”
Category Archives: Davidson
Student teacher face-to-face time goes up
Instructional time for the 2013-2014 school year in Saskatchewan is being set to last a minimum of 950 hours, forcing school divisions in this area to readjust their calendar.
The Sask. Party government proclaimed legislative and regulatory amendments on Jan. 1 choosing the 950-hour minimum face-to-face teacher-student time that will apply to the next school year. Saskatchewan school divisions did not offer a minimum amount of instructional time before these amendments were introduced and the changes are an attempt to create a standard consistent with other western Canadian provinces.
Instructional time does not include teacher in-service days or teacher preparation.
Larry Pavloff, chair of the Prairie Spirit School Division board of education, which represents schools in Dundurn and Hanley, said they did not know the changes were “coming down,” but they did hear it was a possibility. He said the new legislation may or may not be a positive thing for students and teachers, but that depends on the quality of education provided.
“Just the fact that we add more time to the calendar year does not mean that student achievement is going to improve,” said Pavloff. “If we add the same quality of time that we know our teachers are presently providing, I don’t know how it can’t help but improve student achievement.”
Pavloff said the Prairie Spirit School Division will have to add 30 hours of instructional time in the coming year to meet the legislative requirements, but how that will happen will not be known until the division board of education calendar committee, which sets out the schedule of the school year, comes to a conclusion of what options they will decide to implement.
He said the committee will meet “very shortly” to work out these details and will then submit their proposals to the school board before April 1.
“Then the board has until May 1 to get their choice of calendar or present their calendar to the ministry,” he said. “The board has to have the decision made by May 1 as to what our school calendar is going to look like.”
Darby Briggs, communications coordinator with the Prairie South School Division, which represents Craik School, said the division is currently putting together a package of options to get up to the 950-hour minimum. She said they would then present that package to the board Feb. 12 in an effort to decide what they’re going to do come September 2013.
“We currently don’t have the 950 (instructional hours minimum), so we’re definitely going to have to take a look at things,” said Briggs. “We’ve got a lot to look at and definitely a lot of options to examine in making sure that what we decide is best both for the kids and the teachers, but also meets the ministry’s requirements.”
To read more please see the Feb. 4 print edition of The Davidson Leader.
Snow planes a “sweetheart” at local rally
“Snow plane nuts” from across Saskatchewan came to Davidson Jan. 27 to compare the fruits of their labours and offer free “at your own risk” rides for anyone brave enough to hop into a cockpit.
“It was a pretty good turnout,” said Charles Deaver, a local snow plane enthusiast and organizer of the rally. “Something I didn’t do is advertise it a lot because I didn’t want a lot of people to come out, especially younger kids. I didn’t have things set up right for that. If this happens again, I’ll know how to plan it better.”
Deaver owns two out of the six planes at the rally held at C&M Motors, a larger one he rebuilt four years ago and a smaller one “built right from the bottom up.” He said it takes him about four months to build a snow plane working on it part-time, when he’s not busy playing guitar for his old-time country and dance band, 3 For The Show.
A snow plane doesn’t actually fly, but can zip around a snowy field at close to 65 kilometres an hour. They’re kind of like a hovercraft, except made for Saskatchewan winters instead of Florida swamps.
Watrous’ Jack Isabelle came out to the rally to show off his homemade, other than the propeller and 290-Lycoming aircraft engine, snow plane. He said the whole body of the plane is made out of wood and there were no blueprints to fall back on when he was building it.
“You just look at other things and decide what you’ll put into it,” said Isabelle. “When it runs good, it’s a sweetheart. When it doesn’t, it’s a pain in the ass.”
Isabelle said he has been building snow planes for about 20 years. He said he first saw a picture of one and was intrigued and when one of his buddies built one, he had to have one too.
“Anybody can buy a skidoo, but these you have to build,” he said.
Lorne Winslow, who travelled from Wadena for the rally, brought along his “Snow Dragon” plane. He said the plane is equipped with a 235-horsepower Continental aircraft engine and six-foot propeller, plus a propane furnace inside the cockpit “so it stays nice and warm.
“I had a ride in one when I was six years old and I said I had to have one,” said Winslow. “They are a fun machine.”
To read more please see the Feb. 4 print edition of The Davidson Leader.
Raiders girls win home tournament
The Davidson Raiders junior girls basketball team took their competition to school at the Davidson gym Jan. 25 and 26 winning all three games they played in their home tournament on route to taking the first place honours.
Sandra Baldwin, coach of the Raiders, said Davidson was “pretty strong” at the tournament, first beating the Outlook Blues 43-28 and the Eatonia Spartans 49-19 in pool A action before moving on to the first place game, a 61-35 win over the Eston Mustangs. She said the other teams at the tournament were pretty young, comprised of mostly grades 7 and 8 players, so her team that dresses four Grade 9s proved formidable to their opponents.
“They are good leaders on the court,” Baldwin said of Grade 9 players Tina Stone (guard), Kaitlyn Baldwin (post), Cheyanne Nordmarken (wing) and Sydney Booker (point guard).
Cheyanne was particularly strong on the offensive side against the Mustangs scoring a team high 18 points including a couple long threes. Sydney netted 13 points during the blowout that saw Davidson go up 19-3 in the first quarter and 35-9 by the half.
Tina was all over the court during the final game coming down with numerous rebounds and playing a quick transition game to get the ball back up to her wings, while Kaitlyn was solid on the defensive side wrestling for any balls that an opposing Mustang dared try advance into the key.
“My girls thought Davidson was going to be difficult to begin with and they were a little bit slow getting out of the gate,” said Mustangs coach Marea Olafson. “Finally, it was like ‘oh, we can play with Davidson so let’s play,’ but we started slow.”
The Mustangs dominated the third quarter scoring 18 points to Davidson’s 10, bringing the score to 45-27. The home side came back to form in the final 8 minutes, putting the game away for good and taking first place with the 26-point victory.
Olafson said the tournament as a whole was “great” for their club, as it let their younger players get in some game action and grow more as a team.
“We were able to win a few basketball games,” she said. “The Grade 7s are getting stronger and the Grade 9s are helping them. Our team building is really strong right now.”
Baldwin said her girls played extremely well together as a team even though she mixed her players up position-wise throughout the final game.
“They still went out and passed well to each other,” she said. “They made sure everybody touched the ball and they spread out the points.”
The Raiders coach said the junior girls have enjoyed a solid season so far and they look forward to playoff action come the beginning of March.
“I expect us to be at districts in the final game,” said Baldwin. “That’s our goal.”
Braves wallop Cyclones in LLHL action
The Davidson Cyclones senior men’s hockey team came within 20 minutes of giving themselves a good chance of securing a second place finish and first round bye in the Long Lake Hockey League (LLHL) playoffs last Tuesday, but then the wind shifted dramatically their opponent’s way.
Leading 4-2 heading into the third against the LeRoy Braves in a must-win game, the Cyclones would give up seven goals in the third frame to eventually lose 9-7 to the team they are trying to leapfrog in the LLHL standings. After the game, Davidson sat tied with the Braves and the Lanigan Pirates for second place in the league, with LeRoy having a game in hand. The Cyclones regular season is finished while both Lanigan and LeRoy have makeup games scheduled for this week.
“We probably didn’t finish the way we wanted to (against LeRoy),” said Jason Shaw, head coach of the Cyclones. “We worked hard to get up to 4-2, but then in the third period guys got tired and everything that (LeRoy) shot seemed to go in. It’s tough when you only have a limited number of players, but I thought our guys tried their best. It’s just that a few mistakes cost us.”
Shaw said the Cyclones “just ran out of bodies” against LeRoy. Forward Pat Cey, who is trying to make a comeback after suffering a wrist injury earlier in the month, had to shut it down after taking the warm-up and captain Derek Allan injured his knee in the first and couldn’t go in the second and third.
The Braves onslaught came early in the third and was prolonged. Braves forward Ryan McDonald scored his second of the game and first of three in the third at the 2:54 mark. Thirty-four seconds later the game would be tied at 4-4 on a shot by Pearce Gourley.
The Braves had all the momentum. They were hitting any Cyclone that dared touch the puck or enter their zone, but a meltdown on the power play could have cost them.
Cyclones forward Kevin Johnson wristed a nifty top glove side on Braves goaltender Nathan Unrau shorthanded once again giving the home side a lead at 5-4 just over five minutes into the third. This was short lived as the Braves continued to press and tied it up less than two minutes later on a weak shot past Cyclones goalie Brady Willner, who seemed to be fighting the puck all night.
Cyclones forward Steve DeSilva, despite struggling around the ice after taking a hard hit in the first period, scored his second of the game 20 seconds later on a nice bobbling puck play in front of the LeRoy net making the score 6-5 Davidson.
The Braves tied it up again just over two minutes later and took the lead for good three minutes after that, at the 13:49 mark of the third, on a power play goal by Devin Moore. The game could have easily been called here because the Cyclones were done. They couldn’t move up the ice without getting crunched by a Brave and when they did manage to get a shot towards goal LeRoy players sacrificing their body for the win blocked it.
To read more please see the January 28 print edition of The Davidson Leader.
Loreburn wins Mars Bars contest for rink upgrades
The home of the Loreburn 19ers is about to get a $20,000 improvement after being named one of five grand winners of a Mars Bars Play Your Part Promotion.
The contest was open to rinks across Canada with five eventually moving to the final round and a chance of $20,000 if they could get enough pins, found in the wrappers of Mars Bars, entered online. Loreburn faced off in the final round against rinks in Mission, B. C., London, Ont., Warwick, Que. and Marsh Lake, Yukon.
Vanessa Tastad, Loreburn recreation board president and village councillor, said the whole village jumped behind the cause. She said, if chosen, the arena proposed to paint, add stick racks and door closures and install new flooring in their two new dressing rooms at the 48-year-old arena, which sees around 50 skaters come through its doors weekly for their hockey, figure and public skating fix.
“Everyone was pretty pumped around here through the whole cause,” said Tastad. “The rink sold just Mars Bars. The (high school) football team sold Mars Bars at their games and anything that the school had on sold Mars Bars. Everybody was entering pins and they’d drop them off for me to enter at the RM office too. Everyone was really good.”
Tastad said she found out they had been selected to receive the $20,000 prize through a phone call from Mars Bars on Dec. 27, with the announcement going national Jan. 8 informing all five rinks that they would get the full $20,000 for their great work getting their communities rallied around the cause.
“It was a pretty good Christmas present,” she said.
Loreburn is scheduled to receive the cheque by the end of January with the improvements beginning in February or March. Tastad said they will first have to get “organized” concerning getting quotes for the work, but the $20,000 will fully cover everything that needs to be done.
“We have two other dressing rooms that we can use while we’re in the process (of renovating), so we’ll be able to keep the rink running through the work,” she said.
Tastad said she first sent in the application to Mars Bars in March and were informed they advanced to the second round of competition two months later. They was picked as one of the five finalists in June and the community has been eating nothing but Mars Bars ever since.