Craik

Dr. Ryan Meili to speak at Craik Legion

An inner-city Saskatoon family doctor is heading to Craik this weekend to discuss his new book which focuses on the social determinants of health and the changes needed to Canada’s public policy with a goal of creating a healthier society.

Dr. Ryan Meili will also address the challenges of recruiting physicians to practise in rural Saskatchewan.

Meili, whose book is entitled A Healthy Society: how a focus on health can revive Canadian democracy, said he will be talking about his experiences working as a doctor in northern Saskatchewan, Mozambique, and Saskatoon as well as the stories of patients included in the book to illustrate the things that “really have an impact” on a person’s health and well-being. The book launch will be held Sept. 9 beginning at 7 p.m. at the Craik Legion Hall.

He said the challenges of income, education, employment, housing, the wider environment and social services or the lack thereof on an individual or community need to be discussed to bring about democratic reform that focuses more on ensuring a better life for all Canadians.

“As countries get wealthy, they also get less equal,” said Meili. “We’re not sharing the wealth in a way that’s allowing everyone to participate. There’s actually quite a lot of research that shows that countries that are more unequal have worse health outcomes.

“The interesting part is you would assume that in a more unequal country you would have more poor people and poor people tend to be sicker ergo worse health outcomes,” he said. “But it’s the wealthy people’s health that suffers as well. No matter what you’re level is, in a more unequal society, your health is worse than someone at the same level that has less of a gap between the rich and the poor.”

Meili said he is “hesitant” to say exactly what he will be discussing about the doctor shortage plaguing rural Saskatchewan and Craik in particular, but he will be speaking about the challenges that exist in recruiting doctors to rural areas in this province and the ideas he thinks could help solve this problem.

“We can often leave rural or the smaller centres out of these discussions, but there is really smart people and really interesting people in all of these communities,” he said about the need for a healthier society. “I’ve been hearing lots about the way the community is getting mobilized around health care with the loss of their doctor. It’s a really great time to open up the books and talk about just what is it that Craik wants for their own health and how the issues in this book will fit into that discussion.”

Davidson, Sports

Davidson School to have junior football

Young football players hoping to suit up in Raiders’ blue and white no longer have to wait for Grade 10 to get involved in the action, as Davidson School is starting up a junior football team this September.

Trevor Ouellette, town recreation director and head coach of the junior team, said the new club would welcome boys and girls from grades 7 to 9 to tryout for the Raiders’ junior football team. He said tryouts would start the second week of school with a focus on introducing the young players to tackle football.

“We’re planning for 13 to 15 kids coming out,” Ouellette said. “If we get 15, we’re laughing. It’s male and female. If the girls feel comfortable getting hit, they are more than welcome to come out.”

Kids who make the team will be charged a fee to help pay for the team’s expenses, with the rest of the money needed to start up the club coming from a community grant from Sask. Lotteries. The school decided to put together a junior team in order to make better use of the new field behind the school and to create a feeder system into the senior team.

Ouellette said it is unfair to suit up a senior team with little to no experience in organized football and put them into action against other clubs that have kids that have been playing the game for the past four years. He added another benefit of junior football is to get the kids more active and challenged both mentally and physically.

“You learn a lot about yourself, about what you can do and what you can’t do,” he said. “You are put into a lot of intense one-on-one battles, especially in six-man football.  I played 12-man football for seven years in the city and the first three or four years you never get to touch the ball, you just run up and down the field. With six-man, you can’t hide. You’re involved. It’s a lot of fun.”

To read more please see the Sept. 3 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

 

Davidson, featured

Davidson mayor decides not to seek re-election

Mary Jane Morrison will not be running for a third term as mayor of Davidson in the fall election saying she “just felt the time was right” for her to step down, but she will continue to try and make the community a better place.

“Anything that I haven’t accomplished or still would like to see happen, I still will contribute to as a citizen,” Morrison said. “That is maybe a little bit of encouragement for other people in our community too. Everything doesn’t fall on those six council members and mayor to make things happen in our community.”

Morrison said she first entered town politics eight years ago because she believed it would be “exciting and rewarding” to be a part of the growth and progress of Davidson.  She first was elected to town council in 2004 in a by-election. Two years later she ran for mayor winning by acclamation, replacing Jim Cross.

“I knew it was a big job,” she said. “I knew it would be bigger than I thought. One thing I’ve sort of seemed to find in the last six years is when something doesn’t go well or an organization or an institution or something is struggling or falling, they look to town council for solutions and sometimes that is overwhelming.”

Despite these struggles, Morrison said the town council in her time as mayor has accomplished many things including becoming more “current” on planning and the way council has formed a relationship with its staff.

“We also have a better understanding of community development,” she said. “When I first got on council eight years ago, we kind of thought there was economic development, but I think we know now that there is a lot more to it. It is the community as a whole and I think we are growing in that respect.”

Community development, physician recruitment and retention and seeing the town grow and progress have been the major interests of Morrison in her time as mayor, but the advice she would like to pass on to the next mayor of Davidson is just to keep positive.

“Keep things in perspective,” she said. “There is so many positive things that happen, so don’t let the negatives deter you. They do get more attention and more coverage, but don’t let that bother you.”

Davidson

Home damaged in late night blaze

A fire tore through an unoccupied house on Hamilton Street last week causing extensive damage to the home, which was in the process of being renovated.

Don Willner, deputy chief of the Davidson Fire Department, said the Aug. 18 fire started in the living room at the front of the house at 210 Hamilton Street and worked its way up an interior wall into the attic. He said the department arrived on scene at 3:55 a.m. to find the house partially in flames, but got it “knocked down” quick enough that the fire didn’t even “melt the siding” on the neighbouring homes.

“We cleared scene at probably 7 or 7:30 in the morning,” said Willner. “There was flame on the exterior of the house and on the front end of the house, but we had that knocked down right away. We had to pull down quite a few ceilings and cut a lot of access holes through the roof itself to get the attic vented out and to get it cooled down.

“The actual flame we had knocked down probably within 20 minutes, but that’s a lot of work to get into the attic area to get the remaining hot spots cooled down.”

Engine 41, 42 and the Davidson Fire water tanker along with nine firefighters were involved in combating the burn. Davidson EMS and members of the Craik RCMP detachment were also present.

To read more please see the August 27 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Sports

Coyotes West Canada softball champs

The Conquest Coyotes bantam A softball team won gold at the Western Canadian softball championships this August with a near sweep over teams from across the four Western provinces.

Davidson’s Elise McJannet, 15, a shortstop and left fielder for the Coyotes, said it was nice to end the season on a winning note. She said it was her first year playing at the Western Canadian under-16 softball championships and managed to pound out a few singles in the gold medal winning effort.

“I love hitting and being with this team,” said McJannet, who has been playing ball since she was four-years-old. “I also loved the excitement of playing in this tournament.”

The Conquest Coyotes made it to the Western Canadians by finishing third at the Saskatoon softball championships in early July. That placement led them and the team they lost to in the silver medal game at the provincials, the Saskatoon Phantoms, to the Westerns.

They were joined at the Aug. 9 to 12 tournament in Strathmore, Alberta, by two teams from each of the other three Western provinces as well as the host team.

The Coyotes went 6-0 in round robin play at the Strathmore Diamonds before losing their first playoff game Aug. 12 against the Phantoms by a score of 8-0. They rebounded later that afternoon with a 5-3 victory over the Calgary Kaizens setting up a gold medal grudge match against the rival Phantoms.

The Coyotes, made up of players from towns around the area, gave it their all against the Phantoms eventually coming out with a hard fought 2-0 win and the gold medal.

“It was the most exciting baseball tournament I ever experienced,” said McJannet. “It’s great being on a team that is the best in Western Canada.”

Davidson

Davidson bridge players in Nova Scotia

Eileen McCreary and Judy Gust are travelling across the Canso Causeway, a rock-fill road through the Straight of Canso, and onto Cape Breton Island from the Nova Scotia peninsula this week for a game of bridge.

The two Davidson card players are heading to Sydney, Nova Scotia, for the 2012 Canada 55-plus Games where they will compete with bridge players from across the country. The Aug. 29 to Sept. 1 Games are a celebration of fitness for Canadian seniors, bringing them together every two years to try their hand at one of 23 sports competitions ranging from ice hockey to bowling to swimming and all taking place at various locations across the Island.

Gust said this will be her first time in Nova Scotia and the plan is to get in a little sightseeing on their weeklong trip to the East Coast, but she’ll come up with a list of things to see with McCreary after they get there. As for the tournament play, she said it is not really that important if they come home with gold medals, it is the people they’ll meet and the good times they’ll have that matters.

“We’re there just to have fun,” said Gust. “If the cards that are given to us are good, then that’s great. If not, we’ll still have a lot of fun anyways.”

McCreary said she has been to the Canada Games once before in 2006 when it was held at Whitehorse, Yukon. She said that she and Gust have competed in quite a few tournaments over the years and won a few times, but they’re not exclusive in their partnership.

“We both belong to the bridge club here and play on Thursday nights at the Seniors’ Centre,” said McCreary. “You don’t always play as a team here as you change partners when you play locally, but as you play together you just get a good idea of how the other person bids and likewise. Then you hope you get some good cards to bid.”

She said as far as the sightseeing goes, they’ll wait until they get there to find some information on the various attractions, but the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site off Gabarus Bay is something she would really like to see.

“I’ve heard quite a bit about it,” said McCreary. “It’s a British fortress. It was a hub of commercial trade back in the early days and they’ve kept it in its original state.”

The Davidson Leader, Davidson, Saskatchewan