Juno Beach
Your scribe has been a little distracted by a weekend of mostly fine weather. It seems like a long time ago but it was just a week and a bit ago that we had a Sunday of sleet and snow; now the grass almost grows as you watch. Anyway, last Thursday the 19th
· A few announcements: Cheques to support the displaced folks of Fort McMurray can be made out to the club and will be forwarded to a coordinating Rotary Club in Alberta.
· A mock up room demonstrating the new Joseph Brant Hospital will be available for Rotary viewing from 4 – 6 on Wednesday May 25th at 836 Harrington Court.
· Liberty for Youth’s Frederick Dryden will be running 650 Km from Hamilton to Ottawa to raise money for Liberty for Youth. We will be coordinating with Rotary clubs along the way to help with financial and logistical support. Read more about the run here.
http://runwithfrederick.com/
Our guest speakers were Jenna Misener and Pam Calvert who came to tell us about the Juno Beach Centre ; Canada’s only interpretive centre explaining our role on the beaches of Normandy 70-and-a-bit years ago. The Centre recognizes and pays tribute to 5,500 Canadians who were killed during the Battle of Normandy including 359 on D-Day.
Juno Beach Centre was the dream of former MP, Garth Turner and opened in 2003. Since 2004, the Juno Beach Centre’s young bilingual Canadian guides have conducted guided tours of Juno Park, leading visitors through the remains of the Atlantic Wall and recounting the history of the D-Day Landings.
Since opening the Juno Beach Centre has hosted 10,000 student groups. Three-quarters of visitors are Canadians and many have little knowledge of its place in history. To that end, there’s an opportunity here for youngsters to become part of the Juno Beach Centre’s interpretive team, they stay for 4 or 5 months, live in on-site accommodation and presumably grow up beyond measure. A limiting factor for many is that they must be bilingual – in French and English of course.
And by the way, a new educational programme “Vimy to Juno” has just opened at the Warplane Heritage Museum; worth going to see.
P.Scribe
