Small Arms Inspection Building – For June 23, 2018 Official Opening, you will need an Eventbrite ticket. Also at this post: We have sold our house in Long Branch.

The following message is from the Small Arms Society:

We’re excited to announce the Official Opening of the rehabilitated Small Arms Inspection Building.

Join the City of Mississauga and the Small Arms Society as we unveil this rich historic sites’s transformation into a community creative hub.

Come explore the community gardens, art exhibits by InSitu artists and the AGM permanent collection, hand-crafted furniture designed by Sheridan College students, enjoy the music by the Mississauga Jazz Band Ensemble and more!

Small Arms Inspection Building
1352 Lakeshore Rd. E (Dixie & Lakeshore)
Saturday, June 23rd | 2018
1:30PM

Admission is free and open to public.

SPACE IS LIMITED SO REGISTER YOUR TICKET ON EVENTBRITE.CA

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Get your Eventbrite tickets now – space is limited

I had the good fortune to attend the Community Tribute for Jim Tovey at the Small Arms Building on June 2, 2018. I will post YouTube links to brief videos, from the June 2, 2018 presentations, to my website in weeks ahead. I am very pleased indeed that I got my Eventbrite ticket in time – as is the case for the June 23, 2018 Official Opening, space is limited!

Click here for a Facebook video of the June 2, 2018 Community Tribute for Jim Tovey >

Giroudy team from Royal LePage – Paul, Angela, and Laura Giroudy

In other news, from my own personal narrative, we have sold our house in Long Branch, with very capable and much appreciated help from the Giroudy team from Royal LePage – Paul, Angela, and Laura Giroudy.

We originally met the Giroudys at an open house some time back, and had heard good things about their work – about their high level of enthusiasm, dedication, and close attention to detail – through word of mouth comments in the community. There is so much that a person can learn, through the power of community networking. We are very pleased with the Groudys’s work and recommend them highly.

We are now looking at houses in Stratford; we are working with Home & Company as our real estate agents. In Stratford, among other things I will be working on a book about local history in Long Branch and nearby communities based on several years of interviews and recordings from public meetings in Etobicoke and Mississauga.

As a visitor to the Long Branch area over a 21-year period, I have played the role of a participant-observer – and have played the role, in a sense, of a foreign correspondent – and will continue (in the role of foreign correspondent, among other roles) to write about local history and land-use issues in Long Branch and nearby neighbourhoods.

These are topics of abiding interest, for many people, no matter where in Ontario or elsewhere we may be living. Geography matters, but with the internet, at times it matters less than would otherwise be the case. I will continue to visit Toronto regularly, as face to face meetings are a key part of the work that reporters and bloggers are engaged in.

Nordic Meeting in Estonia

In other news, I will be speaking at an international conference – a Nordic Meeting – in Tallinn, Estonia on Sept. 1, 2018. I will spend a good part of the summer preparing for the event.

Among other things, I will speak about the role that organizational culture – including a focus, right from the start, on leadership succession – plays in the long-term success of nonprofit, community associations, at the local, national, and international levels.

A related topic concerns that value of a flat-hierarchy approach toward organizational structure and the development of a sense of ownership, of the organization (whichever organization we are speaking about), on the part of the membership.

I also continue to work on posts for my website, with a focus among other things on brief YouTube videos, as well as on opinion articles at the Etobicoke Guardian / Toronto.com website. Below are links to my previous opinion articles at the latter website.

Opinion articles by Jaan Pill at Etobicoke Guardian / Toronto.com website

April 10, 2018 Etobicoke Guardian article: “Long Branch Character Guidelines seek to disrupt rampant lot-splitting: Character Guidelines document highly significant in the history Long Branch, writes Jaan Pill.”

May 2, 2018 Etobicoke Guardian article: “Culture of decision-making at OMB changed dramatically over 25 years: Bill 139 seeks to get land-use planning back on the right track, writes Jaan Pill.”

June 5, 2018 Etobicoke Guardian article: “What will Long Branch look like after OMB has gone? Culture of decision-making at the OMB has changed dramatically over the past 25 years, says Jaan Pill.”

City of Toronto media relations policy permits recording of public meetings; I checked, after two city staffers in Etobicoke claimed otherwise

An excerpt from the above-noted, June 5, 2018 Etobicoke Guardian opinion article reads:

As part of my research, I attended an April 4, 2018 meeting organized by the Long Branch Neighbourhood Association, at which city staffers spoke about how the Character Guidelines may, or may not, affect future land-use planning decisions in Long Branch.

At that meeting, I was most interested to learn that, according to two city staffers, I was not permitted to record what city officials said at the meeting, nor was I permitted to post any direct quotations of what staff said at the meeting, based on my notes, without first getting permission from media relations at the City of Toronto.

After the meeting, I contacted media relations and asked if the above-noted prohibition was, in fact, City of Toronto policy. Among other things, I asked: “Does a person need to get permission from the city before remarks by city staff at a public meeting can be recorded?”

The answer was: “No. Information provided by city staff to the public at a public meeting is a matter of public record. As a courtesy, you may want to advise staff that you are present as a blogger or member of the media but that is not a requirement.”

The bottom line is: If a person is in doubt about a statement, by any person regarding any topic, it’s a great idea to seek verification of it.

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