GNAG embraces winter!

We have welcomed in the New Year here at GNAG with a great start! Here are all the amazing activities and events we have going on.

Taste in the Glebe

We had overwhelming support for Taste in the Glebe, an annual fundraising event that we haven’t been able to host since 2020. Not only did many excellent restaurants and beverage companies donate their resources and goodies, but they also showed up during a challenging economic time and helped a local non-profit. It has been a difficult time for GNAG throughout the pandemic, but we are on the road to recovery, and this event was instrumental in helping us rebuild.

The event was generously sponsored by Rebecca McKeen at Metro McKeen and Judy Faulkner of Faulkner Real Estate. We are so grateful to have such generous members in our community.

We had many amazing restaurants and beverage offerings this year at Taste, from local stalwarts like the Glebe Central Pub to newcomers like Dominion City Brewing and the Almanac Grain Bakery.

Taste was a night to remember. This is my first time on the organizing committee and attending; I cannot say enough good things about this community-building event. Thank you to the 2023 Taste committee – we brought it back!

From all of us at GNAG, thank you to every restaurant and beverage company in attendance, every volunteer, the team and everyone who bought tickets and came out to enjoy an evening with us. To the chair of the committee, Tahera Mufti, thank you for everything you have done to make this event a huge success.

Mutchmor rink & skating party

The Mutchmor rink has been up and running since Saturday, January 24.

We are so lucky to partner with the City of Ottawa and run the rink again this year. A big thank you goes out to our financial director, Pete Wightman, who spent many nights flooding the rink to get it ready for use. In addition to this, thank you to the GCA and the Glebe BIA who have donated funds for the rink upkeep this year.

More exciting news with the rink –GNAG and the BIA are throwing a community skating party on February 11 from 4:30 to 6:30 pm. This party will help bring out the community and allow BIA members to interact with the Glebe! We can promise a few things: skating, entertainment, hot dogs and hot chocolate. Please join us!

Summer Camp registration is open!

Thanks to all those families who took the plunge and registered with us on January 31 for Summer Camps at GNAG. We are excited to bring back old favourites like Mini Tennis and Adventure camp (JK–Grade 1) and a brandnew French recreation camp, “Les Petit Aventuriers,” for those campers who want to keep up their French in the summer while enjoying games, crafts and out-trips galore.

If you haven’t registered for summer camps yet, we invite you to download the guide from our website and look at our offerings; spaces are going fast!

March Break volunteers needed

Want to gain some hands-on experience working with kids in a fun and energetic environment? We are looking for high school students to volunteer at GNAG camps this March Break, March 13-17.

Interested candidates should send their resume and cover letter to Katie Toogood, katie@gnag.ca by Friday, February 24, 2023.

Spring programming

Staff are hard at work coming up with a spring programming lineup that will make everyone in your family want to register for something at GNAG.

If you have any ideas for program ming or want to teach a class with us, please email info@gnag.ca.

Come weal, come woe, we’ll gather and go, And live and die for Charlie

From the poem "O'er the Water to Charlie"

by Robert Burns

By Chris McNaught

It’s July 25, 1745, at Eriskay in the Hebrides, and I ask you to join me in welcoming ashore from a French frigate, a handsome 25-year-old, one Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart, better known as Bonnie Prince Charlie. He is “hame” from Italy, “come over the water,” brimming with infectious spirit, patriotic passion, charm and verve, a natural magnet drawing fervent allegiance and near-delirious hopes from the battered clans of the Highlands and Lowlands.

If you will tolerate the Scot in me, that is a specific realm and human beacon I exploit here – I admit the wild coastal cliffs, dramatic glens and derring-do of Charlie’s fling with history and legend captured me long ago – but they are used now to exemplify and encourage a universal sense of “nation,” imbued with pride and equity. Have we not all, at some time, welcomed or sought inspiration in a figure with character and élan, who appeals beyond self-puffery, vindictive tribalism and the next popular mandate? For which current or recent leaders would you “live and die”? Causes come and go, but transcendent leaders not so often. Of course, I may well be delusional bordering on dementia, unable to discern the time for real leaders has been eclipsed by vicious factionalism and me-ism; these days, there seems little faith invested in the honesty of political pretenders, or indeed, any requirement of honesty.

That’s my 18th-century candidate, but allow me also a wistful, arguably kindred nominee from 20th-century America, and the last moment I felt profoundly moved by any politician. The Peace Corps, the New Frontier, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but…” marked the 60s Kennedy era; a selfless vitality sought release. Yes, the brothers had significant personal and family failings, but observe once more, in 1968, the early-morning, hotel kitchen floor in Los Angeles, where Robert lay on his back, dying, shot in the head, and listen as he whispered to a crouching busboy: “Is everybody OK?” And so a scrappy, 42 year-old conscript for global peace, social justice

Bonnie Prince Charlie, by Chris McNaught

and civil rights, who aggressively challenged and championed youth, paid the price.

At Culloden, the Young Pretender also paid a price. He tragically mismanaged field tactics and conditions; unquestionably brave and committed, he lingered in the face of certain defeat, urging a desperate charge, but was pulled from the field by his captains, and though not butchered with many of his men, had to slink back to the continent by the grace of stalwart supporters. In Rome and Venice, there were a string of marriages and affairs, too much drink and despair and eventually a stroke – but, as with Robert, I urge you to hearken to their courage. It was the selfless trying, not the failing which ought to hold sway as we too often witness the meaning of “sacrifice” besmirched by tawdry wannabes and their deafness to the health and aspirations of next generations.

I urge you to fling your bonnet in the air; surely, we still live in a recoverable age of valour. In the fierce grip of climate chaos and pandemic, not everyone hears the spinal skirl and feels impelled to muse on the tides of history – with such effort (and a wee dram), you could sniff again the heather and the wild mountain thyme. Thus infused, you might then pick up the fallen claymore and deal indifference and factionalism a fatal blow; and while you’re at it, sunder the soul-less, jargonistic blather, social media, and partisan sycophancy that mute our better angels.

As for Charlie and Bobby, their causes need not be canonized as “lost,” but as won, if we remember their courage and take fresh resolve. A nation’s pride need not be jingoistic, but wave instead an inclusive banner; gather, rather than disdain the clans.

Chris McNaught is a Canadian author and former criminal lawyer and university lecturer. His most recent novel is Dùn Phris, A Gathering, Pegasus/Vanguard Press, UK, 2020.

John Crump President Glebe Community Association

T @glebeca E gca@glebeca.ca www.glebeca.ca