News | DrumhellerMail

Carbon Quilters Guild disbands

    Due to a lack of new members, the Carbon Quilters Guild has recently taken the decision to disband.
    “It was sad, we did a good job and we enjoyed what we did there,” said Alice McIntosh, now former Guild member.
    “We have had great support, volunteers galore helping with our shows, our husbands stepped up too to help. People came from everywhere to come to the shows.”
    The idea of the Guild came up in May 1995, when three ladies, Dorothy Horne, Mary Cadman and Janice Montgomery sat around a table and discussed how to raise money for the Farmer’s Exchange building in Carbon.
    They came up with the idea of creating a quilt to illustrate the people and plans of Carbon and got to work.
    The idea took off and a guild was formed: the Carbon Heritage Quilters Guild.
    Although the group was Alberta’s Handicrafters Guild’s smallest branch, with as few as three members and at the most eight, the Guild enjoyed very successful events.
    All in aid of helping their community, the group organized 10 quilt shows which were successful family fun events and raffled off 11 quilts to raise money for organizations and causes.
    They also organized quilts challenges within the group and quilted to help residents in time of need, to give comfort to those affected by tragedy or help when life was difficult.
    Recently, due to lack of members, the ladies decided to close down the Guild.
    However, in the spirit that started the Guild, the current members, Alice McIntosh, Dorothy Nygard and Dorothy Horne, wanted to ensure the community benefitted from this decision. They decided to donate the money raised from selling the equipment and supplies to local groups.
    A total of $6,500 was raised and donated to the Carbon Library, to buy Audio and books, the Carbon Fire Department, to go towards the purchase of a new rescue truck, the Wellness Centre, to help upgrade or replace some of the equipment in their exercise room and finally, the Carbon and Area Restoration Society (CAARS), to help them with building maintenance and who are currently renovating the Farmer’s Exchange building.
    Alice McIntosh told The Mail “It is disheartening, quilting has been around for ever, it is an art and craft that comes and goes I guess...We’d like to see it carry on, but maybe in a few hours, somebody else will start it up again.”
    The Guild ladies told The Mail they will carry on quilting and will take with them the great friendships they have developed through the Guild.

The carts are coming

    Drumheller residents are soon to be introduced to the new Solid Waste Collection system.
    In the next two weeks, the town will dedicate the time of a summer student to help with the new system roll-out and people through the transition process, and the assessment of properties where residents with special needs live. Education packs will also be distributed, explaining where the carts need to be placed.
    Some details are yet to be finalized, but with tenders now awarded, a new bylaw in place, the town is putting together the process for the change in the waste collection.
    During their regular meeting on Monday, April 26, Council awarded the tenders for both the commercial and the residential new automated cart collection to H & H Huxted Services, in the amount of $1,339,600.44 and $657,764.64 excl. GST, respectively.
    In his report to Council, Al Kendrick, director of Infrastructure Services, explained the tenders were within the town budget, with the residential one within the current 3-year budget, and the commercial one not affecting the budget as it is an exclusive franchise.
    Having an exclusive franchise will also reduce the town’s administrative costs by monitoring only one provider and recycling services will carry on to be provided to most businesses as part of the exclusive franchise.
    The report also highlights the commercial tender is on average 16.47 per cent lower than the current charges to commercial users.
    A contract was also awarded for the supply of the 360 litre carts, equivalent to 5 garbage bags, for the new waste collection system to IPL for $203,326. As well as competitive pricing, the supplier was chosen for its presence in Calgary and being a Canadian company.
    This pricing includes options such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags and reading equipment, delivery, distribution and education packages, although Kendrick told The Mail there may be savings on this pricing.
    “We still have a bit of negotiations with regard to the radio frequency equipment as well as the markings, we may end up stamping the Town of Drumheller logo on them….we haven’t really totally finalized the price.”
    The tags will serve a dual purpose.
    They will help track carts if they go missing, or are misplaced, and collections will read the tags and be logged.
    A first cart, which has a 20- year lifespan, will be given to each property free of charge and will be residents’ responsibility. Any further carts will need to be purchased by the resident from the town.
    As those carts will be public property and cannot be personalized, the RFID tags will help recover them if they go missing. However, the tags are only readable at close range, so residents are advised to secure the carts after collection days as loss or theft will be their responsibility.
    Residents should also familiarize themselves with Bylaw #10-10, created to take into account the manual and the automated collection, and includes a section on penalties, ranging from $50 to a minimum of $1,000 for contraventions to provisions in the bylaw.
    The date of the change over has not yet been confirmed as it will depend on the time it will take for H & H Huxted to be equipped with the new waste collection vehicle.

Policing committee helping steer direction of law enforcement

    Local police councils are helping to shape the future of Alberta policing.
    Last weekend Fred Makowecki, chair of the Drumheller Policing Committee and committee member George Kallay were at the Alberta Association of Police Governance (AAPG) Conference in Calgary.
    The AAPG is an association of police commissions and RCMP committees that support civilian governance of police services in Alberta. Once a year the membership, including Drumheller, comes together with stakeholders to share information and ideas on best practices in police governance and oversight.
    In Drumheller, a policing committee was formed in 2008 as a civilian body to act as a liaison between the police, the town and the community. It operates to open communication and has a mechanism for residents to voice concerns over issues with the police.
    Makowecki said the conference was packed with information, and delegates were able to look at a draft of the Alberta Law Enforcement Framework, which is hoped to be approved in the near future.
    This framework is designed to address some of the challenges of modern police work and is proposing changes in the areas of service delivery, public accountability and funding.
    “It is a positive change for the people of Alberta. We have always had some of the best policing in the country, and listening to statistics, the best in the world,” he said. “It is taking it to the next step, looking at accountability and civilian oversight, which is what we do as a committee in Drumheller.”
    The committee is appointed by town council to work with the RCMP and has within its committee, a public complaints director.
    “That comes through a number of incidents across the country, of course the first that comes to mind is (Robert) Dziekanski, but there has been many across Canada. It is making the complaints process more accountable and quicker,” he said, adding in Drumheller in the Policing Committee’s short history has had very few complaints to deal with.
    Makowecki will be heading to Red Deer this weekend as chair for the Policing Committee for stakeholders meeting to ask questions and provide feedback.
    “It’s exciting to be at the ground floor looking at the way the government is looking to ask stakeholders and developing policy,” he said.
    “There are some really neat initiatives and how they are being molded together across the province in a common framework,” he said. “Anyone in the province can expect a level of policing within those standards.”
    He said locally the committee has worked with the Town of Drumheller and the RCMP in developing enforcement priorities, and wants to look to the community for its input.
    “We see policing as community driven, it’s a huge change from past years,” said Makowecki.

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