Drumheller residents have a great way to kick off the Christmas season and that is helping those in need at the Annual Red Bag Food Drive.

Drumheller’s annual food drive will take place on Thursday, November 29. This is a one-day blitz throughout the Town of Drumheller and surrounding communities in an effort to fill the shelves of The Salvation Army Food Bank in time for the Christmas season.

“Everyone pulls together for the community and fills that need for food,” said Kim Suntjens, one of this year’s organizers. She adds that she likes how whole families, sports teams, service clubs and even coworkers will band together to go out collecting.

In the spirit of community, many volunteers go door-to-door to collect the donations. There are muster points throughout the community where volunteers can meet at 5:45 p.m. on November 29 to comb the neighbourhoods.

In this week’s edition of The Drumheller Mail there is a red bag. Residents can fill the highly visible red bags with their donation and leave it on their doorstep, so volunteers are able to quickly and easily pick up the donations. Red bags are also available at Freson Bros., McDonald’s Restaurant and the Salvation Army Thrift Store.

One major change this year is the depot for the food will be at the new Salvation Army Church. In previous years the collection and sorting space was at Greentree Mall. This year drivers are asked to drop off at the church at 90 South Railway Avenue West.

For more information, contact Summer Manca at 403-821-3163 or Kim Suntjens at 403-820-2100.

The Drumheller RCMP are employing a new technology that will make ticketing faster and more accurate.

The RCMP have begun to introduce electronic ticketing. The RCMP now have two vehicles in its fleet that are able to quickly and accurately prepare tickets.

  Constable Eric Doucette is already using the technology in the traffic cruiser. He says one of the biggest advantages is it allows the ticket to be entered into all the RCMP and court systems immediately.

“Before administration staff had to enter all the information, now the court has it immediately,” he said.

The system scans the driver’s license and will auto-populate the ticket eliminating issues such as clerical errors or messy handwriting. The officer is able to enter the offense notice and add additional notes. After all the initial ticket information is inputted,  subsequent tickets can be added extremely quickly.

After the ticket is complete, it is printed out from a printer installed in the armrest of the police cruiser.

It is expected this will mean a traffic stop will take about a third less time than current procedures.

The tickets are for all provincial matters and are in the system immediately. So, for example, if a person wants to use the voluntary fine payment option, they can go directly to the courthouse to pay.

So far the RCMP have the system in its traffic cruiser, and one of its new vehicles. Eventually, all RCMP vehicles will be equipped with this new technology.

Saskatchewan began its pilot program in 2013, and Manitoba in 2014. BC brought in the system last spring.