A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

One Committee within the Lower Grand River Land Trust Board which can be fairly ruthless is the Finance Committee. Their job is to diligently watch our investments and assess and approve the annual budgets for the various working committees. They take their responsibilities very seriously and more than once I have had to go back to the Committee Chairs with the requirement to sharpen their pencils.

This Land Trust owns extremely important resources which need to be examined and studied but sadly budget priorities do not allow extensive study by private companies and individuals. Hence, partnering is of utmost importance and enables the Board to continue to follow our desire to make our resources available to study groups of natural, ecological, agricultural and built heritage.

Within the past six months we have entered into partnering agreements with McMaster University, Hamilton and Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo. They use our resources for student field work and the Land Trust receives their completed study results.

Professor Pat Chow-Fraser, Faculty of Science (Biodiversity) at McMaster in late winter brought students studying hydrological regimes and wetland rehabilitation. These students visited the Land Trust’s Watershed Stewardship Program test sites including the late Rene VanOsch wonderful farm. They also enjoyed visiting the bird banding station in the care of Rick Ludkin, who had previously delivered a lecture at MacMaster on the Ruthven monitoring program. It was our pleasure to host these students, providing them with vital research materials and test plots. We expect Pat to return again and again.

Professor John Triggs at Laurier brought twenty-two archaeological students to Ruthven for a six week course on early industrialization of Ontario – specifically the early village of Indiana. The area of discovery is vast so the site excavation is a long-term project that will continue in subsequent years as a partnership between Wilfired Laurier Uiversity and Ruthven Park. This band of merry students rented the Haldimand Agricultural Centre in Kohler as their home, sleeping and eating there. They rented the showers at the Cayuga Arena and used the Ruthven Hill House as their resource headquarters. They were grateful that they didn’t have to bring their tents.

Both these groups have brought dollars into this community because of rentals, required supplies, groceries, etc. A brief study is underway to prove the significant economic impact they have brought to our community.

In these days of stock market uncertainty, more groups vying for less available grants and countless tourist attractions begging for your tourist dollar, it is vital to search out new partners and protect and honour the present ones.

Betsy Smith,
President

Lower Grand River Land Trust President, Betsy Smith and CAO Marilynn Havelka had the opportunity to meet Robert Kennedy Jr. after he gave his address atthe opening of the Canadian Heritage River Conference held in Guelph June 6th.