Tag Archive for: English Montreal

QCGN ends successful meeting with new Board of Directors

Montreal, June 20, 2011 – The Quebec Community Groups Network forged new partnerships and consolidated old ones as it held its annual convention in Montreal last week.
During the three-day meeting that wrapped up Saturday with the 17th Annual General Meeting, members explored avenues of collaboration with Federal Official Language coordinators; discussed the deep diversity of the English-speaking Quebec in a panel discussion moderated by Graham Fraser, the Commissioner of Official Languages; introduce a research initiative on the vitality of our English institutions; and held a consultation on membership recruitment and retention policy. Read more…
From left to right: (Front row) Dan Lamoureux; Linda Leith; Brian Garneau; Sylvia Martin-Laforge;
(second row) Nigel Spencer; Jan Anderson-Toupin; Irene Tschernomor; Cheryl Gosselin; Colleen Bronson; Marion Standish; Clara Ann Martin Labadie; Bradley Dottin.

 

 

Forum Participants Take First Steps to Creating Provincial Network of English-speaking Seniors

The Gaspé Spec

MONTREAL – More than 100 seniors and representatives from institutions and community groups from across Quebec gathered in Montreal recently to take the first important steps towards the creation of a provincial network for English-speaking seniors. The forum, hosted by the Quebec Community Groups Network, was the result of a year and a half of work by a steering committee of 16 volunteers from across the province.

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Request for Proposal (RFP) Consultant needed to develop QCGN Membership Policy

The Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) is currently reviewing its membership policy. The ultimate goal of the exercise to produce a membership policy that aligns with the vision, mission and mandate of the organization (see /about-us/) as well as its governance structures. The initial step is to produce a discussion paper with potential options for review at a meeting of the membership on June 17.

The purpose of this RFP is to invite expressions of interest to support the membership subcommittee in defining potential options that would be appropriate for the QCGN and the English-speaking community. The consultant will prepare a discussion paper for distribution to the Board and the membership in the coming weeks, facilitating a discussion on June 17 that would lead to the adoption of an approach, and produce a summary of the decisions.

To download the full document, click on the link below.

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ELAN’s Recognizing Artists project successfully launched

Last March, the English-Language Arts Network (ELAN) completed the first phase of the Recognizing Artists: Enfin Visibles! project by producing 150 print profiles of artists. This year, ELAN completes RAEV by adding video clips, interactive maps and never-before-told stories about how Quebec’s English-speaking cultural scene has exploded with creative talent over the past 25 years. The timing is propitious, hot on the heels of Arcade Fire’s Grammy victory, which stirred Quebec’s Assemblée Nationale to applaud ‘the contribution of our francophone and anglophone artists in spreading Quebec culture on the international stage.’ There has never been so much curiosity about what anglophone artists are doing. The vernissage also included the launch of the redesigned RAEV.ca site. ELAN also invites the public to visit the site to discover RAEV’s interactive tools for English-speaking Artists.



See more pictures at www.qcgn.ca/photos

Ways of Memory Conference Draws Crowd

– Matthew Farfan

About a hundred participants crowded the seventh floor of Concordia University’s Hall Building this past Saturday for a conference called “Ways of Memory: the Montreal Experience.”

The one-day event was organized by the Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network (QAHN) in partnership with the the Greater Montreal Community Development Initiative (GMCDI), with assistance from the Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network (QUESCREN), Concordia’s Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling, and the Quebec Association for Adult Learning. Financial support came from the Department of Canadian Heritage and GMCDI.

The conference got under way with an address by Helen Fotopulos, Montreal city councillor for the Côte-des-Neiges District and member of the city’s executive committee responsible for culture, heritage and women’s issues.

Fotopulos, who has been involved in numerous files pertaining to culture and heritage, congratulated QAHN for this networking initiative.

“The proposed new provincial law,” Fotopulos said, “includes heritage that is intangible, cultural. My wish for today is that we look beyond traditional definitions of heritage to heritage that is less concrete and more intangible.”

Following Fotopulos’ speech, a keynote presentation was given by Dinu Bumbaru, policy director of Heritage Montreal, which Bumbaru referred to as a “promoter of heritage rather than a protector” — the real protectors, he said, being property owners and governments.

Bumbaru, whose name is practically a household word in Montreal, and who has been the public face of Heritage Montreal for nearly twenty years, spoke of how the concept of heritage has evolved since the 1960s, and of how Montrealers’ views have evolved along with it.

The first great heritage preservation movement in the city, Bumbaru explained, was the “Save the Mountain” petition of the nineteenth century.

Bumbaru spoke of the sometimes divergent, culturally-rooted views of heritage in the 1800s, pointing out the differences in outlook between English-speaking and French-speaking Montrealers. “The first architecture chair in Canada was created at McGill, which was, after all, the only university on the island to not have Jesuit affiliations.”

Cultural differences notwithstanding, Bumbaru said, over time, the understanding of what constitutes heritage has changed dramatically — especially over the past few decades. Increasingly, he said, we have become aware that while single buildings are important, “the forest is more important than the single tree.” In other words, neighbourhoods can be as important, or even more important, than buildings.”

Like Fotopulos, Bumbaru emphasized the importance of Quebec’s expanded definition of what constitutes heritage. He outlined some of the spheres of activity that Heritage Montreal has focused on, including, of course, built and archaeological heritage, but landscape and memorial aspects of our heritage, as well.

“Landscape heritage,” Bumbaru explained, includes many things — things such as a tree-lined street, which is more important than one tree. “One tree is not so important; you need a whole row of them. Just like the staircases on the Plateau. You need to preserve the whole row.”

In terms of “memorial heritage,” Bumbaru cited a few more examples. The concept, he said, can include whatever involves the collective memory of the city — everything from a popular or ethnically-rooted tradition (the St. Patrick’s Day parade, for example), to the name of a street or neighbourhood (Griffintown, for example), to a specific business or landmark (Schwartz’s Deli or the Montreal Bagel Factory, for instance).

The new provincial definition of heritage even encompasses institutions, Bumbaru said. “So the Royal Montreal Curling Club, which is the oldest sports association in the Americas, would be recognized as a part of our heritage.”

Clearly then, it would seem that there is a growing sense that heritage should and does constitute much more than the brick and stone and mortar that make up lovely old buildings.

Following Bumbaru’s talk, there followed a series of well-attended workshops dealing with everything from heritage resources in Montreal to digital storytelling techniques.

At lunch, an award was presented by QAHN president Kevin O’Donnell to Montreal architect and pioneer heritage conservationist Michael Fish, who has championed the conservation of some of Montreal’s greatest heritage landmarks, buildings such as Windsor Station and the Grey Nuns Convent on René Lévesque Boulevard.

Fish, who co-founded Save Montreal in 1974, said that early in his career he came to realize that it was more expensive to demolish old buildings and build modern ones in their place than to restore and renovate existing structures. This, he said, along with his appreciation for heritage architecture (of course), was why he became such an ardent conservationist.

One of Fish’s current campaigns involves the conservation of the dilapidated Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine Mansion, whose present owner would like to demolish the building and replace it with a housing development.

“Many historians would agree,” Fish said, “that for his role in the establishment of responsible government in British North America, Lafontaine deserves to be considered one of North America’s most important political figures. We need much more than just a statue and a tunnel named after him. We need a Mount Vernon!”

To preserve Lafontaine’s house, Fish said, Montreal needs to recognize the portion of the large lot that the Lafontaine House sits on, which represents about 1 per cent of the total property, as “a condominium house.”

Following lunch, conference participants again divided into workshops, where topics ranged from Montreal heritage and schools to oral history and new media techniques.

“Ways of Memory: the Montreal Experience” wrapped up with a series of lively panel discussions on new initiatives, including a presentation by QAHN of the Montreal Mosaic WebMagazine, launched in 2010 by QAHN, GMCDI, and several other partners.

Judging by the positive feedback after the conference, participants were delighted with the event, which they found to be interesting, stimulating, and entertaining. Summing up that sentiment, QAHN’s Kevin O’Donnell called the conference “an outstanding success.” Participants, he said, “unanimously praised the high quality of the workshops, both in the Hall Building and next door at the Oral History Centre. Many said they needed to split themselves in two or more to take in everything that interested them.”

For more photos of the conference, click here.



Les aînés anglophones se regroupent

Journal 24 Heures, Étienne Laberge

Les aînés anglophones auront bientôt leur Réseau provincial pour les aînés d’expression anglaise (RPAEA), dont le principal mandat sera de travailler à « un meilleur accès à diverses ressources ».
L’annonce de ce premier pas vers la création de ce groupe a été faite lors d’une conférence de presse dans la ville de Westmount, vendredi.

Parce qu’une multitude de services offerts, en santé notamment, ou dans d’autres sphères publiques ne sont offerts qu’en français, le RPAEA « jouera un rôle de chien de garde pour veiller aux besoins des aînés de langue anglaise », peut-on lire dan un communiqué. Il sera en outre chargé de trouver des bailleurs de fonds qui assureront sa pérennité.  Read more…

Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) and Partners Take First Steps to Creating Provincial Network of English-speaking Seniors

For Immediate Release

Montreal – March 18, 2011 – More than five dozen seniors and representatives from institutions and community groups from across Quebec gathered today to take the first important steps towards the creation of a provincial network for English-speaking seniors. The establishment of such a network was the main recommendation set out in a QCGN report published last spring entitled Blazing a Trail for Active and Healthy Aging — An Action Plan for Quebec’s English-speaking Seniors – and the top recommendation of almost 300 repondents in a survey of active seniors and caregivers in our community.

“Our support for a seniors network also stems from the QCGN’s Strategic Plan which aims to promote inter-community and inter-institutional collaboration and to increase awareness of existing resources available to English-speaking Quebec,” said QCGN Director General Sylvia Martin-Laforge, noting that it is also in line with the QCGN’s mandate to promote the vitality of English-speaking communities across Quebec. Read more…