Jean Kerins
Lots of things have happened at the Club since our last edition of the Caledon Comment. September 10th saw our club participating in a trail twinning ceremony with the Jeju Olle Foundation in Korea. During the summer I was fortunate enough to travel to visit family in England and while there I hiked a portion of the Cotswold Trail that is also twinned with Korea. It was a beautiful trail, about 7 km in length and skirted the top of Stinchcombe Hill. The views along the entire circular route were absolutely stunning, so if you ever get to England, make sure to check it out. (Of course the entire Cotswold area is well worth the visit and offers lots of hiking opportunities.) You can read more about the opening of our friendship trail in this issue of the Caledon Comment.
At the BTC’s Annual General Meeting held in September our club was very well represented and I was delighted to be able to present a cheque to the BTC on behalf of the club in support of land acquisition in the future. Also, two of our members, Ross McLean and Peter Leeney, received Honourary Life Memberships in the BTC in recognition of their time volunteering at both the club and the BTC level. Both Ross and Peter are true gentlemen and it is always a pleasure to work with them to promote and protect our Trail. I am also very pleased to report that Janice McClelland, our Club’s Past President, was elected to the BTC Board of Directors at the Annual General Meeting. Janice will be Vice-President of Programs and will bring tremendous strengths to the organization.
The club has been very busy on the trail maintenance front as well this past fall, successfully partnering with the Credit Valley Conservation Authority on trail improvements at Belfountain Park. In addition trail has been successfully taken off road in the vicinity of the Badlands this fall. Many thanks go to several Foundations who provided financial support for these projects.
I am very pleased to announce that David Lamb has volunteered to become Webmaster for the club. After filling the role for many years, Steve Arscott is stepping down to pursue other interests and on behalf of all the club members and the general public who have used our website, I extend many thanks to Steve for the time he has spent volunteering for our club.
Lastly, we have a very special new member in Caledon. On September 27th, 2011 Kristina Zeromskiene, our Cal e-news Editor and Website Liaison, gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Guste. Congratulations Kristina. You took the job of increasing our club’s membership to an entirely new level.
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Jean Kerins
The mission of the Bruce Trail Conservancy is to establish a conservation corridor containing a public footpath along the Niagara Escarpment, in order to protect its natural ecosystems and to promote environmentally responsible public access to this UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve.
You will notice that hiking is not explicitly mentioned in the BTC's mission statement and yet you probably think of our club as a hiking club. That is only a small part of the story and only a small part of what we do in the Caledon Hills Bruce Trail Club. Think of hiking as the teaser to encourage you to get to know the Niagara Escarpment. The more you know the wonders of the escarpment, the more likely you are to help look after it and to help preserve it for future generations. As a club, we certainly endeavour to promote healthy living through our hiking program, but we also devote a lot of time and energy to raising awareness about the Niagara Escarpment and to raising funds to help secure the Bruce Trail and the conservation corridor containing the trail. At present about half the trail is safe from future development, so there is still a lot of work to be done. Please encourage your friends and neighbours to get out on the trail and learn about the Niagara Escarpment. Then encourage them to join the Bruce Trail Conservancy so we can all be part of the solution. Our beautiful treasure of a trail needs all the help from us that it can get. And we need to get out on the next perfect autumn day and enjoy all the benefits that our trail returns to us.
Jean Kerins
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