“My One Square Mile” & the Travelling Coffehouse

June 27, 2007

In a unique combination of traveling roadshow and fundraising for educational projects in poverty stricken locations, the “My One Square Mile” project presents Brewster’s Traveling Coffehouse on August 4th at the Sauble Beach community centre, located behind the tourist information booth in Sauble. My One Square Mile is the brainchild of Sharon “Zappha” Barfoot who, according to the website, thought, “if I could inspire people to adopt one square mile (metaphorically) of our planet and become stewards of that square mile, then we could make a difference……one square mile at a time.”

A prime example of the sort of difference My One Square Mile hopes to make is their partnership project with the Jai Dee Children’s Fund which involves the refurbishing a kindergarten school in Southern Laos, located on Kong Island in the middle of the Mekong River. This refurbishing has thus far resulted in the building of washrooms, and the beginnings of a lunch program in which the students themselves learn to grow and maintain a garden. The organization has built a fence to protect the precious veggies from water buffalo. Extra produce will be sold locally to help maintain the school. In addition, My One Square Mile produces photo novellas that transcend language to educate about poverty and the potential for improvement. They hope to send the photo novellas out to galleries and coffee shops to help raise awareness.

To fund these fantastic projects Zappha combined her My One Square Mile concept with her desire to help independant musicians get exposure. In the name of raising funds and giving exposure to indie musicians, the Brewster’s Traveling Coffehouse was created.

Brewster’s is a coffeehouse with a difference. We still bring excellent coffee, food and entertainment to you, but we do not have a permanent location. We bring the coffeehouse to your town; your location.

Our mandate is to support indie musicians by featuring them at various locations. Our roster of musicians is growning each day.

All the profits go to support the My One Square Mile Project. Currently, our projects take place in Central America, Nepal, India and Laos. Our focus is education in each of these locations.
~Zappha Barfoot

Performers for the evening include: Peter J. Slack, Royal Wood, Terry Golletz, Jon Brooks, David Rankine and Gillian Thomas, and Marianne Girard. Tickets for the evening are 15$. The evening is sponsored by MacBeth’s Cafe and Bakery in Sauble Beach and Peninsula Ford in Owen Sound.

For more information visit the My One Square Mile Website, email info[@]myonesqaremile.com or phone Zappha at (519) 422-0007.

Sauble Beach Web-Cam

June 12, 2007

Sauble Beach Web-Cam Jack n Jill’s Surf Shop on Main Street in Sauble Beach has put web-cam footage of the water conditions at Sauble online and available to those of you with high-speed internet. We here at theOwen.com think that the site is a really great idea. The camera will be operating from 6 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and for fifty seconds at a time, you can control what direction it faces and zoom it in and out. What an amazing idea, a Sauble Beach web-cam!!

In a happy side note, since writing this post it has been announced that Sauble Beach has again been awarded the Blue Flag certification. The Blue Flag is an internationally recognized environmental certification verifying that the water at Sauble meets very stringent quality standards, maintains a high level of environmental management, environmental education and safety and services. For more information visit the Sauble Beach Chamber of Commerce or The Sun Times.

theOwen.com would like to send out a special thanks to Gary at the South Bruce Peninsular for bringing this web-cam to our attention!! Much obliged Gary!

How Victoria Day became the May 2-4

May 16, 2007

Written by Adam Reese

For many of us May 24th long weekend represents the gateway to summer. Many make plans to open their cottages or to bask in the sun that occasionally deigns to shine on glorious Sauble Beach, or to drink as many wobbly pops as their systems can (or probably can’t) handle. However, not too many of us pause to reflect on the strange nomenclature our parents or historically inclined friends use to label this weekend of sun, fun and general debauchery. This has led we here at theOwen.com to wonder just who this Queen Victoria was and why we are still celebrating her birthday 106 years after her death.

First, a little bit about the lady. She was born Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg at Kensington Palace in London on May 24th, 1819, the daughter of Prince Edward and granddaughter of King George III. Her grandfather,had suffered from intermittent insanity throughout his adult life creating the inspiration for a decent movie on the subject, “The Madness of King George”. It wasn’t until recently that George III’s illness was understood to be porphyria, a blood illness. Towards the end of George III’s life it became a matter of some concern that none of his 15 children had heirs. George’s eldest son George IV took the throne after his fathers death. However, due to the death of George IV’s daughter Charlotte in 1817 and the fact that he was estranged from his wife, the succession was still in question. As a result, the rest of George III’s children got busy procreating.

Queen Victoria Under pressure from Parliament and the public George III’s fourth oldest child Edward married the German princess, Victoire of Saxe-Coburg. She was 31 years old. On May 24, 1819 Victoire gave birth to a daughter. She was christened Alexandrina Victoria, and it is this monumental birth that we have to thank for one of our favorite holidays.

But the question remains, why do we celebrate Victoria’s Birthday when there have been five monarchs on the throne since her reign? Well, aside from how obviously amazing it is to have a long weekend just when we need to open our cottages and shake off our winter glooms, there is historical precedence at work here. What we are really celebrating on the May 24th long weekend is the symbolic birthday of whichever monarch happens to be on the throne at the time. This practice of lumping monarchs’ birthdays together was seen one generation earlier, as George IV’s birthday was celebrated on the birthday of George III. From 1953 to 1956, the Queen’s birthday was celebrated in Canada on Victoria Day, by proclamation of the Governor General, with Her Majesty’s approval. In 1957, Victoria Day was permanently appointed as the Queen’s birthday in Canada. In the United Kingdom, the Queen’s birthday is celebrated in June.

Tylerfishing Hopefully that clears things up for those of us from the younger generation who often wondered why it was called Victoria Day as opposed to Elizabeth Day. Now we know where our glorious, much-needed long holiday break at the gateway to summer comes from. May your beer be crispy cold this Victoria Day, and may it be sunny at the cottage and the beach!!!

“My One Square Mile” & the Travelling Coffehouse

Sauble Beach Web-Cam

How Victoria Day became the May 2-4

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