Our dinner meeting on Tuesday, October 18th began with 42 members enjoying the opportunity to sit and mingle at St. Andrew's Hall prior to the business portion of the meeting.

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President Dennis began the meeting by welcoming everyone for attending our second dinner meeting of 2022.

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Reports were then given on various Men’s Club updates since our last meeting, followed by a list of some of our upcoming events including invitations by Dave Corbett to sign up for our 2022 Christmas Kettle Campaign, by Don Riddell to attend the New Year's Eve Party at the Sauble Beach Community Centre, and a survey by Borden Evans to gauge interest for Theatre Trips to Stratford in 2023 . 

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Cliff Bilyea honoured his guest Dave Hicks who was responsible for resurrecting the Sauble and Area Men's club in the year 2000. Dave implemented many of the Men's Club functions still going strong today such as the Christmas Kettle Campaign, the annual Road Cleanup and our annual Fundraising efforts that switch from international to local each year, just to name a few.  

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Prior to dinner, our president Dennis Heathers presented a well deserved $300 donation to the Hepworth Shallow Lake Legion along with a $50 donation to the Poppy Fund.

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Following a blessing, we all enjoyed a wholesome dinner of smoked pork chops, mashed potatoes, green beans, cole slaw along with pie, coffee and tea prepared by the members of the Hepworth/Shallow Lake Legion.

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Our guest speakers, Dave Alexander and Ryan MacManaman were introduced by Ken Frook.

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Dave and Ryan provided a detailed presentation focusing on Military History particularly with reference to local individuals from Owen Sound and surrounding communities. Their passion for  researching and sharing history was evident throughout their entire presentation. Their emphasis from a teachers perspective was to have their students become the Historians.

 

They let the students take charge

• They access the evidence: Primary and Secondary Sources

• They complete the historical research

• They fashion a narrative around their person of interest

• They write a tribute or biography and share their foindings

• Use of social media and other digital platforms

• Driven by Historical Thinking Concepts

• They visit the historical battlefields and places of memorialization

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Students learned of young men from local communities similar in age to them that made the ultimate sacrifice. An example of this was the "Lane End Lancaster" where Joseph Watson of Tara and Curwood Armstrong of Owen Sound on the morning of April 4, 1945, RF-150 QB-W for Whiskey, took off from Skipton-on-Swale, England, with the mission to bomb a synthetic oil refinery in Merseburg, Germany. After being hit over enemy territory, RF150 limped back to the U.K. desperately looking for an alternative landing strip, but crashed in a wooded area near Lane End, Buckinghamshire (similar in size to Hepworth). Curwood Armstrong and Joseph Watson are buried at Brookwood Military Cemetery in the United Kingdom with the rest of their aircrew.  They both attended OSCVI.

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Dave and Ryan have organized student focused tours of Vimy Ridge and Juno Beach along with the Ring of Remembrance in Notre-Dame-de-Lorette near Arras that commemorates the thousands who died in the region during World War I. The unification of former enemies is the strong idea that underlines the design scheme of the ring, inscribing all 600,000 names irrespective of their nationality, creed or rank..

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