"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Monday 7 May 2012

Charity begins At Home


 The  following  choice piece found its way to my attention this morning. .It appeared in a newsletter named OntarioVisted with a web site. address. We  probably all  need to be aware of what happens when we run afoul of  the Jazz Festival group.

Accede to their demands and we get the Town's Logo over some of their promotion material. Don't give
them what they demand and we get negative press in a newsletter published in Cobourg ,Ontario.

Take a gander .  

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 A number of weeks ago I read an article about a non-profit event in Aurora that  lost its free use of the town  park. Instead Town Council  decided to charge for the use of the park. $1300  If this were a profit group.I could see the rational. However this is a charitable group who donates their profits to local charities. In essence the town was taking away a charitable donation tof $1,300 .What were they thinking?

 Besides the charitable donation, the festival attracts thousands of people to the town bringing  dollars to the town's merchants! At a time hen tourism is so vital  to communities, why would a Town, any Town , penalize such an event  .It seems to me a town should be encouraging such  enterprise  not discouraging it.. Planning such an event is hard enough without politicians and their bureaucrats adding an  additional burdens.  Unfortunately Aurora is not the only town......etc. etc

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.With  my limited skills I attempted  unsuccessfully to copy he piece. I particularly wanted my colleagues to see what they get for ever being involved with the St Kitts Jazz festival in the first place.

In order for the group  to obtain a Trillium grant, Council was persuaded they had to show community support and  gave them a "platinum" sponsorship. worth $5,000. Staff had recommended half that. Susan Morton Leonard came back and said it wasn't enough . So we doubled the money..

Ye Gods In Heaven ,can we ever be protected from our own stupidity.

In 2010., they received a sponsorship, probably base metal,  without  Council  authority on some other pretext.

We  received an unaudited statement  last year that claimed to represent proceeds from the event. $150,000 We were informed  all of  $6,000 of that was presented to two charities  after all other participants were compensated.

 Mr. .McWilliams claimed he had read that  they were required to pay $1,300 for use of the town park in 2012 and this money could have  also been   charitable donation.

The writer is as inaccurate in some of his claims  as he is sparse on others.

One can only wonder  about the source of his information. Actually I do not wonder.. I just want my
colleagues to understand this  is their reward  for  their generosity with other people's money.

Naturally I want taxpayers also to understand what they got for previous generosity. besides the town's logo being displayed on some of the promotional materials.

I have  attempted to respond to Mr. MWilliams to discover if he had information we did not.  My e-mail was not delivered to the  address provided.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ha Ha Ha Ha..... this is brilliant.

Charity begins at home and politics makes strange bedfellows!

The "leaders" of this festival are a vindictive bunch. If you don't give them what they want they will make your life a living hell. Of course the funny thing about it is that the supreme ruler does not even live in Aurora.

So what do you do? There is nothing you can do. Suck it up and chalk it up to a learning experience.

Anonymous said...

Could be he is on the infamous e-mail list which is seeing so much play. Round and round in circles.

Anonymous said...

Point of Clarification, please.[ sorry, always wanted to say that ]. There is a comment which seems to indicate that the St.Kitts leader doesn't live in Aurora. I thought they had bought a condo in town so she could run for election. Please tell me it fell through and she does not live in Aurora.

Anonymous said...

If you do a small bit of digging you can locate Gary and Judi McWilliams who are described as follows:

"Industry: Consulting

Occupation: Owner/Manager

Location: Cobourg, Ontario, Canada

Introduction: The McWilliams are the Owners/Managers of a number of festival and event related
website businesses, including Ontario Festivals Visited, War of 1812 Celebrations,
Festival News, Festival Finders, Festival and Event Planning and StepOne Connections.
The McWilliams have been creating and participating in the planning of festivals and
events for over 35 years."

I am not going to waste any more of my time on this couple. Possibly Christopher Watts can take a run at extracting more information.