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Visitor Centre drawing courtesy of Patkau/Kearns Mancini. What the Friends Do: Our Accomplishments (2009) • celebrated the 15th anniversary of our founding in 1994 with a blockhouse-shaped cake; the first slice was cut by Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone • staffed and operated the parking concessions on the lots and lawns west of Fort York for a total of 59 event-days between April and October; began a program of monthly parking for condo construction workers and overnight parking for condo residents/workers. Coordinated parking activities with an archaeological dig on the parking lot • raised substantial funds to benefit Fort York through donations, dinners, memberships, and parking ventures; also secured grants of $15,000 from Toronto Culture and $11,000 from the Government of Canada for summer youth employment • sold out our eleventh annual Georgian Dinner to raise funds for the Fort York Guard and Drums. Many of the recipes and some of the dishes served came from the fort’s kitchens • spent our income for several purposes, including operation of the Fort York Guard and Drums ($140,000) and office rental and expenses ($25,000) • put 25 young men and women in uniform as the Fort York Guard and Drums to march, drill, and animate the site. They also served as honour guards off-site on 15 occasions and represented the fort in battle re-enactments at Fort George in Niagara • published four regular issues of our quarterly newsletter, The Fife & Drum, which included essays on Charles Fothergill’s museum on the Garrison Common and on the making of our model of the Nancy; also issued three numbers of Drumroll to promote special events at the fort • commissioned the embroidery of new colours for the Guard • strongly supported the City’s position on the design of a replacement bridge on Strachan Avenue. As a result the Georgetown rail corridor will be lowered to preserve the existing pattern of streets below King, allowing turns on • completed the lighting and enhancement of the model of H.M.S. Nancy in the Blue Barracks using donations in memory of a late director, Robert Nurse
Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone, flanked by Rollo Myers (l) and Joe Gill (r), uses a 1796 service sword to cut a birthday cake shaped like a blockhouse at the Friends’ 15th anniversary in April. Wellington eastbound to permit deliveries to continue to Quality Meats’ plant on Tecumseh Street, which otherwise would be forced to close • sustained our opposition to the TTC’s proposal for the Western Waterfront LRT to cut through the FY National Historic site, breaching its integrity • held monthly board meetings and met another dozen times in committees and task forces. One director at least, often more, attended every special event and function held at the fort • welcomed one new director to our board • had extensive discussion on our strategic directions and the organizational form we need in lieu of permanent staff to co-ordinate our efforts • continued to provide two or three days of volunteer time weekly to organizing and cataloguing the fort’s collections of books, research files, photographs, etc. in the Resource Centre • maintained and updated our electronic address lists. Some 2600 recipients now get our mailings • embarked on a review and reconfiguration of our website • ran full-page ads featuring less well-known aspects of the fort in three issues of Spacing magazine • co-operated with 80 volunteers who cultivated vegetables and herbs in plots on the fort’s north ramparts as part of a community-based initiative backed by the Trillium Foundation, Hellmann’s, Walmart, and Evergreen
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