st. albert leader - dec. 13, 2012

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With the announcement Tuesday of the cancellation of regular season games through Dec. 30, that’s at least how many games will be lost to the National Hockey League lockout, including the Winter Classic and the All-Star Game. Talks were expected to resume Wednesday with the help of a mediator.

Ugly sweaters and hot cocoa with lots of whipped cream — that’s how Arcadia Café and Bar owner Darren McGeown gets into the Christmas spirit. Or at least that’s how he did when he agreed to help us out in a little holiday photo shoot. Other St. Albertans share their Christmas traditions and memories on page 10.

e City of St. Albert’s economic development department is getting a new home, just in time for the holidays.

Economic development general manager Guy Boston conrmed Tuesday that the City has secured a 10-year lease with Werhun Management Inc. on the old CIBC building at 29 Sir Winston Churchill Ave., and that his department, along with a couple of other departments, will be moving there sometime in early 2013.

“From an economic development perspective, this [positions] us very prominently,” Boston said. “Once we get our name on the building there and people see it as a business centre, we’re close to the seat of government, and we’re downtown. We’ve helped contribute to the redevelopment of downtown in a small way by taking a dated building and having it updated to modern-day architectural standards.”

Also moving into the 5,400-square-foot building will be the business licensing department, the oce of community sustainability (formerly the oce of the environment) and strategic initiatives and government relations, eectively making it a

“business centre” for the City.e building also has 40

parking spaces available for sta and visitors. e $150,000 cost of relocating was approved by city council in July as part of a four-phase oce space plan.

Boston said the move should help alleviate the space crunch the City is currently feeling at St. Albert Place and other facilities.

“I think the most important thing is that we get all the economic development sta in the same spot, because I’m not working with them right now,” he said.

Currently, Boston works out of St. Albert Place, while the rest of the department’s sta shares space with the St. Albert Chamber of Commerce at 71 St. Albert Trail.

“at’s one of the biggest advantages I see, to get that degree of collaboration, which we sorely need,” he added.

e St. Albert Trail building also acts as the City’s de facto tourist information booth, with brochures and publications provided in the front foyer.

Boston said he would like to see those services continue to be oered, but exactly how will have to be worked out with the Chamber.

“We haven’t come to any kind of a deal on that yet,” he said. “at will have to worked out over the next few weeks.”


ey may have been bad parkers, but they were great gi-givers.

e City of St. Albert’s annual Toys for Tickets campaign — in which motorists can pay for parking tickets with a new, unwrapped toy — hauled in 95 toys worth $2,375, the City announced Wednesday.

“e Toys for Tickets campaign gives people a chance to spread some Christmas spirit, and while they may grumble about the ticket, they know the toy they give

will put a huge smile on a child’s face,” said senior municipal enforcement ocer Garnet Melnyk in a press release.

is was the City’s fourth year running the Toys for Tickets program. Any ticket handed out between Nov. 15 and 30 could be paid with a toy worth at least $25, which was donated to St. Albert Transit’s annual Fill-A-Bus event and St. Albert Kinettes’ annual Christmas hamper campaign.

A total of 93 tickets were handed out over that period. One person paid their ticket and gave a toy, while another gave a toy without getting a ticket.


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e ongoing negotiations between the City of St. Albert and the Arts and Heritage Foundation over a new partnership agreement have claimed their rst casualties.

e AHF board of trustees announced ursday aernoon that executive director Paul Moulton would be resigning his post eective Dec. 31, and Moulton said in an interview the following day that the decision stemmed directly from the negotiations.

“It’s been in my mind for some time that we were having fundamental challenges with the new agreement with the City,” he said. “What spurred the decision was the motion that they made aer their in camera session Monday night. ... at was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

St. Albert city council unanimously approved a motion at their Dec. 3 meeting stating their support for city manager Patrick Draper approving a dra agreement from Nov. 15 — based on management oversight, accountability, nancial reporting, collaboration, transparency, open communications and no duplication of services — and giving Draper until Jan. 14, 2013, to get the AHF to sign o on it.

Moulton’s major concern with that dra

agreement is a change to the funding model for the AHF, although he couldn’t go into too much detail about it as none of the proposals thus far have been made public.

“ere is a principle behind that that I honestly don’t believe is right,” he said.

“Every other level of government in this country — and to a fair degree, every other municipality I’m aware of — understands the way you operate arts organization funding is to provide operating grants and make those organizations accountable for what they do with that money. at’s what we call in Canada the arm’s-length funding model. It works for the Canada Council [for the Arts], it works for the Alberta Federation for the Arts, it works for the Edmonton Arts Council.

“e proposal is to change that. ... You either trust an outside agency to do its work, or if you don’t, don’t fund them.”

It was also conrmed Tuesday that board member Sam Azer had resigned, citing the negotiations with the City as the main reason why.

Draper declined the Leader’s request for an interview on the matter, saying it would be inappropriate to comment on another organization’s employment matters.

However, Coun. Wes Brodhead, council’s representative on the AHF board, said he was sorry to see Moulton go.

“He was a talented, creative, visionary leader of the Arts and Heritage Foundation,” he said. “He’ll be missed, to be sure.”

He added that he didn’t feel the negotiations were as divisive as Moulton made them out to be.

“I have not heard them to be that way. ... ere’s clearly some dierences in how the City is expecting the relationship to unfold in the future, as in the past, and that’s maybe where Paul is saying, ‘I can’t see myself continuing to work if that’s the relationship,’ and that’s a choice he has to make,” Brodhead said.

e AHF board of trustees said in a statement: “e organization has accomplished a lot under Paul’s leadership over the last four years, including growth in programming, events and exhibitions at Art Gallery of St. Albert, the Musée Héritage Museum and St. Albert Heritage Sites, the restoration of the Little White School and St. Albert Grain Elevator Park and much more. e Board of Trustees wishes to extend their sincerest thanks to Paul for his enthusiasm, dedication and professional commitment and wishes him all the best in his future endeavours.”

Despite the recent acrimony, Moulton said he remains “ercely proud” of the work the foundation had done under his watch, especially the restoration of the St.

Albert grain elevators and the work being done on the Little White School, but also of other organizational matters the public wouldn’t necessarily see.

“I think the people are extraordinary — the sta and the board. I think the things we’ve achieved have been remarkably good,” Moulton said. “I wouldn’t say it leaves a bad taste, but there’s a degree of disappointment.”

Brodhead wasn’t sure whether or not Moulton’s resignation would aect the ability of both sides to get a deal done.

“I’m hopeful that, irrespective of individual choices, the City and Arts and Heritage as an organization can nd a way to come to an agreement and work to further the arts community and heritage community in the city of St. Albert for another ve years,” he said. “ey’ve done great work in the past, and I’m condent they’ll do great work in the future.”

With his wife starting a half-sabbatical soon, Moulton plans to head south and relax for a couple of months once his time at the AHF is up.

“I’ll look for the next big adventure and challenge when I get back,” he said.

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Ocials at St. Albert Place are still reeling aer the ring of a well-respected and passionate senior member of the cultural services department.

Nancy Abrahamson, who served as the City of St. Albert’s cultural services manager and the director of the annual International Children’s Festival, was red last week, Mayor Nolan Crouse said.

“ursday aernoon, the city manager came into my oce late in the day and said that they had some issues they were looking at relative to Nancy. It was brief; he really only took a minute,” Crouse recalled.

“en, Saturday morning, [general manager of community and protective services] Chris Jardine came into my oce and said they had made the decision ... to let Nancy go.”

e mayor then sent a brief email to the rest of city council to apprise

them of the situation. Crouse said he was surprised

when the news crossed his desk.“I didn’t see any signals; there

was nothing I saw that was leading to this,” he said.

He added that councillors do not have the authority to pull a City employee’s personnel le.

“We’re not privy to the personnel les or personnel issues anywhere below the city manager,” he said.

Organization of the Children’s Festival is a

year-round enterprise, so Abrahamson’s dismissal is likely to aect this year’s edition,

but Crouse is condent it will go on.“To Nancy’s credit, she

built such a strong organization; it was wide and deep. ere are going to be concerns, because Nancy was a lot of that support network,” Crouse said. “But also because it was so big and strong, it’ll proceed. You don’t lose all 700 volunteers because Nancy’s gone. ... It’ll be a challenging year, but the machine’s big enough that it’s going to be able to take it.”

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When the dust had settled and the last vote was cast in the City of St. Albert’s 2013 municipal budget deliberations, the proposed property tax increase had decreased nearly two percentage points compared to when the process started nearly three months ago.

At the end of the meeting on ursday, Dec. 6, when the last of the budget motions were voted on, the City’s “tax-o-meter” sat at 3.27 per cent, down from 5.14 per cent when the numbers were rst presented to council in September.

Council dealt with the bulk of the motions at a meeting the previous Tuesday, knocking the tax increase down to 3.48 per cent that aernoon, and did some further trimming on ursday.

One of the issues that caused the most debate on ursday was funding for the St. Albert Public Library. Library representatives had come before council earlier

in the process asking for an increase of about $166,000, but Mayor Nolan Crouse put forward a motion to limit that to about $95,000, or three per cent.

However, Coun. Cam MacKay — who serves as council’s representative on the library board — proposed a compromise

that would essentially decrease the library’s request by $31,400 by charging more for common area costs.

“If you want to go higher than [$31,400], the board is going to have to

face some more dicult decisions that perhaps could impact employees or books, and those are the two areas that are not easy decisions to make,” MacKay said, also noting that a new membership fee structure coming into eect in January would also see library revenues decrease by

about $30,000.Councillors also voted down

business cases for a Capital Region Board planner and an emergency communications ocer.

Coun. Cathy Heron said that, even though she voted to postpone the position to 2014, she

had concerns that having a sta member dedicated to CRB matters at the regional meetings would mean losing experts in the area around the table.

“My biggest problem is that

I want the area-specic people at the subcommittees,” she said. “... I think we can manage one more year, but in 2014, we need to look at it seriously again.”

Meanwhile, a project to install QR codes on public art pieces and historic sites to allow quick access to detailed information was le in

the budget at a cost of $25,000, as was a natural areas assessment at a cost of $121,000.

“One of the characteristics of St. Albert that our citizens want us as a council to continue to protect and uphold are the green spaces and natural areas included in the city,” said Coun.

Wes Brodhead. “is is work that is going to assist us in maintaining and ensuring that development proceeds in a reasonable fashion relative to our natural areas.”

Also added in on ursday was a corporate analyst sta position, which was meant to be a blend of two other analyst positions — one in the economic development department and one in the corporate and strategic services division — that had been removed from the budget earlier

on.“is proposal is trying to take

a portion of what each of the positions would have done, so we would need some time to write a proper position description with roles and responsibilities,” city manager Patrick Draper explained. “But we denitely do need analytical capability in our stang complement.”

One issue that was not dealt with ursday was a late motion by Coun. Len Bracko to spend $3,000 to convert up to three of the city’s least-used tennis courts into pickleball courts.

Pickleball is a game similar to tennis, played on a smaller court — the size of a doubles badminton court — with a wie ball and a hard paddle.

Councillors felt that, since it was a small amount of money, it could be dealt with later in the winter, before the nal tax rate is set early next year.

Formal approval of the 2013 municipal budget is expected to take place at city council’s regular meeting on Monday, Dec. 17.

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Students and teachers at one local elementary school are celebrating a “healthy” grant from several partners.

On ursday, Dec. 6, ocials from the Alberta Healthy School Community Wellness Fund — a joint initiative between Alberta Health and Wellness, the University of Alberta’s Centre for Health Promotion Studies and the Coalition for Healthy School Communities — presented Bertha Kennedy Catholic Community School with a grant for $5,000 for their Healthy BobKats Project.

“It was a very elaborate application form that took hours to put together, so we’ve got a team of staf here that was working on it, so when we got the grant, we were really pleased,” said Dolores Andressan, the Grade 2 teacher who leads the Healthy BobKats program.

“ere were only seven schools in all of Alberta who received the maximum grant of $5,000, and our school was one of the seven schools in the entire province to receive the full grant, so we’re very proud of that,” added Bertha Kennedy principal Scott Johnston.

e Healthy BobKats Project is an eort by students and teachers to increase awareness of the importance of tness and nutrition that started last January with projects that cost little or no money.

“Last year, we had somebody come out and do Zumba with us, and we had some nutritious snacks and things like that,” Andressan said.

Another idea that came to fruition was the Playground Pals program, where Grade 5 students taught games and other activities to younger students during recesses and lunch hours.

Now, with the Alberta Healthy School Community Wellness Fund money in their back pocket, Andressan is excited about the possibilities for expansion.

“We’ll be able to do some other things that require a little more money,” she said.

One of those projects is to paint hopscotch courses and other games on a patch of concrete outside the school.

“ey’ve really made them much more interesting now,” Andressan said. “ere’s even a map of Canada.”

Another project is to purchase daily physical activity (DPA) bins from a company called Ever Active Schools, which can be used to store toys or balls for kids to use.

Andressan would also like to bring back Zumba instructors during gym classes, and also perhaps aer school to get parents, sta and kids in aer-school care involved too.

“We can do a little bit with food, but mostly it is for things that will last. Aer the program is over, they still want us to have it at the school,” she said.

t has been almost two weeks since the annual Snowake Festival, hosted

by the St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce, ocially “kicked o” the festive season. Mayor Nolan Crouse, councillors, MLAs, Chamber executives and, of course, Santa led the traditional countdown to turning on the Christmas tree lights outside the St. Albert Community Hall.

To celebrate this event, Perron Street was closed o from St. Anne Street to Sir Winston Churchill Avenue so those coming downtown could walk the streets enjoying the various activities, whether it was going from merchant to merchant to view their wares, checking out the Art Gallery, taking the young ones inside the Community Hall to tell

Santa they had been good boys and girls, riding the horse drawn wagons, meeting Santa’s reindeer, stopping by city hall to take in the cras, movies, various performances or grabbing some hot chocolate or apple cider.

As the streets lled with thousands of people taking in all the activities, the excitement started to build. People were free to walk the streets without worrying about vehicles getting in their way; there was much mingling of parents with their children, laughing, talking and just having fun. en, about an

hour aer the tree lights had been turned on, snowakes began to fall, which, with the not-too-cold temperatures, created a mystical atmosphere with all the Christmas lights and ornaments just right for a vibrant walkable downtown getting ready for the holiday season.

As my wife and I walked around the streets, taking all of this in before we ended our evening with a great dinner at one of the new downtown restaurants, it suddenly painted a picture for us how serene this felt and that things could be dierent if the community expressed a desire for stores to stay open a few hours past 6 p.m. two or three nights a week, for special events or entertainment to attract people to the Perron District and, yes, to consider closing the

street so people can interact socially and nd an escape from the daily demands of interacting through our world of information technology.

Now, for this to happen, businesses have to become creative, residents have to support the activities, and the City has a role to encourage recreation and cultural events. As recent studies have reported, the downtown area is the “heart and soul” of a community and with the proper mix of stores, attractions, entertainment and gathering places, the downtown becomes a “busy” place to be aer 6 p.m.

As our city continues to grow and provide the quality of life enjoyed by St. Albertans we need to think how our downtown can add another dimension that “cultivates life.”

f you want something done right, it is oen said, then do it yourself.

And that is true, but only to a certain point. When you’re big enough and have many other responsibilities that require your time and attention, it’s oen better to delegate, to let others lend a hand and make sure all the matters receive the time and attention they deserve.

e City of St. Albert is at that point. e corporation has to worry about taxes and swimming pools and snow removal, so over the years, it has taken the management of arts and heritage sites o its plate, delegating it to the Arts and Heritage Foundation.

But now, it seems that the City wants to take on arts and heritage duties again, or at least micromanage the AHF to the point of distraction. What other explanation could there be for moving away from an arm’s-length funding model in the latest proposed partnership agreement between the two?

It’s an issue that has the AHF spitting mad, and has already resulted in the resignation of its executive director and one trustee.

Granted, just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean it’s automatically the best way to do it. And there are arts councils at the federal, provincial and municipal funded using the arm’s-length model.

But the new approach does show a lack of trust on the part of the City and on the part of city council. It seems they don’t trust the AHF to handle its own nancial aairs, and want to keep their hand in the foundation’s pockets to make sure it spends its money wisely.

If they’re going to pull the AHF this much closer, it might have made more sense and been more transparent to simply vote to abolish the foundation and bring arts and heritage back in-house when they had the chance to do it back in August.

e City seems to feel something’s not being done right, so it has started the process of doing it itself again. But the awards and accolades the AHF has won over the years suggest it has been done right all along.

Which brings to mind another old saw the City may do well to heed: If it ain’t broke, don’t x it.

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Q Nickname?A Reenie for those who have known me a REALLY longtime, Dorinkitza to my family.

Q Favourite pets or animals?A Dog-Lisa (a cock-a-poo), Cat-Rocky (our Ragdollrescue cat)

Q Vacation this year... you’re heading to?A Falcon Lake, MB. We’ve gone for a few years now. Greatplace to swim, fish, golf, horseback ride, there is somethingfor everyone.

Q The weekend in St. Albert, what are you doing?A Winter: coordinating who’s taking which kid where andwhen to what activity (I have 4 children!)

Summer:my husband and I try to golf as much as we can

Q Favourite place to eat in St. Albert?A With kids: Hawali for lunch buffet

Without kids: Tractor Nachos at Original Joes!

Q Your singing out loud in your car, what are yousinging?A Some upbeat 80’s pop tune that makes my kids roll theireyes

Q Best thing about your job?A Knowing that every day I have made a difference in mycommunity.

Q Favourite movie?A “AChristmas Story” all he wants is a Red Ryderbb gun!

Q Favourite hobbies?A Golf, gardening, water colour painting

Q What sets your organization apart from others?A We are unique in that ALL of our services are FREE. Nosliding scale, or fee for service.

Q Favourite thing about St. Albert?A The city services with the small town atmosphere.

Q Great moment you had through your organization?A Being supported to get my CFRE (Certified FundraisingExecutive).

Q What’s the one problem your organization deals withmost often?A Of course, Family Violence. But how complex it canbe when you include root causes, and how it connects tobullying, homelessness, poverty, addictions and the justicesystem. We usually collaborate with multiple agencies oneach case.

Q What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?A If you ever have a choice, always take the high road.

Q What’s the best way you’ve found to keep a balancebetween your charitable work and your family life?A I have worked for Non-profits my whole career and myfamily don’t know anything different. They have alwaysbeen involved in my work as volunteers, and becauseof this they have a strong sense of philanthropy andcommunity service. I have had the luxury of being able tobring them to work. My youngest, Maggie, is well knownin the Community as she has attended MANYmeetingswith me since she was a baby.

Q If we’re heading on a coffee run, you’re having ... ?A Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks.

Q How messy is your desk/workspace?A Not messy at all. I like a place for everything.

Q What video game or phone app are youaddicted to?A Angry birds. I play until I get three stars onEVERY level. I also love Twitter.

Q You would describe your sense of style as ... ?A “Modern Mom”with a splash of “Hipster”

Q What’s your goal for your organization over the next12 months?A To meet the increased demand for services withoutjeopardizing our financial sustainability.

Q Any advice you can give St. Albert residents,regarding your organization’s area of focus?A Family violence knows no boundaries and affects allincomes, gender, race, and ages. Don’t be embarrassed orafraid to seek help. There are many people who have beenthere.

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Yuletid YOUR WAYYuletid YOUR WAYEvery year, Santa leaves those

Hallmark ornaments in our stockings. He’s done it since the kids’ “Baby’s First

Christmas” ornaments. Now the kids are 12 and 15. We

have everything from Blues Clues, Barbie and South

Park characters to Batman, Arnold Palmer and Eric

Lindros hanging from our tree. ere’s even a Yellow

Submarine and Harley Davidson hanging. Daughter Kate calls it our wacky tree. Four ornament per year for

15 years and the tree is pretty crammed with them.

As our family grew, and our grandchildren became “many”, we spent Christmas Eve

together, then everybody slept over at our house, on hide-a-beds, couches, beds, etc. We watched Christmas movies, played games, and munched

on hors d’oeuvres. On Christmas morning, everybody awoke and came upstairs to the

wonder of the tree and the stockings and all the gis from Santa’s visit during the night. It was a wonderful experience for us all to see the faces

of the little ones as they discovered their gis. Since those years, our family continued to grow,

and we nally outgrew the sleepover. Now we all gather early Christmas morning from our individual homes, to continue to treasure the

wonder of Christmas morning as a family.

My family has a buttery brooch that gets passed from one to another. It started when my mother wanted to give away one of her brooches but we all turned up our nose at it, so she wrapped it up inside a box of chocolates and gave it as a Christmas gi. e brooch has been re-gied every year since. It is always disguised so that the receiver doesn’t know they are getting it. It is mandatory that the receiver wear it at all family functions. My brother wore it to his son’s wedding this past summer. My mother is no longer with us but the tradition lives on.

Growing up, my parents allowed us to open one present

on Christmas Eve, just to keep us quiet until Christmas Day. It was a special gi from

a family friend. When my children were little, we would

attend “Pajama Service” at our church on Christmas

Eve. Every year, we struggled to nd clean pajamas for the kids to wear to church. So my

mother carried on the one gi tradition and would buy

the grandchildren pajamas to be opened on Christmas Eve. Problem solved! My children are much older now but they still look forward to opening

up their Christmas Eve pajamas!

My wife Jackie is from Poland and I am French Canadian. Christmas Eve is very special to us as our cultures throughout the past centuries are very similar. Christmas Eve is time of waiting for the rising of the rst star in the sky as a signal to begin the

festivities that surround the coming of the Christ Child.Food, of course, is primary and that consists of modest servings

of “weak” soup, lots of dierent sh tasters and, of course, “tourtières” (meat pies). My father used to be the ocial taster

of this very old French favourite dish. He would have small servings from all of my sisters, aunts and neighbours. e winner

was given a personalized “tap dance” in their honour, followed by homemade potato wine (Yuck!). My parents never bought

Christmas gis but rather made everything from scratch and the material, either wool or wood had to be found in our home. (I sure

had warm feet back then!)

A Christmas tradition the Chow family has goes back to when we were kids. Most families open gis on Christmas morning, but my little sister could never wait ’til Christmas morning, so we opened gis at midnight. We’d be up for a couple hours opening gis and playing with toys. One of our few Christmas albums (to go along with our John Denver Christmas) was Christmas with the Chipmunks, so we’d have that playing on the ol’ LP record player, with Alvin pounding out their “Christmas Song”. But we’d have to get to bed soon aer so we’d then we’d set out cookies and milk for Santa.

And I’m happy to report, we still keep this tradition as adults. We head over to Mom and Dad’s Christmas Eve, wait ’til midnight and

open gis as a family! My sister still can’t wait!

Every year since our rst son was one, we’ve gone to

Crankpots on Whyte Avenue to paint pottery Christmas ornaments. Our sons are 5,

6 and 8 … so there have been some crazy aernoons inside

the pottery studio over the years. But, every year it gets a

little less chaotic! It’s a nice way to remember each Christmas as we pull

out the ornaments and look back on penguins, snowmen, candy canes etc that they’ve

painted.

Every winter, my two kids and I build a backyard luge run. is year, like most years, it doesn’t

get built until I have some time o around Christmas. is is a labour-intensive project,

just using shovels, sheets of plywood and water. We pile snow in front of and onto the back deck

and add water to give it strength. We build a solid ice run with walls on both sides, designed for those plastic saucer sleds. Usually, the run heads straight down toward the garage before

turning and sending the rider right to the bottom of the yard. Some years, we’ve had it go

through the back gate and onto the back parking pad. As it is solid ice, helmets are mandatory and, in the early years, adult supervision was also a must. During the Vancouver Olympics, we invited neighbourhood kids over and had

the Bailey Backyard Olympics (we added events like shinny at the neighbourhood rink). It just isn’t Christmas at the Bailey house without the

sound of sleds on ice out the back door, with accompanying shrieks of terror and/or joy!

Our Christmas tradition involves purchasing

Christmas tree ornaments to commemorate meaningful

events for our family. Whether it’s a trip, a graduation or a new addition to the family,

we have an ornament to mark the occasion. e growing

collection of ornaments makes for a fun day decorating the

tree as we look back upon all of our past adventures.

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A lot of snipping, colouring and hard work have earned a St. Albert resident a pair of prestigious national awards.

Alann Sluser lives in St. Albert, having moved to the city in Grade 11, and is the head hairstylist and co-owner of KoKo e Salon, located at 13163 156 St. NW in Edmonton, along with her husband Roshan Arul. In late November, Sluser brought home two honours — Canadian Colourist of the Year and Texture Stylist of the Year — from the 2013 Contessa Awards, handed out by Salon Magazine.

“I knew I had a chance, because I made the nals, but once you get to that calibre, you just cross your ngers and ... hope and pray that [the judges] love it,” Sluser said.

“When they called my name, my hands went over my face; I just couldn’t believe. It was the most exciting [thing], I couldn’t believe it.”

Sluser has been styling hair now for 13 years, and took cosmetology courses at Bellerose Composite High School.

“I was always into hair; I loved doing hair and makeup. All my Barbies were demolished,” she said with a laugh.

Aer several years at Ricci Hair Co. in St. Albert, Sluser and Arul decided to strike out on their own and opened KoKo e Salon in April 2012.

“We felt there was a little bit of an experience that was lacking when people would come to a salon,” Sluser said. “We really wanted to incorporate an experience and a premium service for guests. And we’ve had amazing feedback.”

Still, going out on their own was a bit daunting, but they’re not regretting it at all.

“When you take a leap of faith and become an entrepreneur, it’s always very scary,” Sluser said. “I feel very blessed with the clientele that I have and the connections I’ve made in the industry. It denitely made that decision a little bit easier.”

And the awards haven’t hurt business, either.

“Especially in St. Albert, people love to

support St. Albert residents,” Sluser said. “I love that aspect of living in St. Albert and being a resident of St. Albert, supporting other St. Albert people.

“Any type of win or acknowledgement is always amazing for getting clients to come in and experience us, and let us give them a taste of what we feel is premium service.”

Sluser also won in the same categories earlier in the year at the 2012 Mirror Awards, put on by Canadian Hairdresser Magazine.

Alberta is no stranger to national hairstyling awards — Ricci Hair Co. co-owner Tony Ricci and the sta at his St. Albert location have several Mirror awards to their credit.

Sluser said it’s a great feeling to put the Capital Region on the map and let the fashion world that great things are being done outside of Toronto and Montreal.

“It puts Edmonton on the map. ere are people here that love to look nice and love to look beautiful. And we are fashion forward. ... We may not have the best scenery at times, but people love their fashion, no matter where you live,” she said.

As far as competitions go, Sluser said she already has colours and concepts for her next submission planned out in her head, but she is also keeping an eye on the salon’s future, including bringing on more stylists to join what she said is already “an amazing team.”

“You have to be the type of person who doesn’t settle to mediocrity for me. We just don’t let anything walk out the door; it has to be your best work,” she said.

“We want to be the place where everyone wants to come and get their hair done, to feel special and to feel beautiful,” she added.


St. Albert RCMP are reminding motorists to watch out for pedestrians aer an incident this week in the city’s northwest.

Just before 8 a.m. Monday, a 13-year-old girl was crossing Hogan Road near Delwood Road in a marked crosswalk when a silver 2006 Honda Odyssey minivan heading south on Hogan Road failed to stop and hit the girl.

e van then veered across the intersection and hit a northbound Audi that had stopped to let the girl cross.

e 13-year-old girl was transported to the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton and later released to her family with what are believed to be minor injuries. e driver of the Audi was not injured.

e driver of the Honda minivan, a 36-year-old female, was not injured in the collision, nor were either of the two passengers she had in the vehicle at the time. She was, however, issued a ticket for failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk, which carries a ne of $575.

RCMP are reminding drivers to be vigilant and look out for pedestrians in all parts of the city, especially during peak trac hours.

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Members of the Royal Canadian Artillery Band are trading in their berets for Santa Claus hats as they get set for a free Christmas concert this week.

Friday night at the Myer Horowitz eatre on the University of Alberta campus (8900 114 St. NW, Edmonton), the RCA Band presents an evening of traditional and contemporary holiday music titled A Christmas Wish.

Admission is free, and Capt. Patrice Arsenault, commanding ocer and director of music for the RCA Band, said it’s a great chance to showcase just what the band can do.

“at’s part of our mandate, to reach out to the community, to get the army known,” Arsenault said. “We thought that, by making it free admission, it might be more attractive for people who have never been to an RCA Band concert before.”

Warrant Ocer Brayden Wise lives in St. Albert, and plays the bass guitar and the standup bass in the RCA Band, as well as taking a turn this year singing parts of e Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

“With a free concert like this one, I can invite all my neighbours out,” Wise said with a laugh. “ey see me going to work every day dressed [in uniform], but they don’t really have a good comprehension of what I do. So for them, it’s a fantastic opportunity to come out and see some great music and see what we do in uniform.”

“It’s fantastic for us. A lot of folks really enjoy Christmas music, and the members of the band are no exception,” he added. “It’s a great way for us, as military musicians, to bring music to the people.”

While most of the songs played will be the familiar Christmas standards, the RCA Band is putting their own spin on them by seeking out dierent arrangements — and, in some cases, having arrangements done especially for them.

“[Capt. Arsenault] has gone out and sought out dierent arrangements and new ideas that bring dierent spins to Christmas favourites,” Wise said. “We’ve also got a great multimedia department in the band, so we’ve got a slideshow presentation and we’re adding an audio-visual aspect to the whole show.”

Arsenault added that several of the band’s smaller ensembles will be present, including their pipes and drums, a Celtic ensemble and Master Blaster, their pop/

contemporary/country group.“We look for special

arrangements, some that are custom-made for us and t the type of ensemble we are,” he said. “... It’s Christmas music that’s well-known in general, but the way it sounds is particular to the RCA band.”

e RCA Band is comprised of regular force members whose primary focus is the band. ey are selected by audition and have to join the Canadian Forces full-time to join the band. ey

have 35 members — mainly brass, woodwind and percussion — and will be augmented by a few reservists from across Canada for Friday’s show.

e band was recently joined by the Canadian Forces Pipes and Drums for a show at the Myer Horowitz eatre to raise money for Soldier On, a charity that provides resources and opportunities for serving and retired Canadian Forces personnel who have suered chronic illnesses or major injuries in the line of duty.

While this show focuses on Christmas music and won’t have the same pipes and drums contingent, Arsenault said there are plenty of chances for the band to stretch its legs musically.

“ere will be more singing than the last concert, and more of the full band, the concert band, for medleys of Christmas music,” he said. “ere’s something for everybody — including a sing-along.”

A Christmas Wish takes place at the Myer Horowitz eatre on the University of Alberta campus on Friday, Dec. 14, at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free, with rush seating. For more information on the band, visit www.rcaband.ca.


Join Us!Chamber GalaMardi Gras Magic!

Saturday, January 26th, 2013

Tickets are $140 per person, $1020 for a table of 8, plus GST.RSVP by calling the Chamber at (780) 458-2833

St. AlbertChristmas Market*Every Saturday, 10am to 3pm*December Now to 22nd*City Hall Lobby, Free Parking

St.Albert and District Chamber of Commerce:Our Values…A Filter to JudgeHowWe ActOur Vision is: Our community has a thriving business environment.

When your St Albert and District Chamber of Commerce developed thecurrent Strategic Plan, we identified six values that we felt were importantto guide our actions. From time to time, an organization has to make a toughdecision or need to explain a position to others who may not understand.Our values help us to be consistent in the approach that we take and guideus to decisions that are strong and that we can feel positive about. Hereare our values and a short supporting note:

Integrity We act ethically with honesty and transparency

Creativity We explore better ways

Passion We are enthusiastic about what we are considering

Collaboration We use an approach that is open and inclusive

Professionalism We value courtesy, respect and dignity in the conductof our affairs

Advocacy We champion the cause of others to the greaterbenefit of all

In all of the activities that we undertake - advocacy to improve theopportunities for business to flourish, activities that support the community,functions designed to showcase local entrepreneurs, tackling issues at alllevels of government, our Board and committee activities and all actionstaken by staff -- our values are what ensure that we do the right thingswhile we are doing things right.

As always...the Chamber would welcome any ideas that will help ourcommunity create a thriving business environment!

Darel Baker

A Message from the2012 Chamber ChairDarel Baker

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Lacombe Park Dentalwww.lacombeparkdental.com

Ground floor easy access with freeparking. Across from the

Wendy’s/Tim Horton’s, behind 7-Eleven

Andrew is a graduate of New York University Collegeof Dentistry, Class of 2012. The pursuit of academicand clinical excellence placed him within the topof his class and earned him membership in theOmicron Kappa Upsilon National Dental HonorSociety. Andrew also attended the Universityof Alberta where he earned his Bachelor ofScience degree in 2007 and graduated withdistinction.When it comes to dentistry Andrew believesin rendering quality care with compassionand communication. He is excited to beback in Alberta and looking forward tomaking a positive impact on the oralhealth of his patients.

We are now accepting new patientsfor both Dr. Andrew Schmidt andDr. Suzanne Degner in our newlyrenovated clinic. We provide allaspects of general family dentistry.

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The Campus Thieves are getting set to steal the spotlight once again, this time at one of the biggest annual celebrations in the Capital Region.

The band — which features St. Albert’s Ryan McGale as lead singer and on the keyboards — will ring in 2013 on stage as they headline New Year’s Eve festivities in downtown Edmonton’s Churchill Square.

“We’re all excited for the gig, obviously,” said bass player Spencer Huddleston. “It’ll be televised, so hopefully we’ll get a lot of exposure from it and it’ll be a good time.”

In fact, they say it’s probably one of the biggest shows they’ve had since the band formed back in 2010.

“It’s our biggest one this year,” McGale said.

The band — which also features guitarists Codie Fetter and Caleb Steinwandt and drummer Mac Huddleston — was recommended to Events Edmonton, which puts on the New Year’s Eve party, through Brenda Rains at Dynasty Records Canada, whom they met last year after a Battle of the Bands competition.

They weren’t initially given the coveted headlining spot, but eventually organizers decided they were the ones to have on stage just before the big countdown.

“At first they were going to hire somebody else to come in and have a paid headliner, but then they ended up deciding to have us bring in the new year,” Mac said. “It’s

going to be excellent.”There will be another bit of St. Albert f lavour during the

New Year’s festivities, as the show opens with local singers Jessy Mossop and Stephen Lecky at 10 p.m. In between, featured acts include Get Recked, Jasmine Singh and Hey Romeo.

With one album’s worth of original material under their belts, the band is building a setlist that also mixes in a few cover songs, and they’re keeping in mind that it’s a celebration.

“We’ve changed up the set a bit to make it more upbeat for a New Year’s gig,” McGale said. “We put some covers in there and some new songs that we haven’t played before. We want to keep people warm, dancing and stuff.”

To that end, the band started preparing for the show about a month ago.

Prior to this, the band’s highest profile show came during Rock’n August 2012, when they capped off the week of classic cars in St. Albert with a performance at

Servus Credit Union Place, opening for Harlequin and Doug and the Slugs.

“We got to play in front of a different audience, and it was really good exposure. It was our first arena gig,” Spencer said.

But, as much fun as that was and as much fun as the New Year’s gig promises to be, the band is working hard on new material, aiming to have a new EP out sometime next year.

“We’re always songwriting; we haven’t really stopped songwriting since our beginning,” McGale said.

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ere’s an “F” word that causes Ian McKellen to take truly Shakespearean-calibre umbrage. at word is “franchise.”

“It’s not a franchise! ey’re lms! is isn’t X-Men,” he shouted to a surprised questioner at the press conference launching e Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the rst part of Peter Jackson’s trilogy based on the rst Middle Earth novel by J.R.R. Tolkien.

e burst of stentorian outrage actually drew laughs from fellow cast members Elijah Wood, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage and Andrew Serkis. But later, in a private interview with Sun Media, the man who is once again playing the wizard Gandalf the Grey, admitted he was only half-joking.

“I hate that word, franchise,” the youthful 73-year-old says, elegantly relaxed in a black velvet jacket and grey patterned silk shirt. “at’s not how we look on it. Of course, lm is a business. It’s show business, and if lms don’t make money, there won’t be any more, and we reach out to as wide an audience as possible for that reason.

“But to think of Lord of the Rings or Tolkien as ‘a franchise’ is oensive to me. Everybody involved honours Tolkien and Tolkien’s intention, and he did not write a franchise.”

At best, he’ll call it “a series.” But by the time director Peter Jackson is done, Tolkien’s Middle Earth debut tale, about a Hobbit named Bilbo Baggins (Freeman) and his adventures with a Gollom (Serkis), a ring, a dragon named Smaug and various battle-ready dwarves (led by Armitage) will have been padded with plot points and apocrypha from the appendices Tolkien added to his later Lord of the Rings trilogy (the two adventures took place 60 years apart in Middle Earth time).

McKellen is equally quick to defend Jackson’s decision to expand e Hobbit, rst to two movies and then three. “Anyone who thinks Peter Jackson would fall for market forces rather than artistic purposes doesn’t know the guy and doesn’t know his body of work,” he says.

at said, though he defends the higher-mindedness of this particular source material, McKellen says, “I think there are limitations in Tolkien’s view of the world. Where is sex? Where are women? But in other aspects he is absolutely bang up to date. He takes old people very seriously and gives them a full weight and due. Young people he’s very keen on.

“And I think the message that has resonated with everyone that has read the books or seen the lms is that yes, the world is organized by people who are extremely

powerful, but they are entirely dependent on the little guy. And it took someone who’d been through two World Wars to accept that, that it’s not people we build statues to that change the world, it’s the foot-soldiers who measure up to the moment.”

(All of this is not to denigrate McKellen’s other claim to fame — the role of the conicted villain Magneto in the X-Men series, to which he will apparently be returning in the spring. e openly gay actor has always appreciated the “outsider” metaphor of the shunned, super-powered mutants, saying that director Bryan Singer rst described it to him as “a movie about gay rights.”)

Apart from the expanded narrative and character development that evolved from what was once a thin children’s book, McKellen says he was also appreciative of a chance to play his favourite of “the two Gandalfs.”

Fans of the Lord of the Rings trilogy will recall that Gandalf the Grey is “resurrected” at one point, becoming the transcendant Gandalf the White, who assists in Frodo’s quest to destroy the Ring.

“Gandalf the White in the second of the two Lord of the Rings movies is on a mission to save the world and so he’s cut his beard down to size, and gone white in the process and he doesn’t have any jokes. No time for

them.“But with Bilbo, it’s dierent because he’s

on an adventure. He’s with Gandalf the Grey, who he can have a smoke with and a drink with and tick him o, maybe. But they learn to like each other’s company and trust each other on a humane level.

“ere’s a bit more range for the actor in Gandalf the Grey, so I selshly enjoy doing him.”

Photo: Sun Media News Services

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If, as George Bernard Shaw said, “youth is wasted on the young,” it follows that children’s books might be wasted on children.

Peter Jackson says as much when he answers the question of how to turn light reading like J.R.R. Tolkien’s children’s book e Hobbit into a three-movie trilogy akin to his Lord of the Rings. (e rst movie, e Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, clocks in at nearly three hours).

“It’s a pretty misleading book,” Jackson says of what has been the gateway drug to Middle Earth for generations, the tale of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) and his adventures with a band of dwarves, the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen), a dragon named Smaug and a creature named Gollum (Andy Serkis) who’s lost his “precious” ring.

“It’s written in a very breathless pace, and pretty major events in the story are covered in two or three pages — like a children’s bedtime story,” Jackson says.

He admits that, if his assignments had been

reversed and he’d lmed e Hobbit rst, he’d probably have indeed made a children’s movie. Instead, he looked toward expanding e Hobbit to match the tone set by the Rings trilogy.

“Once you start to develop the scenes, you end up with more character development and conict.

“Plus, we got to develop the Appendices that were in e Return of the King, 100-odd pages of material that Tolkien developed that takes place around the time of e Hobbit. So Tolkien himself created material to tie (e Hobbit) into Lord of the Rings, which he wrote 17 years aer.”

e resulting plot enhancements allowed Jackson to bring back the likes of Christopher Lee as the White Wizard Saruman, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel and even Elijah Wood as Frodo.

Jackson shepherded the project as a producer for the last several years, but always insisted he was done with directing Middle Earth tales, following 2003’s e Return Of e King, which won the Oscar for Best Picture.

“I guess I thought I wouldn’t enjoy it,

because I thought I’d be competing against myself,” the New Zealand native says. “And I thought it would be interesting to have another director involved. And Guillermo del Toro was involved for a while” (del Toro retains a scriptwriting credit, along with Philippa Boyens, Jackson’s career writing partner).

e lengthy process of nding nine-gure funding for a project that quickly expanded to two lms and then three eventually wore del Toro down. “Even aer Guillermo le, it was still ve or six months before we had a green light.

“And during that period, I just thought, ‘I am actually enjoying this a lot more than I thought.’ And I’d also come to realize that there’s a lot of charm and humour in e Hobbit that Lord Of e Rings didn’t have. And it would be a completely dierent story with a dierent tone.”

e project also gave tech geek Jackson an opportunity to perform myriad “science experiments,” including the infamous 48-frame-per-second lming that, he says, makes 3D seem more natural, and a cutting-edge portable motion-capture suit that allowed Andy Serkis to portray Gollum in real time opposite his fellow actors. (Previously, he’d lm scenes alone, sometimes months

aer principal lming).e endgame, Jackson says, is a lengthy

Middle Earth tale that stretches over six movies (and 65 years in Hobbit time).

“I’m very much aware once these three movies are done, we’re looking at a six-movie set, and that’s how they’ll exist from that point on.”

Photo: Sun Media News Services

I hope that you are able to stop by during my Christmas Open houseEdmonton - St. Albert 780.459.0809 [email protected]

Visit us at www.brentrathgeber.ca Brent Rathgeber, Q.C., M.P.

Constituency Office Christmas Open HouseTuesday, December 18, 2012

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When Roger Lockwood rst heard his son had been hit in the eye while playing street hockey, he thought his boy might have been struck with a stick or ball.

Little did he know 11-year-old Ethan had been pierced by a branch that penetrated six inches into the boy’s brain. On Nov. 5, 2011, he was paralysed.

“You can’t even explain the feelings. It was just unknown whether he would still be around,” Roger said.

Ethan has come a long way since the trauma, in large part due to the Oilers Interactive Learning Centre at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital, which had a grand opening on Dec. 5.

e centre combines technology and play through robots and touch-screen video games created at NAIT.

Quentin Ranson, rehabilitation technology leader at the Glenrose said when kids play, they work hard. While playing the games, they build motor skills, thinking skills and social skills.

“We all know that, whether they’re involved in building a Lego project and constructing the Death Star, they’re thinking about it, they’re planning, they’re organizing, they’re challenging themselves, they’re playing hard, they’re working hard,” Ranson said.

e video games are customizable to the players needs — whether it’s adjusting the diculty starting from a low level or picking a side of the body that needs more work. Games on the Wii and Kinect accelerated too fast for some of the patients.

Ethan, like many 11-year-old boys, loves to play video games and at the Oil Centre. His favourite is a game called

Smash Up Derby.“You’re this car and then you try and

smash all these other cars,” he explained.Last Christmas, the family spent the

morning with Ethan in hospital, who was hooked up to IV antibiotics. Now he’s lacing up his skates and hoping to ski one day.

“He’s a very motivated kid, he’s just needed encouragement,” Roger said. “We hope he makes a full recovery.”

e centre was funded by the Edmonton Oilers Community Foundation to the tune of $75,000. e centre has the same sliding doors as the Oilers’ locker room.

e centre has four at-screen TVs, a tilting table top so children with mobility issues can play, a system that uses motion sensors to allow a child to interact, a robotics table, a harness system, and specialized controllers.

Photo: IAN KUCERAK, Sun Media News Services

Women have long been known to live longer than men, but when it comes to hitting the century mark the dierence is stark: just two out of 10 Americans who live to 100 or longer are male.

Of the 53,364 Americans age 100 and older, more than 80 percent are women, a U.S. Census Bureau report released on Monday showed.

e agency’s ndings, based on data collected from its 2010 census, also found those who make it past 100 are also more likely to be white city-dwellers in the Northeast and Midwest.

“Due to sex dierences in mortality over the lifespan, the proportion of females in the population increases with age. is is especially true in the oldest ages, where the percentage female increases sharply,” Census researchers wrote.

“For every 100 centenarian females, there were only 20.7 centenarian males,” they added.

While reaching 100 years of age may not attract as much fanfare as it did a few decades ago, the public still marvels at those who reach “super centenarian” status.

Guinness World Records, which certies the oldest living person, said the title was held by Besse Cooper, an American woman who died last week at age 116 in a Georgia nursing home soon aer having her hair done.

Guinness announced on its website that the new person to certied to be the oldest anywhere on the globe is 115-year-old Dina Manfredini, an immigrant from Pievepelago, Italy, who has lived in Des Moines, Iowa, since 1920. She is just 15 days older than Japan’s Jiroemon Kimura, Guinness World Records said.

ST. A LBERT REAL ESTATE MARKET REPORT

*The above area market averages represent the trailing 3-month averages, except where otherwise indicated, of single-family homes only as of the Friday prior to publication week. Data is provided by CRAIG PILGRIM of RE/MAX Real Estate (St. Albert), member of the Real Estate Association of Edmonton.Data does not include condos, townhomes or apartments, and does not differentiate between styles of homes. All efforts are made to ensure data is accurate for information purposes, but please consult a licensed real estate agent for additional market information.

Active Listings: 8 Sold Listings: 9Average list price:$377,337

Low $308,500 / High $448,000

AKINSDALE

Average sale price:$342,722

Low $277,500 / High $435,000Avg. days on market: 61


Low $294,900 / High $649,900

DEER RIDGE




Low $489,500/ High $1,895,000

KINGSWOOD


Low $507,000 / High $1,750,000Avg. days on market: 72

GRANDIN

Active Listings: 9Average list price:$347,822

Low $292,900 / High $399,900

Sold Listings: 15Average sale price:$348,370



Low $399,900 / High $524,900

HERITAGE LAKES



LACOMBE PARK


Low $329,900 / High $1,290,000




Low $379,900 / High $495,000

WOODLANDS150 DAYS




Low $384,900 / High $989,888

ERIN RIDGE




Low $329,900 / High $550,000

BRAESIDE




Low $305,000 / High $369,000

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Low $399,700 / High $779,900

NORTH RIDGE



OAKMONT


Low $414,900 / High $1,595,000


Low $400,000 / High $1,024,398Avg. days on market: 34


Low $399,900 / High $649,900

PINEVIEW150 DAYS




Low $290,000 / High $389,900

STURGEON HEIGHTS120 DAYS



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ACROSS1 Cola starter5 Hendrix hairdo9 Drink accessory

14 Soon, to a poet15 Light hammer

part16 Conversation

piece?17 Fender damage18 Give a makeover20 Go bad21 Coat with gold

leaf22 Like some

sweatshirts23 Official class

member25 Barely earn,

with "out"26 Fertility clinic

supply27 Good to go29 Theater ticket

word 66 Refuse to admit 30 Prophetic sign 46 Military guard32 Treat badly 67 Tenant's 31 St. John's ____ 47 Vitamin B335 Do away with expense (herbal remedy) 49 Eyelid cosmetic36 Note from the 32 What FAQ's 51 Full of nerve

boss DOWN offer 52 Parachute 37 Empty group, in 1 Military training 33 Temporary calm material

math group 34 Thin and 53 Proffer bait39 Workplace 2 Two-run homer slippery 54 Wound crust

honcho requirement 36 Lady's address 55 Pitcher's target41 Skedaddle 3 Like some 38 Argentine aunt 56 Country bumpkin42 Backtalk variables 40 Bedouin, for one 60 Clifford's color44 Gerbil or gopher 4 Picnic invader 43 Ransack 61 Watering hole45 Over the hill 5 Arbor Day 46 Killed, as a month

dragon 6 Bug's antenna48 Word before 7 Venison source

and after "oh" 8 Half and half49 Island garland 9 Hair-raising50 Bone connector 10 Severe spasm54 Head doctor 11 Frost's "The ___57 Extol Not Taken"58 Sandwich bread 12 Pot starter59 Work against 13 Garden intruder61 Soothing 19 Cheeseburger

ointment cheese62 Color of honey 21 Cocktail vessel63 Protection: Var. 24 Botanical seed64 Perched upon 28 Draw a bead65 Smelling of suds 29 Create anew

The Weekly Crossword by Margie E. Burke

Copyright 2012 by The Puzzle Syndicate

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16

17 18 19

20 21 22

23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33 34 35 36

37 38 39 40

41 42 43 44

45 46 47 48

49 50 51 52 53

54 55 56 57 58

59 60 61

62 63 64

65 66 67

O A T S L A P U P F O W LP U R E E R A S E I D E AU N E X P E C T E D G O A DS T A T U S I N A H U R R Y

D O T F E E L E RD A W N P A N T R I V E RE R A D U C T C A N I N EP E T I O L E C A L E N D SO N E D G E K U R D D O ET A R O T G I L D M I N T

L A M E N T S A CE N G A G I N G T A R T A RM O A T R E P E R T O I R EI S L E T R I N E O V E NR E A R H A N D Y N E A T

Surng was noticed by Europeans for the rst time in 1767 at Tahiti. In 1777, English discoverer Captain James Cook (1728-1779) wrote that he saw how inhabitants of the islands around Tahiti and Oahu were riding the waves on boards. Later, when missionaries were sent to the islands, they banned surng because they thought it immoral. (didyouknow.org)

• Sp

ot t

he

Diff

eren

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•

Edited by Margie E. Burke

Copyright 2012 by The Puzzle Syndicate

Difficulty : Medium

Milestones

Photo: IAN KUCERAK, Sun Media News Services

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Our schools and our district office willbe closed from noon on December 21until January 7 for the Christmas break.

www.spschools.org60 Sir Winston Churchill Avenue780-460-3712

From the Trustees & Staff ofSt. Albert Public SchoolsF th T t & St ff fhhtth & St

Seasons Greetings

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A St. Albert-based construction company has been bought up in a deal worth approximately $12.8 million.

It was announced Sunday that a deal had been reached to sell Nason Contracting Group Ltd., based in St. Albert’s Campbell Business Park, to Toronto’s Bird Construction Ltd. e acquisition is expected to be completed by Jan. 15.

Nason has made a name for itself over the past 40 years as a builder of water

and wastewater facilities in Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. e company’s revenues over the past four full scal years averaged $37 million.

“Bird and Nason are a great t. Nason’s expertise is in mechanical, electrical and instrumentation work while Bird is a leader in general contracting and civil work. Combining this expertise, we will be able to execute more complex work as well

as assignments for industrial clients where our expertise is well suited to the demands of their projects,” said Darrell Stang, president of Nason, in a press release. “Joining with Bird will not only expand our opportunities as a company, but it will provide tremendous opportunities for our employees to grow and take on new and challenging assignments within the Bird organization.”

Sturgeon Valley Athletic Club is looking to really set itself apart in the local health and tness landscape with some big changes announced this week.

e tness facility, located in Campbell Business Park, told members at a special event Wednesday evening that it is getting ready to make some major changes to their operation, most notably with Leading Edge Physiotherapy moving out and a medical spa moving in.

“Dierentiation in the marketplace is one of our key goals,” said club manager Christine Rawlins, “and also to provide that high-calibre of dedicated medical spa in St. Albert.”

True Balance medical spa, a company based out of Sherwood Park, will take over Leading Edge’s space in the club, oering medical aesthetic services like bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, Botox, skin resurfacing and laser hair removal.

“From True Balance’s perspective, they’re very excited to be able to embrace a venture like this, because tness has always been something they saw as an excellent t for their business model,” Rawlins said. “It allows them to move forward in a direction they had been planning to anyway.”

Rawlins added that keeping things within the Capital Region and bringing in a local partner was very important to the club.

“We always want to align ourselves with the best brands and the best practitioners,” she said, “and also a business that shares the same philosophies as we do.”

SVAC is also implementing a number of other features and programs. eir Perkville electronic reward and loyalty program is already up and running, and they plan to introduce an introductory 30-day membership rate, a new “Mix It Up” class format and a new

“MyZone” activity tracking system in the near future.

“ere are a lot of bare bones facilities out there, and that’s ne and good; it serves a certain component of the marketplace,” Rawlins said. “But we feel our customers are more sophisticated with their tastes and choices, so we want to provide them with a wide palate of choices.”

Meanwhile, Leading Edge has found new digs further north in Campbell Park, as they’ll be moving into a new space double their current size o Carleton Drive being built by SAS Sports and Entertainment Group, the driving force behind the

St. Albert Sports City concept slated for the northwest corner of St. Albert.

“We’re over-the-moon pumped,” said Leading Edge co-owner Heidi Fedoruk.

“It’s growth and an opportunity to bring in some technologies and treatments that will keep us on the leading edge. We’re always looking at ways we can improve the care we give.”

Fedoruk added that the new space will allow Leading Edge to bring in a new piece equipment that will be the rst of its kind in a private physiotherapy clinic in Canada, although she wouldn’t divulge any more detail than that.

SVAC is facing a number of challenges within the health and tness sector, most notably the location of a Goodlife Fitness location slated for a new commercial development along St. Albert Trail, just north of Riverside Honda.

“We’re aware that they’re coming, and we’d be grossly remiss to think it wasn’t going to impact our business in some way,” Rawlins said.

But, she said, the club has faced similar challenges in the past and survived, and she’s condent they’ll meet this one head-on as well.

“Because we’re independent and locally owned and operated, we’re adaptable in that regard. ... We’re hoping these changes will position us better prior to their launch,” she said.


The Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission (AGLC) isseeking a qualified individual for the following position:

FIELD SERVICE TECHNICIANS/OPERATIONAL SERVICESSalary Range: $1,709.40 to $2,175.00 bi-weeklyComp # 12-197 Closing Date: Open Until FilledThe AGLC is responsible for regulating gaming and liquoractivities across the province. Our work environment offerschallenging opportunities, career growth, and supportswork-life balance.For more information on this and other available positionsplease visit our website aglc.ca.

50 Corriveau AvenueSt. Albert, AB T8N 3T5fax: 780.447.8918email: [email protected]

To apply, visit our website: aglc.caMPSSCS4499057MPSE

REQUIRESEQUIPMENT OPERATORSto load structural steel on trailers.

Heated-cab telehandlers(zoom booms), great pay and full benefits.

Located in Morinville, AB.

Fax resume to: 780-939-2181 orEmail: [email protected]

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Locally Owned & Operated

ADULT CARRIERS NEEDED• Flexible hours to fit your day and onlyone day per week!

• Add to your RRSP’s• Take a Cruise• Christmas Cash, Etc.

The St Albert Leader is currently looking for adult carriers fordoor to door newspaper deliveries within your community.Invest only a few hours of your time Thursday afternoon/evenings and earn an average of $300/mo., directly depositedevery two weeks. Reliable transportation is required.

PlPleasese call 780-460-0-10103535oror eemailil [email protected]

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Looking for a New Career?The St. Albert Investors Group Office is Growing Its Team

of 29 Financial Advisors

Register for our Tuesday, January 15th

Career Information Eveningor Submit your Resumé Today

Career Information Evening 7 o’clock pm, January 15th, 2013Suite 100, 7 St. Anne St., St. Albert

To Register email: [email protected] or callRob 780-459-3343 ext 230 or visit InvestorsGroupStAlbert.com

This is a full-time opportunity to establish a varaible-income and self employed business in association with Investors Group.

Investors Group Financial Services Inc.MPSSCS4496593MPSE

Does hiring come to a halt as the holidays approach? Is the holiday season a good time to nd a new job?

Oce parties, professional get-togethers, and year-end meetings abound during the holiday season. While it may be tempting to put your search on hold, that could put you at a disadvantage.

When organizations have a need, they hire regardless of the time of year. As companies complete their nancial planning for 2013 they’re under pressure to ll certain openings or risk losing budgets. Hiring managers with new goals are eager to nd productive workers and competition for candidates is keen.

Because many hiring managers don’t travel much during the holidays, they may have time to meet with job seekers. Several organizations interview in December for positions starting in the new year.

e fact that many potential candidates don’t job hunt during the holidays is another advantage. ose who plan to leave oen wait until the new year so they can receive year-end bonuses. Others take vacations.

Some successful candidates begin new jobs between Christmas and New Year. Starting work during the holidays can be a bonus. e work pace is usually slower, and new employees have time to settle in. Seasoned employees have time to answer questions.

e interview process may take longer than normal as interviewers take a few days o. at can work to your advantage. You’ll have time to prepare, and have a foot in the door in the new year.

Some tips for you holiday job search:Be prepared. Know yourself and job target. Specify

your preferred job title and industry, your special skills and accomplishments, and what you can oer the company (value added). Match your qualications to employers’ needs. Know key industry words to describe your skills.

Investigate jobs and prospective employers. Consider small and medium-sized companies. Be resourceful. Check the classieds, online job boards, local newspapers, business and trade publications, and company websites. Use Google and other search engines to learn about organizations and identify

decision makers of desired companies.Use social media. Build an online professional prole on

LinkedIn and Twitter to expand your network. Employers research potential candidates: ensure information about your professional accomplishments and background is current. Keep personal life private on Facebook.

Consider industry-related Twitter chats to communicate with the right people. Share information by re-tweeting and forwarding links and articles. Contemplate sharing work on high trac sites like YouTube.

Prepare an elevator speech. is mini-speech introduces you, describes your experience, accomplishments and skills, demonstrates your value added, and indicates what you like about the organization. Give speeches over the phone, in person, at professional or other gatherings.

Call hiring managers. Before phoning, investigate the organization and hiring manager. Ask for two minutes. Give your speech conversationally demonstrating how you can help resolve employer challenges like saving money and managing people. Be friendly and genuine.

Create a separate resumé for each job target. Also, design a business card that highlights areas of expertise and directs recipients to your resumé in an accessible format, such as the URL for a web page.

Volunteer. You’ll meet new people, learn about job opportunities, and gain experience and a sense of well-being.

Take a survival job. Temporary work can stretch nances and may lead to a permanent position. Employers oen need temporary workers as they try to complete annual goals with regular employees wanting vacation time.

Maintain a exible schedule. Allocate time for job search and relaxation or holiday celebrations. Be available and adaptable. A prospective employer may unexpectedly call. If you’re accessible, you have an advantage.

Follow up. Contact hiring managers within two weeks of sending correspondence. A brief phone call reasserting your interest and strong qualications for the position is eective.

Persist. You may get your Christmas wish.Dr. Carole Kanchier is a registered psychologist, coach,

speaker, and author of Dare to Change Your Job and Your Life. Reach her at [email protected] or visit www.daretochange.com.

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st. albert leader - dec. 13, 2012

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