The regional needs of members are served through a network of nine chapters. Through monthly meetings and promotional activities, the chapters represent an ideal way for member companies to keep abreast of concerns regarding the profession. The two most sought after membership benefits — education and networking opportunities — are provided through the association’s regional chapter structure.
Jump to: Durham, Georgian Lakelands, Golden Horseshoe, London, Ottawa, Toronto, Upper Canada, Waterloo, Windsor
President: Jon Agg
Vice President: Brian Alcock
Past President: Norm Mills
Secretary/Treasurer: Carol Fulford
Provincial Board Rep: Chris Muller
Directors: Bruce Cullen, Keith Desjardins, Peter Hrgetic, Scott Lloyd, Brian Shelfoon, Janice Shingler
2020 – If you are a John Oliver fan, please watch his last “Last Week Tonight” show and you will see the thoughts I share with him on 2020.
To look at last year’s report for guidance on what to do for this year is somewhat funny, and somewhat sad.
The amount of cancelled events, the amount of fear, and suffering… the amount of uncertainty. We are truly living in uncertain times, but the one blessing with all of this is that we are getting through it — and seeing that our industry can basically deal with a world-wide pandemic and come out of it stronger then ever. This is not the resumé addition we wanted or needed, but it is what it is at this point, and the game of life must go on.
I am hopeful that a vaccine will be in distribution by spring, and we will see some sort of normal return to our lives, but time will tell. I miss hugging people, shaking, hands, a pat on the back. These human interactions that don’t mean a lot in some ways, but made us also feel good at the same time. I also think that even with a vaccine, our way of being will forever have changed, and it might be many years for those type of interactions to become the norm.
Reading through my old emails, it is crazy to think that as of the end of March, we will talking to people about Lysol wipes and hand sanitizer, and now it is November and not much has changed.
For any of you that have been personally affected by COVID, I am sorry, and I only ask that you share with people to let them know how serious it is. It is amazing the way we are so used to this new normal that we are in many ways “letting our guard down.”
Also, a huge thank you to the LO COVID-19 Task Force. I hear they are coming up on meeting 90, and who knows when that number will end. I heard the words, “third wave” for the first time yesterday. These are scary times indeed.
The Durham Chapter will be completing a retaining wall in November for Jada Parcells of Bowmanville, Ont., the winner of the $5,000 Garden Makeover to recognize the dedicated work of frontline workers. I encourage you to read her story online. I don’t know if this is something that we say congratulations to her for, or just thank her for her service during this time.
We will get more and more used to the Zoom way of living, and I look forward to the day we can meet in person.
I wish you all well, and let’s hope for 2021 to be the best year we could hope for!
President: Laurie-Ann Stuart
Vice President: Michael Di Nunzio
Treasurer: Ken Dutka
Secretary: Jen Raedts
Provincial Board Rep: Margot Byers
Directors: Jon Cundy, Rebecca Hurrell, Teresa Matamoros
As Georgian Lakelands begins the 25th anniversary as a Chapter in December 2020, here is a look back at our year:
September 2019: Our Putting Challenge at Blue Mountain in Collingwood was well attended with lots of laughs, fun and a few holes in one. Prizes and draws were well received by the group after an amazing dinner.
October 2019: Our annual BBQ was moved to October this year. This gave us the opportunity to see the fall display at Ego’s Garden Centre in Coldwater. Bobcat provided great fun as we tried our hand at the Excavator game with an E35 Bobcat. Some people are definitely better at this than others but everyone had fun. Our speaker, Scott Bryk, gave us valuable information about the New Eden App, where contractors could pick up extra work in their area through an app based option.
November 2019: Our fifth annual Awards of Distinction evening was held at Casino Rama with 100 people (remember when we could put that many people in one room?) gathering for networking, dinner, drinks and awards. A wonderful night for all who attended.
January 2020: Congress — A place to meet, learn and soak up everything landscaping. Georgain Lakelands threw in a Board of Directors meeting making for a very full and rewarding week. The board planned for an exciting year of snow, BBQ’s, golf and scholarships to attend and host.
February 2020: Ski, Spa and a new event Snowshoe this year. We had the most beautiful winter day to enjoy Craigleith Ski Club in Blue Mountain. Attendees came from chapters all over the province. There was a ski challenge and even a prize for the person who gets shushed the most at the spa. A wonderful apres-ski held in the chalet with the traditional photo out on the patio where we had earlier enjoyed some winter sunshine as the day was quite warm.
March 2020: Just under the wire, Georgian Lakelands was able to get our Ministry of Transportation (MTO) event in before everything was shut down for COVID-19. One of our largest events with 72 people coming out to hear about MTO rules and regulations and a demonstration of a Circle Check on a truck and trailer unit. This is also our AGM meeting where we added two new members to the board.
The Board of Directors continued to meet throughout the summer although we have been unable to create any face to face meetings throughout the remainder of the year but have plans for some virtual events coming up. We also keep planning for when we can all meet face to face again someday as networking is one of the greatest benefits of Landscape Ontario.
President: Cindy Buelow
Vice President: Greg Schaafsma
Past President: Peter Vanderley
Treasurer: Carla Bailey
Secretary: Mike Lavigne
Provincial Board Rep.: Pam Cook
Directors: Hunter Beamish, Egon Bieg, Bill Degraaf, Matt Edwards, Ryan Marshall
Chapter Coordinator: Wendy Harry
A very hard-working board with diverse interests came together to create a great program of events for our members. Our annual events consist of 4 chapter meetings, a golf tournament and our Plant Symposium.
Sept. 2019: Our 14th annual golf tournament was nearly a sellout and raised a record amount through raffle ticket sales for prizes. A huge thank you goes out to our generous sponsors; new games and product placement ideas kept the players engaged but the overall event is for our landscapers to treat their hard-working staff. The golf tournament is our major fundraising event for the year, so we greatly appreciate our generous golfers and sponsors for making this such a wonderful day.
Oct. 2019: Jacki Hart, developer and manager of LO’s Peer to Peer Network, presented an enlightening methodology on how to develop a job description, performance evaluation and create a training plan for your staff.
Nov. 2019: Sara Luther is a Human rights lawyer, educator and facilitator, specializing in workplace investigations. Sara guided us through an interactive session on workplace conflict, exploring it from different perspectives and addressing the expectations of respect and what to do when it is absent.
Our chapter had representatives at the Build a Dream event in London, whose focus is to explore non-traditional career paths with the over 2,000 young women and their families who attended the event.
Feb. 2020: Our chapter meeting featured Michael Lewis and the “Communication Toolbox: Strategies for Communicating Effectively, Assertively and Clearly”. Michael led us through a presentation on effective communication and its positive impacts on your business.
Feb. 2020: Our fourth annual Plant Symposium was a sold-out success. Thanks to the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects (OALA Southwest Chapter) for their support with co-sponsorship and to our new and sustaining sponsors for making this event one to remember! The Plant Symposium is open to both industry and the public, with a large contingent of students from the Landscape Design and Horticulture programs at Fanshawe College, for whom the event is now a part of their curriculum. It was an all-day event with four fantastic speakers that were all well received and a marketplace for attendees to purchase and learn from a variety of vendors. Plans are underway for a virtual rendition of the Plant Symposium for 2021.
March 2020: We had our very popular guest speaker from the Ministry of Transportation Ontario (MTO) outlining the new regulations and answering questions on compliance. A new initiative this year had us host a presentation by Julie Ryan of Indwell, a private, not or profit charity with a 45-year history of creating affordable and supported homes. Our London Chapter has made a pledge to help raise funds and install the landscaping at the newest location, Embassy Commons, in London.
New this year was our end of March meeting that was unfortunately cancelled. It was to be an interactive, crew directed safety meeting at our local Greenhouse Academy featuring a Workplace Safety & Prevention Services (WSPS) meeting in the morning and a Truck and Trailer inspection by Frontline in the afternoon. The Greenhouse Academy (located in Thorndale, Ont.) was chosen as host, to reinforce our connection with their mission of providing hands-on experiences and practical learning opportunities to high school students in our area.
Also cancelled were our baseball tournament and the Women in Landscaping Touch a Truck event that we sponsor.
Our dedicated Social Media Committee has kept our Facebook page current with industry relevant information and updates. Our world looks different than it did a year ago and our Facebook page is a great way to stay connected with our members. Check it out at: facebook.com/LOLondonChapter
All our meetings and initiates were well attended, and we always welcome more participants and ideas for how to bring current and relevant information to those who can benefit from it. This pandemic has opened some new doors for how we interact so let’s explore those opportunities.
President: Jonas Spring
Vice President: Garry Reisky
Provincial Board Rep and Treasurer: Jon Durzi
Directors: Siamak Bay, Pamela Cooze, Daniel Dominguez, Matt Gove, Skai Leja, Wendy Ladd, David Milne, Raffi Hanimyan
Spring 2019 seems like a lifetime ago. We continued to support local greening projects through our 15K bursary program. This program was mostly funded through our successful Golf Tournament hosted by Wendy Ladd. In august we hosted the Green Streets Challenge turning the Yonge and Bloor into a greenspace for the day. Our bimonthly shoptalk sessions picked up again in September. Our shoptalk meetings are hosted by a different board member each month. This ensures that the location moves around the city. Shoptalk meetings are unique as they have no agenda and no speakers. Typically we get together to eat, drink and talk shop. Our winter social was a great success including a raffle, buffet and games of pool at the Crooked Cue. In January we had a very well attended meeting around the Toronto Biodiversity Strategy and how we can best support the city through our work. In February we hosted Reference a full day event at Ryerson. We were very happy to have over 100 people enroll. Reference was created to provide designers with practical tools to incorporate ecological references to the design process. This turned out to be the last live meeting we hosted before the lockdown. In spring we cancelled our safety meeting, Canada Blooms was cancelled after our members had already built their gardens. In addition we were unable to hold elections in spring. The covid 19 taskforce was exactly what we needed to help us work through how the pandemic was going to impact our season. In summary we had great summer fall and winter programming geared toward making Toronto a more liveable city while providing members with opportunities to meet and network. The spring was filled with uncertainty the Covid-19 taskforce was a great help to work through our questions.
President/Provincial Board Representative/St. Clair College Liaison: Jay Terryberry
Vice President/Director: Sal Costante
Past President: Donald Tellier
Treasurer: Joe Santarossa Jr.
Directors: Jessica Aytoun (meetings), Vincent Murphy, Jay Rivait (LOWC Facebook page), Dan Garlatti,
New Directors: Derek Trepanier and Liam Chisholm (Mar. 2020)
LOWC Assistants: Violet Harris, Jessica Aytoun
Our Fall 2019 events for our members started out slowly as our annual Bob Girard Memorial golf outing and our first speaker session were postponed but our November event was well received. OPP Officer Jeremy Kulwartian gave an excellent presentation on distracted driving, new marijuana laws, road rules and updated laws and penalties. Jeremy usually teams up with our annual MTO presentation in March but we realized that there was just too much information and too many questions for one meeting so we split them up.
We rallied with a December social event at the Thompson House on a sunny afternoon. Over 50 members and students from St. Clair College’s Landscape Horticulture Dept. joined in for some food, drink, door prizes and loud banter that continued into the early evening! A good time was had by all!
In January, Myrtle Donnipad from the Windsor-Essex Small Business Centre gave a great presentation on how to start up small business. An enthusiastic group (including a number of St. Clair College students) listened to topics including registration, business structure, government support programs, how to draft a business plan and how to get started once everything is in place. Many great questions followed as a number of people stayed after the presentation to talk to Myrtle one-on-one.
Our February event was attended by almost 30 members looking to obtain their first aid certification from the Red Cross. Lily and Derek Leblanc covered many techniques including CPR, first aid (respiratory and cardiac arrest, wound care and breathing and circulation emergencies).Tests followed the presentations and most were presented with their 3-year certificates. This will become a biannual event for the Windsor Chapter starting in 2022.
The annual March MTO meeting was attended by over 60 members continuing the trend as our best attended meeting every year. As usual, Officer Matthew Mitchell gave a great talk on all the rules of the road and members come prepared with lots of questions. This meeting was held two days before most events were shut down by the Province due to Covid-19. Two new board members came forward at this event (Derek Trepanier and Liam Chisholm) and we look forward to planning events with our board as soon as we can!
Our fall 2020 golf tourney was postponed but we hope to be up and running next fall.
I’d like to end this report by thanking Don Tellier for his many years with LOWC. Don was a valued board member and probably held every position available including treasurer and president. Don spend many hours planning events and working on community projects for Landscape Ontario. Thanks Don!
We had a nice speaker series and social event calendar set up for 2020/2021 but circumstances beyond our control have caused the postponement of all. Thanks to head office for the virtual presentations prepared for fall/winter 2020.
