Kevin Thompson and Justin Huddle keep an eye on Amy Thompson’s putt on no. 11 during a charity golf tournament at the Gilbert Plains Country Club, Saturday.

The fund-raiser was in support of Isaac McCrimmon, a 2-1/2-year-old who was diagnosed with a form of leukemia.

The family moved to Saskatoon where Isaac will be treated for his leukemia. Scott McCallum and Greg Clemenson won the tournament and returned their prize money to the family.

All closest-to-the-hole winners and the 50-50 winner also donated their winnings to the family.

The tournament raised $8,500, which will help cover expenses.

To function efficiently, achieve growth and attract new businesses, communities cannot rely on blind luck, a proper roadmap is required.

To that end the City of Dauphin has been working hard on a new Development Plan and held a public hearing as part of the adoption process at its regular council meeting, Aug.14.

The current plan was created in 2010 and adopted in 2012, City manager Sharla Griffiths said, making it important to get the new guide in place soon.

“There’s a requirement, also, in the Planning Act for a periodic review of the development plan,” she said. “And it does state that every five years after it comes into effect, or from the date of the last review, it should be reviewed again. So we are far past when we needed to review it.”

The development plan is meant to promote the optimum economic, social, environmental and physical conditions of an area.

There's more to this story in this week's Dauphin Herald!

More than 500 Girl Guides and their leaders from across Canada have come to Dauphin for the organization’s Crocus Camp 2023, which will be held, Aug. 20 to 26.

Camp director Melissa Lopushniuk of Winnipeg said this is the first year they are running such a Crocus Camp.

“So we’re really, really excited to have such a large camp and something to happen in our province. And specifically Dauphin. Dauphin has been really hospitable with us and has been a really, really great support in terms of the community,” she said.

The Girl Guides, ranging in age from 10 to 17, will be camping at Selo Ukraina. It was the Selo site which sold organizers on holding the Crocus Camp in Dauphin.

“The Selo site has such great infrastructure and there’s such great things around. We have the museum that we can utilize. We have so many great things. We have some out trips going in and around the city,” Lopushniuk said.

Activities for the week will include Ukrainian egg decorating, mountain biking, as well as an activity involving the local Communities in Bloom committee.

“So something for all of the youth involved,” Lopushniuk said, adding she hopes the girls will enjoy the week. “I definitely think that we’ve created something that really reignites their spirit and really gets them to enjoy guiding and to continue on. So this is a big thing for us,” she said.

The opening ceremonies were held, Sunday evening, which included a special performance by Sche Raz.

A new Community Centre for Justice for Dauphin is on the list of priorities should the Manitoba New Democrats form the next provincial government.

Party leader Wab Kinew was in the city, Aug. 18, sharing his plans to develop the facility, three years after the governing Progressive Conservatives unexpectedly and abruptly closed the Dauphin Correctional Centre.

“If our team forms the next government here in Manitoba in this fall’s election, we will build a new Dauphin Justice Center. We will build a new Dauphin Justice Center to replace the Dauphin jail that the PCs closed,” Kinew said. “We’re going to be building a facility that improves safety in the community and in the region. We’re going to be building a facility that is a concrete step towards addressing the crime that is too often present in our community. But we are also going to be making an economic investment to bring good paying jobs back to Dauphin and back to families who live in the Parkland.”

The plan, Kinew said, is centred on community safety and will act as a vehicle when interventions are necessary to address people who “are on a bad path” and need to be taken off the streets.

“But from there, we need to have a facility where we can address the addictions, we can address the trauma, we can address the issues that are causing them to go down the bad path and then we can show them how to lead a better life,” he said. “Specifically, the importance of working a good job and the benefits of hard work. This is part of what we need to see in responding to the issues around safety in our community.”

The closure of the Dauphin Correctional Centre by the governing PCs not only impacted community safety, Kinew said, but was economically difficult for the community given the loss of 80 jobs.

“And even though they tried to spin it this way and that way, at the end of the day from those 80 people who lost their jobs about 60 of them moved out of Dauphin entirely and the remaining 20, they lost work. They lost those jobs entirely,” he said, adding the Dauphin Centre for Justice will right that wrong. “We would like to bring back the 80 jobs. We would like to work towards that. We’ll work with the municipal leaders, MMF, First Nations. Those new jobs might look different than they did before because we might have some of the correctional type jobs that were there previously. Now we might also have some mental health, addictions training, educational type workers, as well as the maintenance staff. So we want to bring back the 80 jobs that were lost and we’re going to work with the community to make sure that it’s the right fit to hit those goals.”

What the new centre will look like will depend on extensive consultation with stakeholders, but as a starting point, Kinew anticipates an initial investment of $40 million to develop a 60-bed facility with annual operating costs of $5 million to $7 million.

“We’re going to have to spend some time looking at the scale. We want the municipal leaders and Indigenous leaders to be on side with that, so I don’t think we can prejudge that process,” he said. “At the same time the construction phase, I would imagine, is going to take some time, as well. But we will put shovels into the ground within a first term of a Manitoba NDP government.”

Check this week's Herald for the full story!

It’s been some time since Adult and Teen Challenge of Central Canada (ATC) set up a community office in Swan River, with the intent to reach out to people with addictions in the area and help them overcome the challenges in their life, whether that be by being a place to talk to somebody or by being the first step towards one of the inpatient recovery programs that ATC runs.
For the time being, ATC currently runs a monthly program called Freedom Church at their community office located at the former First Baptist Church in Swan River at 224 Fifth Avenue North.
“We have been getting people from throughout the community – whether it be from the churches or people off the street – to join us on a Sunday afternoon for some food and listen to some testimonies, some live music and be able to share stories with others,” said Terry Thiessen, who works on the ATC Regional Team in relation to alumni and community development.
“We usually have a small group of volunteers that help us reach out into parts of the community and connect with that demographic that we know to be there that we can help by showing some love.”
Thiessen noted that they have had quite a few referrals into either inpatient or outpatient programming by connecting with people who attend Freedom Church.
The greater plan that ATC had for the space includes a full-time staff couple that would live at the facility and be able to connect with people on a more regular basis.
“We have a job posting, but I think there’s a bit of a shortage in the job market right now for both people applying and those that have the right skill set for the position,” said Thiessen.
“Our goal is to become a centrepoint for outpatient programming. We have a goal of having women’s groups and men’s groups held separately as outpatient support where people can come and receive support through a weekly gathering, through various relevant studies, all done through an umbrella that we call ‘Ready Now Recovery’. And, people get an opportunity to receive basic, weekly regular support for the life-controlling issue that they’re walking through.
“We also plan to launch a family support system called ‘Concerned Persons’,” Thiessen continued. “What that does is it focuses more on family, friends and loved ones that have somebody they know who is in addictions but they’re not exactly sure how to navigate that.
“We walk alongside them in a nine-week course called ‘Concerned Persons’ and we help them gain some perspective and some different ways of being able to respond to their situation of pressure that you go through when a loved one is in addictions and how to respond in the best way that doesn’t just continue a cycle but maybe it can help to stop a cycle. It goes deeper into maybe not being able to change our loved one – despite wanting to try – but how can we change the atmosphere that we are helping to change or create for them that’s going to steer them towards wanting to get some help.”
Thiessen added that the support program also helps in the sense that people can often feel like they are the only ones in those situations, and it really helps to know that others are going through the same challenge that you are.
Thiessen also noted that not only has the monthly services helped get some referrals for individuals who need the long-term programs, but it has also helped the community by gathering a group of volunteers that have a heart for the community, which can benefit an eventual full-time staff person in their success.
“There’s a base of high-quality volunteers that believe in their own community and want to make a difference,” said Thiessen. “Those two things are the biggest wins so far.
“There’s a general consensus of everyone being eager to get this (greater programming) going. As part of the regional support team, we’ve tried to do our best to at least have a consistent presence as much as we are able to. But, I think that the excitement is there and we are hoping to find the right person to step into that (full-time) role, which would open up the opportunity to move into some more regular and frequent type program.”
A job posting for the Swan River position is available at teenchallenge.applytojobs.ca.

The storage container outside of the Royal Canadian Legion Br. 39 Swan River club room is getting an aesthetic upgrade, with the Legion hiring local artist Jenna Smith to beautify the space with a scene of poppies, topped off with the words ‘Lest We Forget’. Smith has already spent many hours on the project, expecting to finish it in the coming weeks. Murray Eagle did the sandblasting on the container to prepare the surface for the artwork. Here, Smith uses her patient and skillful hands to apply her vision. 

On June 4, 2023, at Bethany Lutheran Church in Inglis, Bauereiss was ordained as a minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

She is the first woman to be ordained in Bethany Lutheran in what has been the first ordination in that building since 1938. She has been serving as a Deacon since 2022.

Find out more in this week’s issue.

Prairie Mountain Health (PMH) is offering a new recruitment incentive of $75,000 to all new physician recruits, including ‘in-progress recruitments, to the region.

The new incentive was announced to communities and municipalities in a letter from PMH CEO Brian Schoonbaert dated Aug. 3.

Read all about it in this week’s Review.

Do you enjoy trying new things, or meeting new people? Join us every other Saturday afternoon starting in September for fun with board games.

If board games aren’t your style we will be hosting more craft hour activities in the library as well, for kids, families or just adults!

More about the library in this week’s Library Report.

Simon the Scientist is back again in this year’s Pow Wow Pitch semi-finals and his platform for learning and teaching science has grown significantly in this last year. Simon Monteith, spent a good portion of his time teaching science experiments and lessons via YouTube, but now has branched out to a lot more teaching and demonstrating to a classroom audience.
“This year, I’ve done a variety of different things,” said Simon. “I reached out to school divisions in the north, like Frontier School Division, and done monthly STEM sessions during the school year. I also did some work with Let’s Talk Science.”