HOT PIC Peter throwing a cheeze roll on April 17th (Click to see fullsize) Britannia Launch Webcam

NEWS

Feb 22 Redevelopment of Britannia park that could affect our access to the water/ice: Thursday February 27th See below for info about the 1st plan they submitted for comment. Here is the invite: After receiving feedback from residents, user groups, and community partners at consultations and a previous open house meeting, I directed City staff to design plans for the exterior of Britannia Park. This open house will focus on these updated designs and first phase of the renewal of the Ron Kolbus Lakeside Centre. We will be sharing with you plans for parking, signage and other amenities. The Ron Kolbus Lakeside Centre building itself, will be addressed at future meetings and consultations. When: Thursday February 27, 2014 Where: Ron Kolbus Lakeside Centre 102 Greenview Avenue Time: 7:00pm – 8:30pm Plan to attend! This is your opportunity to offer feedback and see what is planned for Britannia Park, the jewel in our Community. Mark Taylor Ottawa City Councillor for Bay Ward Chairman, Community & Protective Services Committee Mark.Taylor@Ottawa.ca http://BayWardLive.ca OFF-SEASON ACCESS TO SANDBANKS   Due to cuts to the Ontario government’s budget that had a significant impact on Ontario parks, 10 parks were to be closed and 130 fulltime and seasonal positions cut.    As many of you found out (perhaps the hard way) this impacted the windsurfing and kitesurfing community with access restricted to both Sandbanks beach as well as Outlet beach in the form of a locked gate as of Oct 8th last year - right about the time the best of the world class windy season started at Sandbanks.   The short of it - we managed to convince the park to install a secondary gate that will allow us access to the beach until December but we need your help raising funds to support the costs.   We need the support of the wind community and ask that you please donate what you can to help with this initiative!   Fundraising Target: $5,000 Amount Raisted to Date: $1,700     Full story and progress to Date   A small number of windsurfers and kitesurfers took on the task of gathering feedback from the windsurfing and kitesurfing communities, drafting proposals and contacting and working with the park to see what could be done. Thanks to efforts of this group (and in particular to Ilan Artzy from Montreal who met several times with the Friends of Sandbanks (http://friendsofsandbanks.org/site/home/) as well as the Superintendant and assistant superintendant of the park!) there are improvements to access that are being implemented:   The park has agreed to make changes to the park that will benefit the windsurfing and kitesurfing community: A new gate has now been installed (see picture below) to allow windsurfers/kitesurfers to access Outlet beach after the official closing of the park (Thanksgiving). The gate will remain open until December. The walking path to Sandbanks beach has already been enlarged and improved in order to provide better off-season access (after Thanksgiving) The gate to Sandbanks beach, which was closed in early September last year, will now be opened until Thanksgiving As well, we are currently discussing with the Parc the possibility of improving and enlarging the walking path near the new gate. How you can help   Of course there is a cost to implementing these changes for the benefit of our communities and with a fixed budget and ever-increasing costs the park can only afford to make a certain amount of improvements. The park is picking up the tab for the improved access path to Sandbanks beach and the Friends of Sandbanks has agreed to provide the up-front funds with the understanding that we would launch a fundraising campaign to raise money to support the park that many of us visit for an amazing session on the water as often as possible.   Here’s where your support is essential. We’re asking the windsurfing and kitesurfing community to donate to this cause to both help fund the cost of changes that are being implemented for our benefit as well as show our support for the Friends of Sandbanks, that without their support for our proposals as well as up-front funding, we might not have been able to get approval for a new gate.   For your convenience, a Paypal account has been set up to gather donations from the community, which will be provided directly to the Friends of Sandbanks. Our target is to raise $5000 for Friends of Sandbanks. While there is no time limit on donations, please try and make your donation within the next three weeks so that the donations can be provided to Friends of Sandbanks as soon as possible :     If you prefer to make your donation directly to the Friends of Sandbanks, you can mail in a cheque to the address below. PLEASE – make note on the cheque that you are a windsurfer/kitesurfer submitting a donation to help with access improvements to the park so that Friends of Sandbanks will know how much the communities have donated. I’m sure they will also let the park know.   Friends of Sandbanks PO Box 22007, 97 Main St Picton, ON K0K 0A0 July 25 The following document that outlines the Ottawa Windsurfing community's concerns with the draft proposal on the redevelopment of the Ron Kolbus Lakeside Gardens facility and Britannia Park was developed through the Ottawa Windsurfing discussion group and is supported by the windsurfing community. Besides addressing the proposed redevelopment this document has an annex which describes the history of windsurfing in Ottawa which you may find interesting. Do you know who is the most famous windsurfer from this area? The document has been submitted to Councillor Mark Taylor who is putting forward the development plan and we encourage the windsurfing community to contact the councillor for their ward to raise this issue. Its available in two formats: MS Word PDF July 12 There is a proposal that has been put forward by Councillor Mark Taylor to redevelop Britannia Park and the Ron Kolbus Lakeside Gardens facility. http://www.baywardlive.ca/issues/bay-ward-issues/building-a-new-recreation-centre-in-bay-ward/ Here is the presentation that was given on June 26th to local residents: http://www.baywardlive.ca/wp-content/files_mf/ronkolbusredevelopmentpresentationlong.pdf We are working on preparing a windsurfing community response on how this will significantly impact the windsurfing community which will be provided to the councillor. If you have any suggestions to add, please email them directly to me at slaby@magma.ca May 10 For a complete list of windsurfing events for 2012 please consult the following page: http://windsurf.ca/events/ May 10 Classifieds page is in the process of being refreshed. All ads should be either removed or confirmed within a week! May 11 Surfside is having an equipment swap on May 27th at their location. Contact them or check out their website at: http://www.surfside.com May 12 Duncan and Matt are organizing another stand up paddle event to raise money for CHEO on Sunday July 8th. For more info check out their website at: http://www.standupforcheo.com/  send all your renovation requests to entreprisesdl@xplornet.com                      Weather Forecast | Weather Maps | Weather Radar   Accuweather Radar             Copyright © 1998 Ottawa Windsurfing. All rights reserved.