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Campbell Park Dinner and Campfire

June 9, 2011 - 10:15pm — vic

Campbell Park - Soup on the Campfire: Yes, it's a photo from last winter, but I promise there will be no snow this time.Campbell Park - Soup on the Campfire: Yes, it's a photo from last winter, but I promise there will be no snow this time.

The following announcement comes from Michael Monastyrskyj, regarding the updated kitchen facilities and June 14th campfire at Campbell Park:

Hello everybody,

Thanks to strong support from ward 18 councillor Ana Bailao and her executive assistant Braden Root-McCaig, Campbell Park's rinkhouse/clubhouse has a new kitchen with sinks, running water and a stove. This lets us expand our menu at the winter snackbar and cook food for community events.

To celebrate the new kitchen, Campbell staff would like to invite everybody to a dinner and campfire at the park. Come join us 6:30-10pm Tuesday June 14. We will be a serving a main dish for a suggested donation of $5 and desert for $1. We ask for the donation to cover costs, but we don't want anyone to go away hungry. Give as much or as little as you like. After dinner, roast marshmallows over the fire. And if you have a guitar, bring it along!

We are also putting up a large bulletin board which will show:

  • neighbourhood news & history
  • wading pool plans
  • recreation budget changes

We realize our event conflicts with Digin's next meeting. If you decide to go to the meeting, we hope you will come to the park afterwards.

Michael Monastyrskyj
Campbell recreation staff

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June 16, 2011 - 8:49am — Michael Monastyrskyj (not verified)

June 21 Public meeting: the Future of Dufferin Grove Park

Public Meeting: the Future of Dufferin Grove Park

Tuesday June 21, 7 to 9 pm, with Councillor Ana Bailao. At the park
clubhouse. Bake-oven supper available from 6 p.m. Everyone welcome!

On Tuesday June 14, more than 100 people came to Campbell Park for a
community dinner and campfire. During the evening, many people asked
park staff if dinners like this could become a regular event. Campbell
staff would like to see that happen, but a lot will depend on
decisions made at City Hall.

The idea for a community dinner in the park comes from Dufferin Grove
where Friday Night Suppers are a weekly program run by city recreation
staff. The future of Dufferin Grove and the kind of programming it has
innovated may be in doubt as the city makes cuts to overcome
a budget deficit of between $500 and $700 million. While the budget
problem is real, there may be better ways to cut costs than scaling
back popular community-supported local programming.

Next Tuesday's meeting at Dufferin will be a chance for the public to
discuss "how to protect the park as the budget storm approaches."

What happens at Dufferin has implications for Campbell and all of
Toronto's other city parks. If you like the idea of community dinners
and other events that make our parks lively family-friendly places,
come out next week to Dufferin.

More information about the meeting can be found on the Friends of
Dufferin Grove website.

June 14, 2011 - 9:20am — Michael Monastyrskyj (not verified)

Hope to see you at the park tonight

We hope to see you tonight at Campbell Park when we have our community dinner and campfire, 6:30-10pm. The response has been good. It should be a great night. If you're going to the Digin meeting, we hope you'll drop by the park afterwards.

June 14, 2011 - 8:33pm — kristen (not verified)

campbell park dinner

Wow, what a wonderful turnout! Thanks for organizing this. It was great to dine in the park with neighbours....

June 14, 2011 - 8:39pm — vic

Agreed!

That was excellent! I was amazed by the turnout too. I would guess there were well over 100 people there. Great to see so many familiar faces and to meet new people too. The lasagne was delicious. I even got schooled in a checkers game. :) Too bad I couldn't stick around for very long.

Hope this can keep happening! Thanks so much to Michael and anyone else involved in organizing it.

-Vic

June 13, 2011 - 9:02am — Anonymous (not verified)

Thanks for the extra info. I

Thanks for the extra info. I lived next door to Dufferin Grove for 5 years and have just recently moved to this area. I am so happy to hear that some of what I loved so much about Dufferin grove is going to be close to our new home too! See you on Tuesday.

June 13, 2011 - 10:20am — vic

Agreed!

The Friday Night Suppers at Dufferin Grove are awesome. Glad to see this happening at Campbell too. It's great to see people coming together to make things like this happen. Have to give credit to Ana Bailao and her staff for helping to get the kitchen upgrades installed too.

Looking forward to this.

-Vic

June 15, 2011 - 9:23am — Michael Monastyrskyj (not verified)

Thanks to everyone who came out

A big thank you to everyone who came out to last night's dinner and campfire at Campbell. The event was a success and it was wonderful to see so many people in the park.

Last night a lot of people thanked me for organizing the event. It's always nice to be thanked, but I was only one of several staff who worked on the dinner. My role was the most visible because I did the promotion. Behind the scenes there were Mayssan, Jutta, Nayssam, Ava, Espe, Marina and Yo Utano, the Dufferin Grove cook who made the lasagne that proved so popular.

June 12, 2011 - 6:32pm — Michael Monastyrskyj (not verified)

Where the heck is Campbell Park?

I run a local listerserve: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bloorlansdowne/ Many of the people who join are new to the area. For their benefit, I wrote a short introduction to Campbell Park. My apologies to everyone who has heard this story many times before.

Last week I sent a message to this list about a campfire and community
dinner at Campbell Park 6:30-10pm on Tuesday June 14. I know there
are many people who have just moved to the area. I'm sure some of you
have never heard of Campbell Park and have no idea where it is. i
thought I'd send another message giving a little information about the
park. I'm hoping this will encourage you to come out on Tuesday
because I think the campfire is going to be a lot of fun.

The park is located on Campbell Av, which is a north-south street west
of Lansdowne, east of Dundas, north of Bloor and south of Dupont. The
address is 255 Campbell Av and you can use Google maps to get a better
idea of where it is. (Warning: Google puts the arrow slightly north of
the park.) Campbell Av connects with Dupont but it doesn't quite
stretch to Bloor. )

Campbell has a wading pool and an outdoor skating rink. In winter, it
is a popular hockey spot with pleasure skating on the weekend. In
summer the park is used for soccer by SC Toronto, formerly the Toronto
Eagles.

The skating rink used to be a rough place where pleasure skaters
weren't welcome. I've heard stories of angry hockey players chasing
away people who have shown up for pleasure skating. However, that
started to change 4 years ago when some of the adult recreation staff
from Dufferin Grove were sent to the rink. We set aside 2 hours on
Saturday for pleasure skating, which we strictly enforced. During
pleasure skating we had a weekly campfire. At first turnout was low,
but attendance began to pick up. The Saturday campfire and skate began
to attract a large crowd of regulars and so this past winter we added
two hours of pleasure skating on Sunday, which also has steady
attendance. People liked the winter campfires so much that some said
we should do them in summer too.

Another thing the Dufferin staff did was open a small snackbar, which
proved popular. However, Campbell's rinkhouse didn't have a kitchen so
staff were limited in what they could offer. Over the past four years
staff, a community group called CELOS and some residents have lobbied
the city for an electrical upgrade and sinks. When Anna Bailao was
elected she took an interest in the rinks and her office managed to
persuade the city to do the upgrade. Now Campbell has a kitchen.
That's a cause for celebration. That's why this Tuesday we're going to
have a campfire and community dinner.

Michael Monastyrskyj
Campbell recreation staff

June 13, 2011 - 11:14am — Katie (not verified)

Farmers' Market

What steps would need to be taken for us to get a framers' market in Campbell park?

June 13, 2011 - 7:26pm — Michael Monastyrskyj (not verified)

Re Farmers' Market

I wasn't around when Dufferin Grove established its market so I can't say how it got started. If you like, you can send your question to market@dufferinpark.ca The email will go to Anne Freeman the market manager. She might have some suggestions. You might also contact the people at Sorauren. Their market is newer. From what I've heard though, establishing a market in a public park isn't easy. There are a lot of bureaucratic hurdles. Another challenge would be finding vendors whose market schedule isn't booked up.

June 13, 2011 - 11:26pm — vic

Farmers market

They're working on getting a market in The Junction (or elsewhere in Ward 13). Website for this initiative is here:
http://www.ward13market.com/

They might have some good info on how to go about this.

But that also shows that the JT is getting surrounded by various farmers markets within walking distance: High park, Sorauren Park, Dufferin Grove Park, etc.

June 13, 2011 - 11:13am — Katie (not verified)

Ontario Early years in the Park

Another event that will be taking place in Campbell Park over the summer is the Ontario Early Years program. The staff from DPNC will be holding their Early Years program in Campbell Park on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9:30 am to 11:30 am starting the first week of July and will also be in Perth Park on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the same times. This program is for parents of children 0-6 years.

June 13, 2011 - 7:18pm — Michael Monastyrskyj (not verified)

Thanks for sharing that

Hi Katie,

Thanks for sharing the information about Ontario Early Years in the park.