The Flin Flon School Board passed three bylaws on final reading at their meeting Tuesday.  The bylaws regulate the proceedings of the Board of Trustees of Flin Flon School Division and their committees, provide for the payment of indemnities and expenses to the Chairperson of the Board and to each Trustee for services rendered to the Board and define the role of Trustees on Board Standing Committees.

The Board received a report from the Canadian School Boards Association on the importance of locally elected School Boards.  The Association states local education governance requires regular focused attention by trustees close to the community adding School Boards accountable to their local constituents ensure that decisions reflect the needs and priorities of their community.  They note in areas where School Boards have been eliminated communities, media and education partners have felt the loss of transparency in public education and they urge Canadians to contact their MLA to express support for locally elected trustees and school boards.

And Superintendent Constance McLeese thanked all community members who helped with the Budget survey.

Operation Christmas Child reports Canadians packed just over 517 thousand shoeboxes with toys, hygiene items, school supplies and many other items during their 2018 shoe box campaign.  As we reported in November local coordinator Pastor Jim Galbraith of the Baptist Church advised 229 shoe boxes were collected in the Flin Flon area during the local campaign.

Distribution of the shoeboxes in the developing world has already begun.  During the next few weeks children in Central America, Haiti, western Africa and Ukraine will be receiving shoe boxes packed by caring Canadians.

Since 1993, Operation Christmas Child has collected and hand delivered more than 167 million gift filled shoeboxes to children in over 130 countries hurt by war, poverty, natural disaster, disease and famine. Shoeboxes can be packed year round using Operation Christmas Child’s internet option PackaBox.ca.

The Community In Motion Committee is hosting a Children’s Gymboree Sunday afternoon. The Committee’s Christa McIntyre invites children 2 to 8 years old out for a free fun packed afternoon at the Community Hall.  She says there’s going to be a lot of fun activities to get kids out there and let them be active including a bouncy house, things like hoola hoops, skipping ropes, games, there’s going to be free healthy snacks while they last adding parents are encouraged to bring water bottles for their children, reusable refillable water bottles.  She says it’s just a chance for families to come out and have fun during these cold winter days.

The Children’s Gymboree is free and it runs from 1 to 3 Sunday afternoon in the Flin Flon Community Hall.

The Flin Flon Public Library is presenting Talk Wordy To Me: A Library Cabaret Fundraiser next month.  Their Administrator Courtney Campbell says they’ll feature a lot of local performers as that’s what people really loved about it last year so they’re featuring a lot of the people who perform at Johnny’s and at the Local Roots concerts and they’re really excited about that.  She adds they’re going to have some of the same things they did last year, there’ll be a dessert bar, raffles, a photo booth, lots of fun to be dancing and doing stuff like that.

The Library Cabaret runs from 8 to 12 Saturday February 16^th in the Flin Flon Community Hall with tickets available at the Orange Toad, Northern Rainbows End, the Gateway and the Library for 20 dollars.

At the meeting Council gave first reading to the bylaw renewing their Special Services Levy for police and fire services for another three years.  They approved a recycling grant to the Flin Flon and District Environment Council in the amount of $12.50 per capita up from 11.75 last year.  They approved a membership in the Hudson Bay Route Association for 2019 at a cost of 300 dollars and also contributed 500 dollars to the Flin Flon Junior Bomber Hockey Club for their Bomber Game Free Night which is also supported by Creighton and Denare Beach Councils and Hudbay.

Council passed on first reading the establishing of a Local Vehicle For Hire Bylaw. Councilor Tim Babcock explained their bylaw hasn’t been updated since 1987 and two years ago the province handed the responsibility for taxi licensing over to municipalities and they have worked to develop the new bylaw to ensure the guidelines apply to all services.  And they passed on first reading the bylaw to regulate the condition of owned vacant and derelict buildings and setting fines for non compliance.

Flin Flon MLA Tom Lindsey says for the most part he thinks it’s a bad idea as School Boards provide some local autonomy.  He adds certainly for us in the north trying to combine School Boards makes it impossible for parents to talk to people that are looking after their schools and there’s no desire in those School Boards in the north to be amalgamated with anybody else.

Lindsey says education is vital to the future of youth in the province, and this is another case of the government being so focused on cuts they don’t care about people.

He went on to say he thinks the commission is a way for the government to say that any changes made will be by the experts and not by them.

Member of Parliament Niki Ashton says Canadians are finding it difficult if not impossible to find decent affordable housing and in our region there can be no doubt there is a housing crisis in First Nations communities.  She says waiting lists for housing are growing worse and there are more houses in poor condition.

Ashton explains the NDP caucus has released the first part of a plan to build half a million affordable housing units over the next decade adding instead of giving billions in corporate tax giveaways and spending billions more on a pipeline it can go into building these housing units.  She says it starts with addressing the housing crisis in indigenous communities and they can also help first time home buyers with closing costs by doubling the Home Buyers tax credit.  She concludes everyone in Canada should have a safe and affordable place to call home.

The Flin Flon Recycling Center continues to collect dry cell batteries which are sent to Call 2 Recycle Canada for recycling.  Call 2 Recycle reports Canadians recycled more than 2.7 million kilograms of batteries last year which is an increase of three percent over 2017 and a record for the organization.  Manitobans recycled 105 thousand kilograms which is an annual increase of 15 percent.  Flin Flon Recycling Center Administrator Deb Odegaard says battery recycling here continue to go well.  She reports we were at 655 kilograms for 2018 which is actually a 60 percent increase from 2017 so it’s really great to see those numbers growing.

Call 2 Recycle says they ensure that these items which contain valuable resources are responsibly recycled to create new batteries and other products keeping potentially hazardous materials from entering the waste stream.

One of the biggest events at the Northern Manitoba Trappers Festival in The Pas is the World Championship Dog Sled races and members of The Pas Kinsmen Club have been hard at work preparing the racecourse. Kin member and race marshal Jason Oswald explains it’s a whole club effort and not only their club but an incredible amount of volunteers that come out and help them.  He says you can expect a lot of excitement as there are 25 to 30 teams, ten dogs each so you’ve got 300 dogs pulling those sleds while leaving that start-finish line.

Jason added that this is the Kinsmen Club of The Pas’s pinnacle project which won them the National Service Club Award two years ago.

This year the national President of Kin Canada is coming to experience the world championship dog sled races and Jason hopes to have as many spectators as possible this year so that the event can keep going.

The races begin at Halcrow Lake and will take place on February 14^th, 15^th and 16^th. Updates on the races will be posted to The Pas kinsmen’s Facebook page.

Membership in Hudbay’s Quarter Century Club climbed to 3141 Friday night with the presentation of watches to 3 employees who have completed 25 years of continuous service with the Company.  Safety awards were presented to 16 employees with 25 years, 25 with 30 years, 10 with 35 years, 2 with 40 years and one Allen Mardell with 45 years without a lost time accident. Award recipients were congratulated by President Alan Hair who noted next year will be the 90^th anniversary of the commencement of operations here. He said unfortunately right now it looks like Flin Flon is going to go through a period of transition however they continue to have a strong base here in Manitoba with the Snow Lake operations and this gives them a very good platform to continue to explore in the region and hopefully find new ore bodies that perhaps will allow Flin Flon operations to prevail in the future. He added this has been a hugely prospective area and that’s what gives him confidence in the continuing success of Hudbay and the fact he still expects them to be celebrating many more anniversaries like tonight for many years to come.

Also recognized were 22 employees who retired over the past year.

25 year watch     25 year safety

30 year safety   35 year

40 year safety

Far Resources earlier this month completed sixteen diamond drill holes at its Zoro Lithium Project near Snow Lake resulting in both new discoveries and expansion of known mineralization.  This is the company’s fifth successful campaign at Zoro with drilling continuing through this month and next.

Their President and CEO Toby Mayo says they continue to make great advances at Zoro.  He says these new discoveries provide further assurances of the potential scale at the project adding with Dyke eights open in all directions they are in a strong position to build on their resource while adding to that currently defined on part of Dyke one last year.

Lithium is becoming more in demand as it is widely used in batteries for portable consumer electronic devices, toys and increasingly in electric vehicles.

Community Dietician Joanna Ledoux is holding a how to workshop starting this week.  She says it’s about craving change and the workshop is actually a three session course and it’s a how to workshop on changing your relationship with food so they’re going to be talking about how people understand why they eat the way they do, learn how to comfort themselves without food and they’re going to change their thinking and change their eating.  She’s asking people to register by calling her at 204-681-3149 or email jledoux2@nrha.ca.

              The workshop will run Wednesdays January 30^th and February 6^th and 13^th from 6:30 to 8:00 at the Flin Flon Primary Health Care Centre.

At approximately 8:45 the night of January 13th, Flin Flon RCMP were patrolling in the community when they observed two males in a parking lot.

Officers stopped to speak with them and during the conversation an officer noticed that a can of bear mace was partially hidden inside one of the men’s jackets.

The man was arrested for possession of a weapon dangerous to the public and for carrying a concealed weapon.  A subsequent search of the man and a truck associated to him, resulted in the seizure of approximately  32 grams of cocaine, a can of bear mace, a large capacity .22 rifle magazine, cash, and drug paraphernalia.

A 67-year-old Flin Flon man has been charged with Possession for the Purpose of Trafficking, Possession of Property obtained by Crime, Carrying a Concealed Weapon, Fail to Comply with conditions and multiple other offences.

Hapnot Collegiate is nearing the end of their first semester.  Principal Brent Bedford reports on Monday it’s the last day of regular classes and followed by that are three days of exams on the 29^th through to the 31^st and then Friday, February 1^st is their Admin Day so there’s no school for students and they all come back on February 4^th at 8:45 sharp to start semester two.

A home room will be held at 8:45 am Monday February 4^th to distribute semester one final report cards and semester two timetables.  Bedford adds any new students and students wishing to change their semester two timetable can do so Tuesday through Thursday next week in the office or with the Career Guidance Department.

Rockcliff Metals Corporation has entered into a letter of intent to be followed by a formal purchase agreement with RNC Metals to acquire fourteen properties located in Snow Lake.  The acquisition from RNC’s subsidiary VMS Ventures is in consideration of the issuance of just over 2.2 million common shares of Rockcliff to RNC.

Rockcliff President Ken Lapierre says the company could not pass on the opportunity to purchase one hundred percent interest in quality properties immediately adjacent to their existing property portfolio including an historical VMS deposit.  He adds with no near term expenditure requirements and 4 million dollars in banked assessment credits from previous exploration to draw on Rockcliff has significantly upgraded its portfolio in the world class VMS and gold rich camp in the Snow Lake area adding they are completing an extensive due diligence on all 14 properties and look forward to finalizing the formal purchase agreement.

The Hudbay Womens Network is sponsoring a community presentation February 11^th.  The Chair of the Network Landice Yestrau says it will feature the Diamonds in the Rough mine rescue team and so they’ll be featuring four speakers from that mine rescue team which will be Jody Brasch, Randy DeCecco, Bruce Coley and Kari Lentowicz.  She says they’ll be speaking on various themes on the empowerment of women in industry and business and we might also get a little snippet of their experience in Russia so that’ll be really exciting to hear first hand what that experience was like.

The free evening of networking, refreshments and presentations takes place Monday, February 11^th at 7 in the Flin Flon Community Hall.  To arrange refreshments they would prefer that you register in advance by emailing hbwn@hudbay.com but if you are unable to you can still attend.

The province says it's raising funding to public elementary and high schools by half a percentage point or 6-point-6 million dollars. Even though more than half of all school boards in Manitoba will receive less government money in the coming school year Flin Flon School Division will receive 9.4 million dollars which is a 1.6 percent increase including an increase in equalization support and a 1.1 percent increase in enrolment which is partially offset by the Tax Incentive Grant phase out.

Education Minister Kelvin Goertzen says the province's wage freeze on public sector workers should help schools control their costs. He also says divisions will not be allowed to raise local property taxes by more than two per cent.

The Central Canada Film Group is presenting the film the Three Amigos Friday night.  The groups Colin Davis says this is a very entertaining film starring Steve Martin, Chevy Chase and Martin Short. He explains this smash comedy from 1986 is about three silent movie actors from the early days of cinema who accept an invitation to a Mexican village to perform their onscreen bandit fighting roles unaware that they’ve been hired by a fan who thinks that that is who they really are and are hoping the Three Amigos can rid their village of the bandits who are terrorizing them.

The Three Amigos will be shown Friday night at 7:30 in the Hapnot Collegiate Theatre and admission is free.

At the Tourism Summit Tuesday night entrepreneur Treasure Daneliuk did a presentation on Main Street revitalization.  She says a healthy downtown core is not only important to local residents, visitors and businesses but in attracting new businesses as it reflects the image of how a community sees itself. She explains if the downtown is neglected outsiders will consider this as a reflection on the health of the entire community adding if potential new businesses are looking at relocating or opening in our community the first things they are going to look at are the quality of life, the image, the viability and the potential for growth.  Daneliuk says having a healthy downtown core also gives all the residents of the community pride and spirit and a place to congregate to enjoy restaurants, dining, entertainment, night life and shopping.

Community Futures Greenstone Manager Becky Cianflone says Main Streets in Flin Flon and Creighton are going to play a big role in the development of a tourism strategy for our communities.

Kids First North is holding a clothing give away tomorrow open to anyone who needs them.  Their Supervisor Shelly Vancoughnett says they have received generous donations of items.  She says they have books, toys and clothes of all sizes and a lot of household items, pretty much anything you’re looking for they probably have. She adds everything is absolutely free so please come and take all you wish and if you know someone who could use something come and take that item as well.

The clothing give away runs from 9 to 3 tomorrow at the Kids First North board room at 430 Main Street in Creighton.

The Creighton School Community Council is hosting their annual family dance tomorrow night from 6 to 8:30.  School Coordinator Carol Sutherland invites you to dress up and attend.  She says they have themed a Jersey Night Family Dance so come dressed in your favorite team’s jersey adding this is a free dance for families complete with door prizes, activities, face painting and free snacks and all children must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

The Kodiak bus will provide transportation from Denare Beach with pick up at the Band Hall at 5:30 and at the Alpine at 5:40 with a return trip at 8:30.

A well attended Tourism Summit was held last night to develop a strategy to increase tourism in our region. Travel Manitoba’s Colin Ferguson says it’s time to take the place brand they released last September Flin Flon The Water and The Wild and use it to market our community and they will be there to support us.

Economic Development Officer for Portage La Prairie Vern May explained how they coordinated stakeholders into an organized group under their brand Manitoba’s Island on the Prairies to successfully market the experience of Portage not only for tourism but economic development as well.

Community Futures Greenstone Manager Becky Cianflone said now that we have our brand we need to take the next step in furthering tourism here which is establishing a Flin Flon Destination Marketing Organization. She explains the structure that we determine for carrying out tourism and building tourism in our community is going to help identify those action items that we need to achieve those goals.

Cianflone reported tourism matters in a big way in our region with 1271 direct jobs and 28 million dollars in tax revenue from tourism in the north which is part of a 1.47 billion dollar industry across Manitoba.

A group of grade nine students at Hapnot Collegiate is taking part in a 20 Time Project and want to share their ideas with you.  Teacher Libby Stoker Lavalle says it is project based learning where students get 20 minutes every Friday to work on a project based on their own interests and they take that through the semester from researching a topic to getting more in depth contacting potential mentors to learning more about their topic to creating something they can show the world whether that’s a website, a model of something that they’re interested in or in some cases it’s something more physical like a bat box or dog house and then to creating a presentation so they can show their knowledge to the world, show what they’re learning.

Anyone in the community interested can attend the presentation Thursday evening from 6 to 8:30 in the Hapnot Collegiate Theatre.

The Lions Journey for Sight is a snowmobile ride that left Flin Flon last Wednesday finishing in Brandon Saturday.  It’s held to raise money for the Lions Eye Bank of Manitoba and Northwest Ontario.  Committee Chair Brad Henderson says the Journey went well.  He says they had left Flin Flon with 15 sleds and they got into Brandon with a few more than that as some people around Brandon joined up so he thinks they had somewhere around 37 sleds when they finished.

Henderson says so far around 34,500 dollars has been turned in with money still to come from pledges made to the riders and from their snowmobile draw.  When all the money came in last year the Journey had raised 82 thousand dollars for the Eye Bank.

The Arts Council is holding the Inspiration 2 conference titled Knowledge and Development.  The Council’s Crystal Kolt says it will explore the arts and cultural role in community and economic development with three guests Janice Price CEO of the Banff Center of the Arts and Creativity, Jean Giguere who has been honored for her volunteer role including with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and Manitoba Theatre Center and Dorothy Dobbie who is a former MP and owns the publishing company Pegasus books who Kolt says have done that.  She explains they sort of built some amazing things from nothing in some cases so they’re really hoping to glean some information from these really amazing women and help them in their direction towards determining whether there’s something arts and culture can do more than its doing already to support our community that way.

The three will meet with the municipalities, school division, festivals, arts organizations, Friendship Center and North Central Canada Centre of the Arts and Environment planners.  You can learn more about the three tomorrow morning at 8:30 with Raphael Saray here on 102.9 CFAR.

School Bands will get together tomorrow night for a junior high winter band concert.  Band Director Anna Harrison says it will feature the grade six to eight band students from Ruth Betts and McIsaac Schools and they’ll all be playing one or two songs per ensemble to showcase what they’ve been learning over the course of the year.  She adds they have a piece of music that they did with their grade seven band that’s kind of special this time because they wrote stories to go along with the piece and actually sent them to the composer.  She says they haven’t heard back from the composer yet but they might get a few kids to share some of the stories they wrote about this piece of music.

The band concert starts at 7 tomorrow night at Ecole McIsaac School with a silver collection as admission.

Library Administrator Courtney Campbell invites you and your family to be part of Family Literacy Day at the Library Friday.  She says they will be partnering with the Read to Me Program to bring some fun events for the families in town and surrounding areas so they’re going to do a normal Story Hour time which is from 10:30 to 11:30 and they’re going to have some special guests come in and do some yoga and some music with the kids.

The Family Literacy Day celebration runs from 10:30 to 11:30 Friday morning at the Flin Flon Public Library.  They would like you to register by calling them at 204-687-3397 but if you don’t get a chance to register you can just drop in to the Library Friday morning.

The RCMP report that at approximately 2:30 Sunday afternoon they were following up on complaints of mischief at a residence on Hill Street.  They went to the main floor apartment to ask for information when a large dog exited the residence and began growling and barking at the officers. They report numerous attempts were made to get someone to take control of the dog as it continued to make aggressive actions toward the officers as they backed away from it feeling it was a definite threat. An officer unholstered his firearm again asking for someone to take control of the dog which suddenly lunged at them at which point the officer fired one shot which immediately killed the dog outside the residence with no civilians present.  The officer removed himself from the scene, other officers undertook the investigation and the Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba has been notified and will monitor the RCMP investigation.

The dog's owner disagrees with the RCMP report saying a friend answered the door when police arrived but didn't give him time to take the dog and restrain it.

During her visit to Flin Flon last week Churchill Keewatinook Aski Member of Parliament Niki Ashton expressed concerns about jobs in the north.  She noted the lack of action by the federal government on job losses in Thompson and potential job losses at Hudbay in Flin Flon in 2021 and so jobs are front and center and it’s very important to hold Prime Minister Trudeau accountable.  She says he talks about the middle class, he talks a lot about good jobs but where is he for Flin Flon, where is he for Northern Manitoba and she can tell us the federal government isn’t at the table whether it’s on issues of diversification, whether it’s on saving good jobs in our north they’re not there the way we need them to be.

Other issues she noted in the north include the environment, education and on the provincial level the closing of birthing services in Flin Flon with praise for the We Want Birth Committee and people from the area who have called on the provincial government saying we’re not going to stand for it.

Rockcliff Metals Corporation has announced the identification of multiple volcanic massive sulphide targets on one of its Snow Lake properties.  They have also acquired through map staking a 100 percent interest in two immediately adjacent land packages totaling just over 174 thousand hectares.  Rockcliff notes they are the largest junior landholder in the Flin Flon Snow Lake greenstone belt.

Their President Ken Lapierre states with the addition of these large exploration properties Rockcliff is well positioned in an underexplored part of a world class VMS belt buried below a thin limestone cover as they now control almost three thousand square kilometers of continuous underexplored geology in an area with significant VMS discovery potential.  He added they will explore and advance this area of the belt to identify priority one VMS targets for drill testing.

After two unsuccessful calls for people to fill executive positions the Flin Flon Trout Festival now has an executive.  At their meeting yesterday the committee elected Laurie Sealey as President, Sheena Reed as Vice-President, Katie Kawerski as Treasurer and Laurence Gillespie as Secretary.  

Laurie and Katie also agreed to take on the Fish Fry, Sheena Reed will continue with the parade, Dave Osika with the fishing derby and Colleen and Terry Arnold with the canoe races.

Plans are for this summer’s festival to start on Friday June 28^th wrapping up on Monday July 1^st with plans developing for the opening ceremony and barbeque on the Friday possibly followed the Family Dance, Main Street Days Friday and Saturday, Canoe Races and Fish Fry Saturday and the Canada Day Parade on the Monday with other ideas being discussed.

They thanked the past executive for their work in keeping the festival going.

Desnethe Missinippi Churchill River Member of Parliament Georgina Jolibois says she is disappointed by the lack of action on cell phone service on the northeast side of her riding.  She explains when she was driving across from west to east to get to this part of the riding she noticed that for about five hours they drove with no cell service and that is really hard for her to comprehend and it isn’t fair to residents on the east side of the province and when we are driving towards Prince Albert and Saskatoon we don’t have that luxury of having access to internet, broadband or other services.

Jolibois says she will bring this up, write letters to Ministers and work with the area MLAs to object to the lack of support from both the federal and provincial governments on this key issue.

A Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is being celebrated in Flin Flon next week.  Salvation Army Major Debbie Allen says the idea is for all the church congregations to come together and they do so by joining each other each night in different churches and just praying together about peace in the world.  She adds there’s a lot of conflict, violence and people not getting along and the idea is unity should begin with us and then go out to the world.

Services take place at 7 each night next week starting Sunday at the Alliance Church, Monday St. Ann’s Catholic Church, Tuesday the Lutheran Church, Wednesday the Anglican Church, Thursday the United Church and Friday the Baptist Church. Everyone is welcome to attend the services.

Northern Growing Abilities is presenting their first Lip Sync Battle Saturday night.  The group’s Tracy Brown says you can join the performers in the lip sync or just enjoy the entertainment and social to support a good cause.  She explains they’re doing the Lip Sync Battle Social fund raiser for their Northern Growing Abilities non-profit organizations and all tickets purchased for the event are going in for an elimination draw for two return tickets to Winnipeg on Calm Air as well as a weekend for two at the Victoria Inn.  She adds tickets are 20 dollars each and can be purchased at the Orange Toad, Northern Rainbows End, Pharmasave, Gateway, Candy Bar and Di’s.

The Lip Sync Battle takes place Saturday night at the Creighton Community Hall starting at 8.  Tickets will not be sold at the door so get them today.

At the Board Meeting Tuesday night chair Leslie Fernandes reported as the new year begins they get into the important job of preparing their budget for the 2019-20 school year.  Superintendent Constance McLeese reminds anyone interested you have only two days left to fill out the Division Budget Consultation Survey on their website www.ffsd.mb.ca or pick up a paper copy at the Division office on Terrace Avenue.

Trustee Murray Skeavington requested and received support from the Board in his bid to run for Vice-President of Boards with under six thousand students with the Manitoba School Boards Association.

And Superintendent McLeese reported Metis artist Jaime Black will be in the schools as part of her visit to Flin Flon February 13^th to 15^th.  She is responsible for the Red Dress Project calling for an end to violence against Indigenous women.  On the 13^th she will speak at Hapnot Collegiate, on the 14^th Many Faces students will help hang red dresses around the community and on the 15^th she will be giving art classes to a group of students.

Desnethe Missinippi Churchill River Member of Parliament Georgina Jolibois received the Parliamentarian of the Year Award for 2018.  She says she was privileged and honored with winning the best to represent her constituency award from the McLean’s magazine when the other MPs voted for her and she thanks them for the opportunity she has as the winner for the Parliamentarian of the year.  She adds what that means is she has the chance to represent her constituency really well across Canada and is very proud to do that work.

 Jolibois’ constituency includes the Creighton Denare Beach area.  Northern Manitoba MP Niki Ashton representing Churchill Keewatinook Aski also received that award in the past.

Cranberry Portage resident Larry Johnson has been honored by Community Futures Manitoba.  It’s for his outstanding contribution to the Community Futures program.  Johnson explains he promotes the north as much as he can wherever he goes and he was on Community Futures Greenstone for almost 26 years and he had to take a year off as they have a new policy now that after nine years on the Board you have to take a year off so he took his year off and was quite surprised that they nominated him for this award.

The Community Futures Greenstone Board congratulated Johnson on his award and thanked him for his many years of service.

The Central Canada Film Group will feature the film Phoenix tomorrow night.  The group’s Tom Heine says this is a terrific film.  He explains it’s a German film subtitled and essentially a woman survives the second world war, she was disfigured, her face has been repaired and she is wondering whether her husband has betrayed her so she comes back, her husband doesn’t recognize her and it’s all the various things that happen in trying to sort out this situation.

Phoenix will be shown tomorrow night at 7:30 at the Hapnot Collegiate Theatre.  Admission for this film will be a silver collection.

Community Futures Greenstone is holding a Regional Tourism Summit Tuesday.  Manager Becky Cianflone says it will focus on the Flin Flon Brand The Water and The Wild and includes a couple of guest presenters and one will be Vern May the Economic Development Officer from Portage La Prairie talking about how Portage has utilized their brand and built collaboration around tourism and then they have a couple of local entrepreneurs who are going to talk about the importance of Main Street revitalization and how that plays into a tourism strategy.  She adds they want to see a broad engagement so they want tourism operators, certainly business people, but also citizens interested in tourism and people who think tourism can be an economic driver for our community.

The summit is being held Tuesday at 5 pm at the Creighton Community Hall.  Anyone interested can attend but because supper is provided you are asked to register by Friday by emailing admin@cfgreenstone.com or call them at 204-687-6967.

Rockcliff Metals Corporation reports a first phase drill program has been completed at their high grade Laguna Gold Property located in Snow Lake.  They note this property was last drilled in 1944 and hosts the past producing Rex Laguna mine that was Manitoba’s first and highest grade gold mine.

Rockcliff President and CEO Ken Lapierre says they look forward to the assay results from the first drill program completed on the property in over 70 years.  He says the drill program not only identified depth extents of several historical gold bearing surface quartz veins, it also discovered new quartz veins with visible gold adding several holes were extended well beyond their original target depths as mineralized quartz veins and surrounding mineralized host rock were intersected at depths of over 500 meters.  Exploration is to continue this year.

The Flin Flon Arts Council is hosting a conference next Tuesday and Wednesday called Inspiration 2: Knowledge and Development.  The Council’s Crystal Kolt says it will explore the arts and cultural role in community and economic development with three special guests including Janice Price who’s the CEO of the Banff Center of the Arts and Creativity, Jean Giguere who is Order of Canada and also on the Board of Directors of the National Art Gallery and then they have Dorothy Dobbie who is a former MP and owns the publishing company Pegasus Books.  She adds they are going to be speaking with municipalities, various arts organizations and other organizations in the community.

At 8 Monday night there will be a public meet and greet at the Norva Center at 177 Green Street so you can come out and learn more about these three guests.

Northern Manitoba Member of Parliament Niki Ashton says last year our region faced job losses, shutdowns of critical infrastructure and an ongoing housing crisis. She says we also saw people and communities facing huge challenges in dealing with inadequate health care and education funding.

Ashton noted the Churchill port and rail line operating but only because of a northern partnership, the closure of the smelter and refinery in Thompson with silence from the provincial and federal governments and the potential closure of the mine in Flin Flon in 2021. She pointed out the contrast between the complete lack of support for our region’s hard hit resource communities and the billion dollars plus bail out for the oil industry adding our region and regions like it produce much of the wealth of this country and we deserve better.

The Lions Journey for Sight starts in Flin Flon Wednesday morning. The Journey is an annual fundraiser for the Lions Eye Bank of Manitoba and Northwest Ontario.  One of the organizers Dean Lounsbury from the Dauphin Lions Club says snowmobiles from across the province will start the northern leg at the Victoria Inn around 10 Wednesday morning and that takes them to Cranberry Portage for dinner with day number one finishing in The Pas.  Day number two will take them from The Pas to Swan River and day three which is Friday will allow some of them to get home for the evening in Dauphin.  Lounsbury adds Swan River is where they split the group and some of the guys will take highway 83 into the Roblin Russell area and day number four is the last day finishing up in Brandon at the airport.

The North of 53 Co-op will again be providing 500 dollars in gas for the snowmobilers.  The Journey for Sight raised 82 thousand dollars for the Eye Bank last year.

Creighton Community School presents their Winter Band Concert Wednesday night.  Music Director Vanessa Unrau says it features grade 7 to 11 band students adding you’ll hear a little bit of a history of their program, they’ll be talking about what their goals for the future of the program are and then you’ll hear some really great music.  She says they have a grade 7ensemble, a grade 7-8 ensemble and then you’ll hear their senior band which is just phenomenal.

The concert begins at 7 Wednesday night in the Creighton Community School gym with a silver collection and a 50-50 draw.

The Northern Health Region and Pharmasave are hosting the Alzheimer Society presentation of Dementia: We All Have a Reason to Care Wednesday night.  The Society’s Manitoba Program Director Norma Kirkby will speak on recognizing the symptoms so that a person values the changes that are taking place in someone and does talk to a medical professional about them.  She’ll also be talking about how we as the general population can do all that’s needed to reduce our risk of developing dementia and she’ll be wrapping up by reminding people about some of the general principles about being friendly and open to people who are impacted by dementia so that whether it’s the person living with the disease or a family member or friend who’s providing care that they find the community supportive.

The presentation is open to anyone interested Wednesday night from 7 to 8:30 at 50 Church Street.

 Flin Flon School Division invites you to submit your opinions through a budget consultation survey.  Secretary Treasurer Heather Fleming explains the Board of Trustees are just looking for community feedback prior to the public budget meeting which is held later in February.  She says it’s just a great opportunity for everyone to give them feedback on school programs as well as any other areas they believe the School Division should be focusing on.

You can access the survey on their website www.ffsd.mb.ca or paper copies are available at the Division office at 9 Terrace Avenue.  The survey closes next Friday.

The Sam Waller Museum in The Pas has a travelling exhibit on display from the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum called On the Trail of the Monarch Butterfly.  Museum Curator and Archivist Joanna Munholland explains in 2005 a Mexican film maker and pilot took off in an ultra light aircraft from Montreal and followed the migration of the Monarch Butterfly from Canada to the mountains of Central Mexico so this exhibit celebrates some of the picture that he took and kind of follows the path that the film maker and pilot took with the butterflies.

Some of the pictures show butterflies in different stages of development.  The exhibit is expected to be at the Museum until January 30^th.

The Northern Health Region in partnership with Pharmasave is hosting the Alzheimer Society presentation Caring for a Family Member with Dementia Monday night.  The Society’s Manitoba Program Director Norma Kirkby will be here for the presentation.  She explains they are going to spend some time talking about communicating with a person with dementia but they’re also going to talk about communicating with the sources of help in the community so that as a care partner is finding that the tasks of care are maybe becoming a little more time consuming they understand the importance of getting those other community services involved so they as a caring partner can stay strong and they’ll end off by talking about caregiver self care and why it’s not selfish to care for oneself when caring for another.

The presentation takes place Monday night from 7 to 8:30 at 50 Church Street.  We’ll have details on a presentation for anyone interested in learning more about dementia coming up Wednesday night on tomorrow’s news.

The year end totals are in for last year at the Flin Flon Recycling Center.  Administrator Deb Odegaard says it was an excellent year noting it was actually a record breaking year.  She says they recycled 510 metric tons and the previous record had been 500 in 2007 so they’re really quite excited about that.  She adds they also did a record number of batteries at 655 kilograms and they sent out 30 metric tons of electronics as well in the past year.

For information on recycling you can contact the Recycling Center at 204-687-6169 or visit their website www.flinflonrecycling.org.

Council set the date for the 2019 tax sale for Tuesday, November 5^th at 10 AM in city council chambers.  All properties in arrears will be offered for sale by auction which are those properties with outstanding taxes for the year 2017 or prior.

Council received the Fire Chiefs report for December indicating 9 incidents for the month with Mayor Cal Huntley noting the number of recent house fires advising people to be aware of fire hazards in their homes.           

  Councilor Karen MacKinnon reported they recently had a visit from reps of the Hudson Bay Route Association.  As a member Flin Flon will be hosting the Association’s annual general meeting on April 3^rd and 4^th.

Council received a request for an increase in funding from the Flin Flon Environment Council for the operation of the Recycling Center which was referred to their finance committee.  They received $11.75 per capita last year and have requested 12.50 per capita for this year.

And Council will be attending a Regional Tourism Summit to be held in the Creighton Community Hall on January 22^nd so their next meeting will be held on Tuesday January 29^th.

Northern Health Region CEO Helga Bryant told the Chamber they were providing low risk level one obstetric services until the obstetrician left for a larger center because of the low level of births here in order  keep up his competency and skills. They tried recruiting locums who live in one location and provide services to other areas and other recruiting but that didn’t work out.  An external review was conducted by medical experts and recommended suspending obstetric services for both patient and staff safety.

Bryant explained they have developed a pre natal clinic that follows a pregnancy and develops a birthing plan supported by the obstetrician in The Pas that includes other advisors and the emergency staff in case their services are needed with the results of the plan being closely monitored.  They are now following and supporting 44 pre natal women at this clinic.  They are awaiting the results of the first ever province wide clinical study expected this spring to see if an opportunity in the women’s health component can open up a return to obstetrics.  She says that a year from now the province from a clinical perspective will be a better place and she expects the north will benefit from this process which will shine the light on areas that are under serviced and the services they need.

The Flin Flon Fire Department was called to a home fire at 63 Hapnot Street at 3:30 yesterday morning.  When the Fire Department arrived heavy fire could be seen at the rear of the building.  The occupants had evacuated the home.  Fire crews fought the fire from outside and then moved in to put out hot spots.  The building was a total loss to the fire the cause of which is under investigation.

At approximately 10:30 Thursday night RCMP responded to a report of a robbery at a business on Main Street in Flin Flon.  A man had entered the business carrying a handgun and wearing a mask.  He ordered the employee to open the register and then fled with cash and two cases of beer.  On Friday the RCMP arrested a 34 year old Creighton man who has been charged with robbery with a firearm, disguise with intent to commit an offence, possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, carrying a concealed weapon, unauthorized possession of a firearm and failing to comply with probation.  He was remanded into custody and was to appear in The Pas court yesterday.  The investigation continues.

The Northern Neighbors Foundation is accepting applications for grants they make available each year.  Their Chairperson Jane Robillard says they have over 100 thousand dollars available this year for grants in the communities of Flin Flon, Creighton, Denare Beach, Cranberry Portage, Snow Lake and Sherridon.  She explains any organization that has a charitable number can apply and if it’s an organization that’s affiliated with like the City of Flin Flon they have a charitable number and you can apply through them.  She adds all of the applications are at the Flin Flon Public Library and with them there are the guidelines so you know exactly who can apply and make sure that you qualify before you spend the time doing that.

The deadline for applications is February 15^th.

The Christmas Gift Program run by the Flin Flon Friendship Center went well again this year.  The program allows parents to give their children a gift at Christmas when circumstances prevent them from doing so.  The Center’s Program Events Coordinator Vanessa Campbell says donations and gift pick up ran well.  She says they had 142 families register and they distributed 181 gifts to the children that were registered with their program.  She adds the donations went very well and she’s very grateful that our community of Flin Flon has stepped up to donate to their program so it was very good.

This was the 24^th year for the Christmas Gift Program.

The Lords Bounty Food Bank was busy over the holiday season.  Their Food Distribution Chair Dennis Hydamaka says they over doubled last year’s numbers.  He explains this time they fed over 300 people through the month of December and they handed out 13 complete food hampers for families and for singles and couples they had full turkey dinners made into packages and cooked already for them so all they had to do was throw them in the microwave or heat them up and they were ready to go.

Hydamaka adds donations have been keeping up with demand so they’re doing well at the Food Bank.

The Norva Center is presenting an exhibition of local photography and sculpture through this month.  The Center’s Karen Clark says it features the work of Beatrice Walker and Doug Dmytriw with the photography of Bea and Doug’s carvings and assemblages and they’re on display for the whole month of January at Norva.  She explains their gallery manager Mike Spencer has put out a call out to artists in the immediate area of Flin Flon Creighton and received quite a response in terms of people who had work and who perhaps hadn’t had a chance to show too often so they’re looking forward to the next year with a lot of new work being shown at the gallery.

An opening reception and artists talk will be held Wednesday night at 7 at the Norva Center and the exhibition is free and open during their regular hours from 10 to 5 Tuesday to Friday and 12:30 to 4:30 on Saturdays.

During the month long RCMP Holiday Checkstop Program Manitoba RCMP checked just under 12 thousand vehicles during 262 checkstops.  They charged 90 people with impaired driving with 87 by alcohol and 3 by drugs. They charged 15 people with refusing a breath demand, issued 30 alcohol related and 2 drug related tiered suspensions and charged 49 people with improper storage of alcohol or cannabis in a vehicle. The RCMP add unfortunately five people lost their lives in traffic related collision during the time of this year’s Checkstop Program including an accident on highway 16 near Gladstone and another in Berens River during the last week of the program.

For the first time in the provinces history the Manitoba government has undertaken an online public consultation on regulatory change. 

Passed in June 2018 the Traffic and Transportation Modernization Act dissolves the Highway Traffic Board and Motor Transport Board and eliminates more than 65 hundred regulatory requirements. Infrastructure Minister Ron Schuler says the changes give municipalities the freedom to set speed limits on their roads rather than having to go through the Highway Traffic Board, it modernizes application processes for access driveways and signs along provincial roadways and simplifies internal government procedures for highway declarations resulting in red tape reduction both in and outside of government. The new regulations go into effect on March 1^st and you can provide your input until January 7^th online by visiting reg.gov.mb.ca/home.

A Get Better Together program will be available in Flin Flon starting on January 14th.  Regional Community Health Developer Christa McIntyre says it’s a free interactive group program and is a six session program designed for individuals living with any type of ongoing health issues.  She says in the six weeks individuals can build confidence to better manage their illness through group support and discussions on a wide variety of topics such as healthy eating, physical activity, managing pain and fatigue, action planning and much more.

The Get Better Together program will start on January 14^th and run for six weeks. For information or to register you can call Christa at 204-681-3145.

Operation Red Nose has wrapped up another holiday season of getting people and their vehicles home safely.  The Rotary Club’s Committee Chair Ted Hewitt says they provided service for 11 nights and they provided a total of 272 rides using the services of 146 volunteers.  He says the number of rides and volunteers were about the same totals as last year but the donations total from using the service was up over 10 percent for a total of about 48 hundred dollars which equals their best for the previous 10 years.  He adds with their other funds that they collect through the Rotary Club they expect to again have a total of about 13 thousand dollars for distribution within our community for children’s activities preferably in organized sports.

Hewitt notes Operation Red Nose could not be a success without the support of area businesses, all the volunteers and the many people who use the service.

Operation Red Nose completed its final night of getting people and their vehicles home safely New Years Eve.  The Rotary Club’s Committee Chair Ted Hewitt says they had a successful night.  He explains New Years Eve was very busy for Operation Red Nose with a total of 41 rides and they had a great group of 25 volunteers from the community as a whole enough to field 7 teams so wait time to receive a ride was minimal. He adds again even though Operation Red Nose is a free service those receiving the service were very generous with their donations and all the funds collected stay within our community for children’s activities preferably in organized sports.

We’ll wrap up the full season of Operation Red Nose on tomorrow’s news.

Canadian Kraft Paper and Nisokapawino Forestry Management Corporation are holding public information meetings in northern communities over the next few weeks.  Area Planner Mike Paddock says they’ll discuss their forest harvest and renewal plans for the two years starting June 1^st and that’ll include harvesting, forestry renewal, road construction and road decommissioning activities.  He adds the meetings are all about information sharing to let people know what their plans are and people let them know about issues and concerns they have that may need to be taken into consideration prior to any activities taking place.  He notes meetings are open to everyone and they hope that people who have an interest in those operations will come out and meet with them.

Meetings in this area will be held Monday afternoon at 1 in the Cranberry Portage Legion Hall and at 7 pm in the Flin Flon Public Library Rotary Room, Tuesday at 7 in the Wanless Community Center, on the 15^th at 7 in the Lawrie Marsh Hall Reading Room in Snow Lake and on the 17^th at 7 in the Sherridon Community Hall. For information on other meetings visit their website www.canadiankraftpaper.com or call 204-623-8682.

The Flin Flon Arts Council is again offering a theatre program for children starting this month.  Organizer Susan Gunn says there was a good response last year for this type of activity for children 8 to 14 who are interested in theatre.  She explains they explore the history of theatre and they do exercises and play fun games and things.  She says it reflects different genres of theatre and giving kids the background but they don’t just do that they also explore every other part of theatre, writing, lighting, directing, props noting lots of kids are very excited about performing but there’s also a lot of kids who are really excited about the technical aspect.

Gunn adds the program will run until just before spring break. Registration is being held Monday evening from 6 to 8 in the Community Hall.  If you have questions you can email Susan at susancgunn@hotmail.ca and she will contact you with details.

The Northern Neighbors Foundation was part of Endow Manitobas 24 hour giving challenge in November supported by the Winnipeg Foundation and the Manitoba Government.  Their President Jane Robillard reports it went really well noting our community donations were 12,915 dollars and with the matching grant from the Foundation down south and the government that added 4 thousand more to that and they had a very generous service club with the Rotary who made a donation of 10 thousand dollars that day so all around it was wonderful.

The money raised remains in the local Foundation’s Community Foundation Fund with the interest going to grants they give out each year in the communities of Flin Flon, Creighton, Denare Beach, Snow Lake, Sherridon and Cranberry Portage.

Operation Red Nose completed its last Friday night of getting people and their vehicles home safely last weekend.  The Rotary Club’s Committee Chair Ted Hewitt reports Friday night was a slow evening with a total of 11 rides and the volunteers were from the community as a whole.  He adds even though Operation Red Nose is offered as a free service those receiving the service were generous with their donations with all the funds collected staying within our community for children’s activities preferably in organized sports.

We’ll wrap up New Years Eve on tomorrow news.