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This year’s Celebration of Learning Year-end BBQ at the DRCSS is taking place tomorrow.
It features live bands, lots of food and the year-end attendance prize of a Chevy Avalanche.
Patty Goodine, a teacher at the DRCSS, spoke with us about everything taking place at the high school.
“We have lots of games happening; volleyball, basketball. We have a slip and slide. We have all the free food for the BBQ. We have live bands playing, from students in our school and staff as well. It’s a lot of fun, and it’s a really exciting time. We have our community members that partnered throughout the year plus parents and whoever else wants to join us to help us celebrate the achievements of our students here.”
The BBQ starts at noon tomorrow with the draw for the attendance truck taking place around 2:30 and 3.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
Manitoba universities are trying to deal with the 0.9 per cent cut in funding.
Four universities, the University of MB, the Unversity of Winnipeg, Université de Saint Boniface and Brandon University are all increasing tuition by the maximum 6.6 per cent.
The one that stands out is the Canadian Mennonite University, which is only modestly increasing tuition.
CMU differs from the other universities because it only receives a third of its operating funding from the province and is less affected by the decrease in provincial funding.
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There may be a loophole in Manitoba law when it comes to consuming pot in public.
The law is worded to only ban public smoking or vaping, but doesn’t cover consuming homemade edibles in public.
Health Minister Goertzen had no immediate response when asked about this, but later stated they are seeking clarity from the federal government on the matter.
The federal government made it clear that it will not immediately be legal to sell edible cannabis products, but people can bake and eat their own.
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Grandview is the location for this year’s State of the District put on by the Dauphin & District Chamber of Commerce.
Parkland municipalities will be presenting what is going on in their areas. So far the R.M. of Mossey River, Ste. Rose Municipality and Grandview Municipality are presenting, with more signing up soon.
Stephen Chychota, Executive Director for the chamber, explains the concept of this event.
“That was the initial concept behind this event, is that everyone is more or less have a chance to host this. The first one was in Dauphin and the next one coming up is in Grandview, so where it goes next year, we’re not too sure. We’re really looking forward to having this one be the event of the area for years to come, because for the longest time everyone has had maybe individual presentations or from just our stand point the State of the City Address that typically happens in May; now we want to give the forum to the Parkland.”
The event is on Tuesday over the lunch hour at the Grandview Kinsmen Community Centre. Tickets are available by calling the chamber office at 622-3140 or online at dauphinchamber.ca
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Molly the cat went missing from her Brandon home on Friday and was found over 120 kilometers away in Grayling Lake on Sunday.
Patricia Pasichnyk from Gilbert Plains, found Molly , the cat, while having a campfire cookout.
She was able to find the owner from a missing cat Facebook post and the tattoo on the animal’s ear.
“We ended up wrapping it up in a blanket and taking it back to Dauphin with us. I posted a post on Facebook and ended up looking on a Brandon Facebook page and came across this cat.”
Pasichnyk contacted the owner who was extremely happy to pick up Molly. She had let the cat out of her Brandon residence on Friday and had no idea where she went after that.
To this day, no one knows how Molly wound up out there in the woods.
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Parkland residents with unwanted firearms or ammunition are encouraged to participate in the provincial gun amnesty.
Taking place all month, you can call the Dauphin RCMP Detachment and make plans for an officer to safely take your unwanted guns.
Constable Rob Tuff with Dauphin’s RCMP spoke with us about the program.
“We encourage people to phone the detachment before trying to turn over any firearms. They can give the detachment a call at 204-622-5020, we will make arrangements to either pick up the firearms at that point or make arrangements for the person to deliver them to the detachment.”
Tuff encourages people to think about if they really need or will use their guns again.
“If you do have firearms in your home, in your garage, wherever they may be stored and if you are really never going to be using them again, do you really need to be keeping them? The message was, if the answer is “no” to that question, then we encourage people to make the call.”
The police won’t lay charges against anyone turning in a weapon unless it was used to commit a crime or was stolen.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
The 136th edition of the Manitoba Summer Fair has begun in Brandon.
There are a variety of events to check out during the fair including both outdoor and indoor activities.
There are 5 jam-packed days of events until this Sunday with a mixture of indoor and outdoor horse shows including Hackney, Miniature, and Draft horses
This year’s competitions will feature only the horse show because the cattle one is cancelled this year due to low entries.
Tickets are 40 dollars for a day pass.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
Mountain View School Division’s International Student Program didn’t suffer from a decision made by the Province.
The provincial government decided to cut back on medical coverage for foreign students.
Bart Michaleski, Secretary/Treasurer for MVSD, tells us the amount the division had to pay for this year.
“The shortfall we will be facing for the fall, because this comes into effect in the fall, is about $4000 for the year; simply because when we are recruiting students, we’re typically recruiting them as much as a year in advance. We have to have our tuition schedules in place a year in advance, so we had already set the fees for medical insurance for next year is it’s about $4000.”
The division will increase the fees for the fall of 2019, and it will only go up by 1 per cent to cover medical insurance.
Despite having to pay more, Michaleski noted students are coming out a head, because thanks to insurance companies, they will be getting more medical coverage than before.
The increase in fees didn’t deter anyone from participating in the program and this coming year is looking like one of the division’s most successful ones.
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As a part of Bike Week, the Dauphin Derailleurs Cycle Club is putting on a special presentation.
The Master Trails Concept will be presented on Thursday evening at 7:00 at the Countryfest Community Cinema.
Melisa Stefaniw with Tourism Dauphin, tells us how this got started.
“We’ve sort of had a subcommittee working through Dauphin Economic Development and Tourism for the last several years that’s been working with Riding Mountain National Park to determine how we can expand trails on the north end. So after the closure of the Agassiz and with the challenges faced with maintaining throughout the whole park, we really wanted to get some people together to work directly with Riding Mountain on seeing where we could go with the trails.
The event is free for the public to attend with a licenced bar and concession.
The overall goals that the Dauphin Derailleurs Cycle Club would like to see, is for Dauphin to become a cycling destination for tourist and create some world class competing mountain bike trails.
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The proposed changes for the Manitoba Electoral Boundaries would see Dauphin and Swan River together.
Brad Michaelski, Dauphin MLA, is just focusing on this term before coming to any decisions.
“Right now my focus is on the rest of the term, to represent the Parkland region and again it’s too early to make any assumptions of what it’s going to look like in a year’s time or in six months’ time. So there’s nothing that I am going to do any differently and I know Rick and I work together on Parkland issues, so we work together as a team and will continue to do that.”
Rick Wowchuk, Swan River MLA, is focusing on serving the people right now.
“You know right now, I think my biggest focus being the priority to represent the people who elected me as their representative in the Manitoba Legislature and that is where my focus is right now instead of looking ahead to what if.”
A public hearing allowing people to make presentations is scheduled for September 13 in Dauphin at the Lions’ Den.
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Students’ mental health in the Parkland is on par with the rest of the province.
That’s the findings from of the Grade 5 Mental Health Survey conducted in the 2015-16 school year.
The survey asked 25 core questions relating to topics including prosocial behaviour, emotional symptoms, and peer relationship problems.
Superintendent/CEO Donna Davidson spoke with us about some of the findings the division received.
“Our data results indicate that we are on par with the province and in some areas we are above the average. We reported, for example, with no difficulties especially the teacher completed it was higher than the average reported across the province. In that regard, we were pleased with those results.”
One aspect the division needs to work on is mental health and support. Davidson says they have been working on reducing the amount of anxiety and depression reported by students.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
