The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

It included a side trip to the battlefield of Batoche. where Gabriel Dumont‘s metis took on the regular army and gave it a bloody nose. during the Riel Rebellion Another exceptionally interesting evening included a visit to Pronera. If you are ever in Saskatoon. don‘t miss it There is a complete reconstruction of a pioneer village. containing everything from a barberâ€"shop to a bank_ Along with this goes a huge exhibition of old machinery. used in the early days. and a display of handsome old automobiles I‘d heard some good speeches. John Diefenbaker. on home ground. with no need to politic, is unbeatable as an enterâ€" tainer. Otto Lang, also in his home province, gave me some assurance that at least one of our federal ministries is in cool hands. And most amazing of all was the high offiâ€" cial from the postal service. standing up there and trying to tell weekly editors that we have a good postal service, and will have a great one. It‘s a wonder he wasn‘t stoned to death. But his homework had been done. and his footwork was excellent. He almost convinced me. Essence of his message was to get that postal code on your mail. When it comes to holding a convention,. those Saskatchâ€" ewan weekly editors don‘t have to play second fiddle to anyone. This convention was well organized,. varied and colorful At about 11:30 the same morning, with a couple of time changes thrown in, I‘m walking into the Bessborough Hoâ€" tel. some 1.500 miles away on a lovely. cool, Septemberish day. A week later, after a reunion (we were almost shy with each other ) in a Toronto hotel, we are pounding up the threeâ€" lane highway in my old roadâ€"schooner, headed for home. I had eaten everything from those awful. frozen airline meals, where you almost rupture yourself trying to get the plastic top off the pat of butter. to haute cuisine. fowl stuffed with wild rice, to fresh pickerel fillets straight out of the frying pan at a shore dinner. In seven days I covered about 40,000 miles by almost evâ€" ery mode of transportation except oxâ€"train,. and I saw only the most veritable nook, the smallest cranny of this vast. fascinating country. . It‘s quite an age. At 6:30 on one of those wickedly hot days for which the past summer has been notorious. I‘m kissing my teartul wife goodbye. She was crying because we were going to be separated for a whole week. and because I might fall among evil companions. which I did. The hours between the departure and the homecoming seemed to flash by, and yet I felt that I‘d been away for a month. I‘d seen so much and covered so much ground. not to mention air and water. ‘‘Boy, dat‘s wan big countree" was my bilingual thought as I winged across the Great Lakes, over the wild lakeâ€"andâ€" rock terrain of Northwestern Ontario, and then high above the prairies, as I headed for the weekly newspaper convenâ€" tion in Saskatoon. That‘s about the essence of Canada. It‘s so big, so beautiâ€" ful. and so varied that it‘s almost frightening. Perhaps only a wellâ€"traveled Russian could feel the sense of awe that I felt, after a brief look at just a small piece of this fantastic land of ours. This Vacation Bible School class at St. John‘s Lutheran Church, Waterlioo, had a project to construct a replica of the church out of popsicle sticks. Doing last minute touchâ€"ups are left to right, John Kuper, 11, Chris Priss, 12. Eddie Kaune, 12, and his sister, Christine, 11. Holly Waugh, 11 and Kathy Ruel, 11. Letfter Thanks for the excellent photo of Tom Lobsinger in your issue of Sept. 3. That was his fourth consecutive 1500 m. race under 3 min. 500 secs.. and excellent achievement feor a 17 One thing that warmed my heart was the number of famiâ€" lies in which the children are involved in their parents‘ newspapers. In this age. most young people. for some reaâ€" son. spurn the occupation of their parents, and want to strike out on their own. This is understandable. But the number of second, and even thirdâ€"generation people stickâ€" ing with the business shows that running a weekly newsâ€" paper still holds a lot of attraction for young, bright people. Some of them are the Derksens of Estevan, the Cadogans of New Brunswick, the Dills of Milton, the McConnells of Tilbury. There are many others. On the other side of the coin, of course, weekly editors and their wives are just like other people. Some of their offspring disturb them deeply. I must have a national repuâ€" tation as an expert on "rotten kids,"" because I had both ears bent badly out of shape by mothers and fathers who would corner me and tell me, almost in tears, of the latest ‘‘terrible"" things their youngsters were up to. After my own experience in raising kids, nothing can even raise one of my eyebrows, but I hope I brought some comâ€" fort to the afflicted. Don‘t worry, chaps. Your kids will turn out all right, or all wrong, or somewhere in the middle, like most of us,. and there‘s not a darn thing you can do about it, except to bite off the umbilical cord. A good convention. And next year it‘s off to Halifax and into the sea food. Already I can feel the juices dripping down my chin. Dear Editor Another colorful bit was the piping in of the colors at one of the banquets. and their formal presentation to the new President, Ernie Neufeld of Weyburn, Sask. And as an added fillip, there was a postâ€"convention fishâ€" ing trip into Northern Saskatchewan, one of the greatest fishing areas of the world. More about that later. For me, the best part of the convention was meeting old friends and making new ones. To the old ones, I am here to testify that you never looked better. To the new ones, I can only say there are some mighty nice people in this counâ€" try. and you are among them. that would make an antique car buff burst into tears of joy. Now that‘s a convention Lobsinger Many thanks Donald Mills, 814 Indian Road. Toronto, Ont. M6P 2E5 year old. He ran impressiveâ€" ly at Brantford on : Sepâ€" tember 6. Watertoo Chronicle, Wednesday, September 10. 1975 â€" Page 5 Community use of the schools does create problems. Everything must be considered: were the floors conâ€" structed with this kind of use in mind? Will regular day classes be disrupted by the school‘s use? Do we have to pay the custodian overâ€"time? Does Mrs. Blogg‘s temperaâ€" ment interfere with Mr. Jones® lessonâ€"delivery? Yes, there are problems. I feel that they fall into these categories: â€" commitment (by school staff and community) â€" concern (for the children. Communityâ€"use should not be an end in itself . ) â€" time (the teacher spends hours already. the community needs hours more of training ) â€" desire (to make community use really work, inspiraâ€" tion is often overâ€"run by perspiration and sheer perâ€" severance. ) â€"But the end results of community use of schools is worth it. Community use instils a sense of commonality â€" and of community‘ In recent months the Board has been granted 5 govâ€" ernmentâ€"supported projects, in the neighbourhood of $26,500. These projects range from the construction of creative playgrounds to a community band. There were many more proposals submitted and it is my hope that they will be nurtured. One needn‘t look very far in the city of Waterloo to find parents who are involved in the construction of school playgrounds, who volunteer in school libraries, who sit on school advisory committees, or who serve as teacherâ€"aides. Other parents volunteer their supervisory skills for class excursions. Some are active members .of Home and School or Teacherâ€"Parent organizations. In the cases of parental (community) involvement in the schools, principals and teachers have encouraged it. In fact, in some cases, the school â€" in the form of students and staff â€" reaches out into the community: working and playing with the aged or disabled, volunteering to run errands or do menial tasks for those who are unable to do them, and going on community cleanâ€"up or charity campaigns. In a recent magazine article The Weekend Magazine, Sept. 6, Robert Stamp, a professor of education, examined the concept of Parent Power. In the "Little Dead Schoolâ€" house, Dr. Stamp discussed the results of parental conâ€" cern. In this first of three articles, he accentuated the positive results of nearâ€"confrontation with school sysâ€" tems in which the involved parents had been instrumental in making schools provide curriculum and courses which would and should be more meaningful. more educationalâ€" ly stimulating to the children. of the playground. In other districts wellâ€"baby clinics, Goldenâ€"Age square dances, and Sunday worship services are insufficient use of schools. Generally, in rural and new suburban areas, a community school may be built near a recreation centre and a library so that the school becomes the hub of almost all community activity: eduâ€" cational, social, recreational, and religious. In older, more established communities, the school may be relegatâ€" ed to only providing educational services. However, over the past 10 years, there has been a distinct swing toward involvement of the community â€" and especially of parents â€" in the schools. . The reasons for the swing are varied: mostly they are attributed to the desire of adults to be a part of their chilâ€" dren‘s formal education. therefore it shall be the policy of The Waterloo County Board of Education to make its buildings and grounds available to the community on as broad a basis as posâ€" sible provided that the Board may request reimburseâ€" ment, from the community, for expenses directly attributâ€" able to the use of schools unless the communityâ€"use is inâ€" cluded in or covered by some type of agreement governâ€" ing the use of facilities between The Waterloo County Board of Education and another municipality, board, commission, or organization."" In some areas, community use is having Brownies and cubs meet in the school and having afterâ€"schoolâ€"hours use What does community use of schools mean? It means different things to each of us and it is interpreted differentâ€" ly by each community. * According to a recent policy statement of the Waterloo County Board of Education community use of schools means, y e **Whereas The Waterloo County Board of Education has indicated, both in principle and by example, its willingâ€" ness to make available to organizations and individuals within the community the use of school facilities because it believes that these facilities should be used by the comâ€" munity for a wide variety of social, educational and recâ€" reational purposes and whereas the Board recognizes that its prime responâ€" sibility is to provide for the educational needs of students in this County â€" and whereas the Board also believesâ€" that money allotted for elementary and secondary educational purposes should not be diverted from this prime function * What is â€" community Use of schools? Comment by LYNNE WOOLSTENCROFT