We are trying once again to get an uilleann pipers club going in Ontario. The current proposal is for a weekend meeting once a month, to share playing and reed making. The idea is that meetings will be rotated between various cities, such as London, Hamilton, Toronto, Kingston so that no-one is too far from attending at least some of the meetings.
First meeting is set for Sunday, Feb 15th, from 1-5 pm at Bob Gardner’s home in Scarborough.
If you are interested and did not already receive an email notice please PM me here with your return email address and I will pass on the pertinent info to you.
When are you planning to have the Kingston meeting? Unless you’re planning something in Ottawa, Kingston is probably the closest to Quebec and some of the Quebec pipers might be interested in attending.
PJ, you’re way too far ahead of the game, yet. The concern right now is to see who will respond to the first invitation for Feb. I don’t know any Ottawa area pipers, and none have responded so far, but it’s early days. The idea of having a meeting in Kingston would revolve around enough people in Kingston and area wanting to join, and again, I haven’t heard of anyone there responding, yet.
I’m sure that if we can get this thing going that Quebec pipers could be included where a meeting is scheduled close to the border (for a fee ).
We have a fledgling group of pipers (7 or here in the Detroit area, the Al Purcell Pipers, and would certainly entertain coming to a London meeting of your group, (provided the extra fees for Amereicans aren’t too high) .
The only down side is we’d probably benefit more than you guys becasue we’re all pretty much beginner to intermediate pipers.
Please put me on the distribution list when you get the meeting schedule set.
I think it’s safe to say the same of many of us Ontario Pipers, too, John.
For what it’s worth, we’re going to try to have a tionol (probably in Woodstock) sometime this year. Right now it’s looking like that will be in the Fall. We’re going to look into venues in Kingston, London, Hamilton and Toronto. Those are the only four cities we’re looking at having meetings in, as of right now. Ideally we’d like to have enough interest to hold meetings on opposite sides of the province simultaneously, but we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. Hamilton was chosen because of an available location and the proximity to Buffalo. London has a large population of pipers and is close to Detroit (yes, we were thinking of you guys and girls, John. I know Colleen well). Kingston and area would hopefully serve Ottawa and the QUPC. Toronto for obvious reasons I think.
The basic aim and goal of the club is to have fun and encourage each other. All else should follow from that. Our preference for now is to not have any membership fees. As things get going, we’d like to have more organization and events and possibly invoke a fee. This is definitely preliminary right now though.
Please show your support. PM me or DJM and if you can, come out to Bob’s for the meeting.
FWIW, I’m the Vice Chairman. Eventually we’re hoping to have an annual general meeting and annual elections for the positions. Also, we’re calling it the Ontario Irish Pipers Club.
For whatever it’s worth, I might as well add that Joe Kennedy is heading this up as chairman, for the time being, and Ray Caldwell is keeping us organized as the secretary.
We have lots of ideas of things we’d like to do, but we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves yet. Hopefully there will be enough interest to keep this going and to have the positions above change hands from year to year. But that’s a discussion for the future.
I’m looking forward to meeting everyone and seeing those that I’ve met already again. Kind of ironic that I’ll be meeting some D-town pipers in Toronto, all things considered!
PCP, I would be happy to receive from you an all expenses paid trip to Ontario, CA to scout these locations for suitability for membership. I will send you a written report of my findings afterwards.
).
here in the Detroit area, the Al Purcell Pipers, and would certainly entertain coming to a London meeting of your group, (provided the extra fees for Amereicans aren’t too high) 
.