CFRU Mobile Community Radio

Originally recorded: April 24th 2017 Guest: Alana, summer camp supervisor One of the things our Neighbourhood Groups does best is summer camps.  Grange is FULL of children, and as you might expect, has a heck of a summer camp!  Tune in to this episode as I interview Alana, who grew up through Grange's Summer Camps she started by attending summer camp, progressed to a Leader in Training, and is now...

Original Recording Date: May 11th Guests: Madelyn and Madelyn Two high school student volunteers, both helping out at Grange Hill East NG, and BOTH ARE NAMED MADELYN.  Despite being neighbours, these girls go to different schools and had never met prior to volunteering together.  The interests vary, but a friendship was inevitable.  As a girl who also grew up in Guelph and went to middle school an...

Original Recording date: May 4th Guests: TODDLERS!  So many toddlers, and Kate from "Estate of the Art Landscapes" So many more toddlers!  Toddlers every morning!  There are some pretty good toddler chats in this episode.  And between the toddlers, I speak with one of the toddler's mom's Kate, from "Estate of the Art Landscapes"  About Estate of the Art Landscapes: "Estate of the Art Landscapes is...

Original date: May 4th 2017 Guests: Mary, Tara, & toddlers On day two I chatted with two of the childcare providers I met over at Grange Hill.  Among several subjects, Mary speaks of her life since children, and reclaiming personal time for self care, and Tara speaks about her love of teaching Irish dance.

Original Recording Date: April 19th 2017 Guests: Ange, Katarina, Margaret, & Michelle This first recording at Grange Hill East Neighbourhood Group was recorded just prior to, and during, their inaugural Community Kitchen event.  I had four guests, three of whom coordinated the event, and one who helps with the distribution of Grange's weekly vegetable share.  Grange is an interesting neighbour...

Original Recording Date: April 7th Guest: Johnny Millar There likely couldn't have been a better character of a person to have wandered into the mobile studio on my final day at the Village of Riverside Glen.  Johnny couldn't tell me exactly when or how he had ended up at Riverside Glen, but he shared beautiful stories of living there, of his past times at the pub and on the walking trails, and of...

Original Recording Date: April 5th 2017 Guest: Jim Hunt It's an incredibly special episode for me, because it features Jim Hunt: a resident of The Village of Riverside Glen retirement home, an 84 year old retired UofG Physics professor who was born and raised in Guelph, and worked in radio at CFRC 101.9fm in Kingston. Jim is one of the main reasons CFRU exists, because - while sitting on the build...

Original Recording Date: March 31st 2017 Guest: Aurele Aurele is a resident at the Village of Riverside Glen, and shared a beautiful story of a life living in the woods in Northern Ontario with ten siblings, and felling trees for the pulp mill at the age of thirteen before escaping to the city to work for the company.  His life was filled with struggles (the stigma of being french working in an in...

Original Recording Date: March 27th, 2017 Guest: James Skarnikat, aka "Skarni", aka "Jimmy the Crooner" James Skarnikat, aka Skarni aka "Jimmy the Crooner", is a performer who travels North America playing his own music by night, and retirement homes by day. He's played music since he was a teenager, and as an adult worked as a chef in Retirement homes, and eventually blended these two aspects of...

Original Recording dates: March 3rd, March 17th, and April 7th Guests: Jean, Meghan (Elder Wisdom Campaign), and Marlene This episode features three different days' worth of recordings. The first segment is Jean, coming to read a story from her life, that was originally featured in the Guelph Mercury. Then I spoke with Meghan who works at the Village of Riverside Glen, about the Schlegel Villages...

Original Recording Date: March 3rd 2017 Guests: Double Stop, and a resident of the Village of Riverside Glen "Double Stop" are a fiddle duo who perform at retirement homes. One day they were performing in the lobby when I arrived to the Village of Riverside Glen, and I was lucky enough to convince them to chat and perform for the radio. Later that afternoon we were joined by a fellow who lives at...

Original Recording Date: March 1st 2017 Guests: Three women who live at the Village of Riverside Glen Retirement Home For my first day recording at the Village of Riverside Glen I was lucky enough to have three guests. These three women came through the Hobby Room where the mobile studio was set up, arriving to play a game of "Card Bingo". One woman was celebrating her 90th birthday, and told me o...

Original Recording Date: March 8th 2017 Guest: Shawna Percy, Suicide Prevention Trainer My guest this episode was Shawna Percy, and we chatted about the role suicide and suicide prevention has had in our lives, and the importance of conversation, support, and trainings such as "safeTALK" A blurb about Shawna: "Shawna is proud to be a part of the global, evidence-based, standardized suicide-prevent...

Original Recording Date: February 8th 2017 Guests: Bisha, Josh & Dana On my final day of recording at Onward Willow I had the pleasure of three guests chatting with me: Bisha is a recent immigrant to Canada, and we bonded over our shared love of Guelph Lake, our shared our perspectives on raising children and Canadian Winters. After our chat, I met Josh - a longtime volunteer at the Shelldale...

Original Recording Date February 26th 2017 Guest: Kevin Sutton Kevin Sutton is a Guelph-based Spoken word and HipHop Performer, and Youth Workshop Facilitator. He is an integral participant in community in Guelph, both through his work with Guelph Spoken Word, and his work with youth. We had a lot of fun meeting up for radio. I hope you like it!

Original Recording Date: February 13th 2017 Guest: Steve "Shaker" Cuevas Steve “Shaker” Cuevas, founder of Shake True Hoops Basketball Development Services in Guelph, initiated Ball 4 All in 2007. He saw a growing need for access to skills programs for all who wished to participate, regardless of barriers of transportation and cost. In founding Ball 4 All, he sought to remove these barriers to acc...

Original Recording Date: Late January 2017 Guest: Mark If you like video games as much as myself and my guest Mark, you will enjoy this episode. We're both a bit old-school in our tastes, and slightly different generations of gamers, but our love of games brought us together.

This episode features Hong Lam from Grcged - the Guelph Resource Centre for Gender Empowerment and Diversity - she happened to come into Willow while I was there, and we chatted about GRCGED's event: Wen Do Women's Self Defense, a self-defense class for female-indentified folks in a safer space to share inspiring stories of real resistance. We talk about the course, and also about the struggles we...

Original Recording Dates: January 9th & January 25th 2017 Guests: Cheryl, Angel, & Martha This episode is a fantastic examples of the types of services people are contributing as volunteers to Onward Willow. Cheryl came in one morning to drop off a donation of household items for residents of Onward Willow, something she does several times a year. Angel organizes Onward Willow "Women's Emp...

Original Recording Date: January 19th, 2017 Guest: Scott Scott is a 70 year old retired welding engineer who "loves fixing things". Scott has been compulsively fixing things since the age of ten, and for the past few years he has been coming over to Onward Willow to re-build and refurbish computers so he can give them out for free to people on the community. He's an awesome guy contributing an ama...

Original Recording Date: January 9th, 2017 Guests: Dustin and Ferol It was just after the holiday break, and I had returned to Willow for my first radio drop-in hours of the new year. The folks I crossed paths with that day are such a wonderful reflection of the diversity of characters over at that space. Tune in to this episode to hear Dustin, as he shares an in-depth description of the story of...

Original Recording Date: November 23rd, 2016 Guest: Chris Rowan, CFRU's High school Co-op Student Chris Rowan was our most recent Co-op Student. One day after a few of us went to John F. Ross to do a presentation about CFRU with him for his class, he accompanied me back to the Mobile Site to see what it is all about. We ended up having a chat about our respective experiences in High school - him n...

Original Recording Date: November 14th & November 16th Guests: A volunteer, Dan Evans, and Muoi A long-time volunteer finally agreed to chat with me a little bit, and we talked about the clothing room, and her time over here at Onward Willow. Dan Evans came and conducted a little activity to collect the highlights of everyone’s feelings about this space, and we chat about the challenges and ou...

Original Recording Dates: Nov. 28th & November 30th 2016 Guests: Tamara, Amanda, John, Cassandra & Lori This episode was a lead up to Onward Willow's annual bazaar. I had five guests come speak to me about this event - three vendors, a future vendor, and Lori who helps run the whole thing. The bazaar ran Saturday December 10th from 9am-3pm at Paisley Rd Public school - free admission, over...

Original Recording Date: November 2nd, 2016 Guests: Max and Martha On this episode I had the very special pleasure of speaking with Max, an eight year old trans youth from the Onward Willow Neighbourhood. Max was born male, identifies as female, and continues to use the pronouns "He" and "they". I consider our conversation to be very lucky for me, and a very positive outcome of an otherwise negati...