Latest news with #Simcoe
Chicago Tribune
19 hours ago
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Breweries in St. Charles to launch collaboration beer to aid charity
A group of six St. Charles breweries called the STC Six is launching its fourth annual collaboration beer to support a local non-profit organization, with this year's effort benefitting Support Over Stigma. The STC Six is made up of 93 Octane Brewery, Alter Brewing + Kitchen, Broken Brix Fermentation Emporium, D&G Brewing, Pollyanna Brewing & Distilling and Riverlands Brewing, according to a press release. The breweries invite everyone to a celebration including the first opportunity to taste the new beer at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, June 18, at Pollyanna Brewing & Distilling at 106 S. Riverside Ave. in St. Charles. Eric Bramwell, head brewer and co-founder of Riverlands Brewing, said in the release that this year's collaborative brew should be a hit with beer fans. 'The STC Six 2025 is a West Coast Pilsner – a true beer lover's beer that combines the hoppiness of a pale ale with the crisp drinkability of a pilsner,' said Bramwell. 'Brewed with lager yeast, and hopped with Simcoe, Krush, Riwaka and Rakau hops, one can expect notes of citrus, tropical fruit and a bit of pine.' The 2025 STC Six collaborative beer will be available at five breweries in St. Charles while supplies last – 93 Octane Brewery, Alter Brewing + Kitchen, Broken Brix Fermentation Emporium, Pollyanna Brewing & Distilling and Riverlands Brewing, according to the release. One dollar from every sale of the STC Six collaborative beer and the limited-edition glassware will go towards Support Over Stigma, a local non-profit that provides essential services for military personnel, veterans and first responders to help them overcome the mental health and service-related challenges they encounter, the release stated. For more information on the beer collaboration, go to Geneva's Natural Resources Committee will spotlight Illinois' prairie ecosystems during its next lecture series presentation at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 28, at the Geneva Public Library, 227 S. Seventh St. During the program, a Geneva Park District naturalist at Peck Farm Park will explore common characteristics of Illinois prairies. The presentation also will take a deep dive into the different plants and animals found in prairies, as well as the methods land managers use to preserve this valuable landscape, event organizers said. Registration is recommended for the free presentation. For more information, go to the Geneva Public Library District's website at The Batavia Public Library at 10 S. Batavia Ave. has partnered with Music and Potlucks, a non-profit organization, to present a concert to support The Interfaith Food Pantry and Clothes Closet in Batavia. The event is set for 2 p.m. Sunday, June 22, at the library and will feature folk singer and songwriter Mark Dvorak performing on guitar, five-string banjo and 12-string guitar, according to a press release about the event. The Interfaith Food Pantry and Clothes Closet is at 431 N. Raddant Road and has served families in Batavia Township since 1981, according to the release. Those attending the concert should bring one or more grocery bags of non-perishable food items, toiletries and in-season clothing items to donate to the pantry, organizers said. For more information, call the Batavia Public Library at 630-879-1393 or go to Art historian Jeff Mishur will discuss the work of artist Gustave Caillebotte and the story of Impressionism during a program at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 17, at the St. Charles Public Library, 1 S. Sixth Ave. in St. Charles. Mishur is vice president and co-owner of Art Excursions, and holds a master's degree in the history of art from Northern Illinois University, according to a press release about the June 17 event. To register for the free program, call 630-584-0076 or go to Anderson Humane is looking for teens and young adults to take part in its summer volunteer program. Open to anyone age 16 to 25, volunteers help care for, feed and socialize with animals and assist staff at animal adoption events, according to the nonprofit's website. Volunteers can choose to work with dogs, cats or wildlife at shelter locations at 1000 S. LaFox St., South Elgin; 412 W. Army Trail Road, Bloomingdale; and 45W061 Route 38, Elburn. The time commitment is 20 hours per week. A $35 registration fee includes the cost of a volunteer T-shirt. For more information, go to
Globe and Mail
26-05-2025
- General
- Globe and Mail
Second World War scrapbooks bring memories back to life for Globe readers
The black and white photograph has faded over the years, but it's not hard to make out the nine Canadian soldiers smiling for the camera, many with their arms draped across each other's shoulders. They're standing in a field somewhere in Italy near the end of the Second World War. There's a tiny 'x' above one of the men, with an arrow leading to a flowing signature – 'David Lloyd Ferris 64 Victoria St., Simcoe Ont Canada'. His son, David Ferris, saw the photo for the first time this month – 80 years after it was glued into a scrapbook by Klaas Nieborg, a 25-year-old school teacher in Groningen, the Netherlands. Mr. Nieborg compiled two scrapbooks in the spring of 1945 as Canadian soldiers drove the German army out of Groningen. The books – comprising 250 pages of photographs, signatures and mementoes from hundreds of Canadian servicemen – were donated to a local archive a few years ago by Mr. Nieborg's son. This month, the archives posted digitized copies online as part of the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. A recent Globe and Mail story about the scrapbooks led many readers to scour the pages to learn more about loved ones who served in the Netherlands. For some, just seeing the signature of their father or grandfather brought memories back to life. Others, such as Mr. Ferris, got to see images of their dads as young men, frozen in time. 'I was absolutely amazed to see that photo,' said Mr. Ferris, 73, who lives in Simcoe. He also spotted the signature of another soldier from the community: his father's buddy, Stan Frankis. 'He was their sergeant,' Mr. Ferris said. 'They remained friends after the war.' His father, who died in 2009, never mentioned serving in the Netherlands. He'd joined an artillery regiment and was among the Allied troops who landed in Anzio, Italy, in January, 1944. Mr. Ferris said his father spent several months in Italy before his regiment was attached to the American Fifth Army, which made its way through France and Germany. Mr. Ferris has no idea how a photo of his dad ended up in Mr. Neiborg's scrapbook. 'I never heard him say that he was in the Netherlands, but once they convoyed out of Germany, I suppose they could have touched up there.' The scrapbooks brought back complicated memories for Dara Legere – that of an unexpected phone call in 2002 informing him that he had a half-sister in Rotterdam. The caller, John Boers, was from the Association of Liberation Children. He shared that Mr. Legere's dad, Philip, had fathered a daughter while stationed in the Netherlands in the summer of 1945. The organization estimates that as many as 7,000 Dutch children were conceived by Allied troops during that period. 'We didn't know anything about her,' Mr. Legere said from his home in Joggins, N.S. Philip grew up in Joggins and joined the army in 1942 at the age of 18, largely to avoid working in the local coal mines. He spent a couple of years in England and landed in France just after D-Day in the summer of 1944. His regiment was among the Canadian troops that liberated the Netherlands in April, 1945. After coming home, Philip worked at an aircraft factory in nearby Amherst, married Patricia St. Peters and raised three children. He died in 1977; his wife passed 20 years later. Mr. Legere said it was only through the Dutch organization that his family learned of their sibling, Yvonne Fraaye, who was born in March, 1946. They were told that Philip got into an accident while driving a military truck and spent time in an Amsterdam hospital run by the Canadian Forces. While recovering, he had a romantic liaison with a nurse, Huibredina van Gurp, before he was shipped back to Canada in August, 1945. Dutch family's WWII-era scrapbooks keep the names and exploits of Canadian soldiers fresh on the page According to Mr. Legere, Ms. van Gurp had no way of contacting Philip. All she had was his name scribbled on a matchbook, along with a mailbox address in Ottawa that was used by the Canadian Army. Philip never spoke about the truck accident or his relationship. 'Nobody knew. Not even his best friends who were all in the war together,' Mr. Legere said. He and his brother were introduced to Ms. Fraaye on a Dutch television show in 2004. In an e-mail this week, Ms. Fraaye said she was seven years old when her mother, nicknamed Dien, told her about her Canadian father. Philip had wanted to take Dien to Canada and marry her. 'This was not approved by Dien's father, and Phil went back to Canada alone,' Ms. Fraaye wrote. 'After that, Dien had no more contact with Phil, but this could be because Dien's father intercepted Phil's mail.' She added that, 'I have been searching for my father ever since.' She and the Legeres have met several times, and they keep in regular contact. 'I don't see the resemblance, but other people who have met her say, 'My God, you can tell she's your sister,' ' Mr. Legere said. There's another faded photograph in the scrapbooks that Jan Davis spotted. It's a shot of her father, William Briant, leaning against a tree next to another soldier identified as V.H. Perry of Toronto. 'I've not seen that one at all,' Ms. Davis said from her home in London, Ont. 'Seeing my dad's signature and photo was lovely.' Mr. Briant grew up in Indian Head, Sask., a small town 70 kilometres east of Regina. On July 20, 1940, he joined the 17th Field Regiment of the Royal Canadian Artillery, Fifth Canadian Armoured Division. He was 17 years old. After training in Canada and England, he was part of the Allied force that landed in Naples, Italy, on Nov. 8, 1943. His regiment moved through Italy, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, where they spent V-E Day after Germany's surrender on May 8, 1945. Mr. Briant was discharged in November, 1945, in Regina. He moved to Toronto and worked as a draftsman. Ms. Davis said her father, who died in 2000, hardly spoke about the war. 'He didn't want to relive all the stuff that happened. They saw a lot of garbage, and then they never got any help afterwards. So I think it affected them quite a lot.' She did come across a notebook where he'd written down some wartime memories. In one passage, he recalled heading off with another soldier named Bansecu to repair a radio wire that had been severed during a battle in Italy. As the two men fixed the wire, Mr. Briant noticed a German patrol heading their way. The pair hid in a thicket of trees. 'Bansecu whispered, 'What do we do?' ' Mr. Briant wrote. 'I said, 'Not a Goddam thing.' ' The Germans passed by without noticing them. 'I'll tell you I am sure glad that clump of trees grew where that break in the wire was,' he wrote. Then he added, 'I'm sorry to say Bansecu was killed later on in the war.' The Dutch archives have heard from other Canadians wondering whether their relatives are among the hundreds of soldiers mentioned in the scrapbooks. Business operations manager Anniek van Dijk-van Leeuwen said archivists are hoping to work with an Ottawa-based non-profit group called the Canadian Research and Mapping Association to develop a searchable database of the names. 'It's not going to end here,' she said. 'We really want to make a project out of this.'
CTV News
23-05-2025
- Health
- CTV News
New Medical Officer at Simcoe County District Health Unit
Lisa Simon has been named the new Medical Officer of Health at Simcoe County District Health Unit.
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Autos, fashion collide through design at CCS fashion show at GM Design Dome
General Motors' Design Dome is accustomed to serving as the stage of a dramatic reveal. But this past Saturday, the massive historic dome wasn't filled with designers, executives, and members of the media waiting in anticipation of the latest GM vehicle. A crowd of about 300 fashion enthusiasts, big brand representatives, and members of Detroit's College for Creative Studies community flocked to Warren to glimpse the work of 27 fashion design program students strut down the runway in the college's fifth annual fashion show. Many traveled from overseas. Students presented collections featuring a range of thick and outlandish high heels and bags to golden face coverings and ball gowns that drape the floor. The diverse, personal, and deep themes students present through their work made the show compelling, said Rey Pador, an associate professor of fashion design and the apparel section lead at CCS. Themes included 'a notion of feeling shelter within yourself as a Black person in white spaces or trying to find coziness within bigger shapes that give a kind of brutal exterior, but they're cozy and cushioned from the inside,' Pador said. 'Every student displays an inner feeling of wanting and needing.' The professional lighting and floorspace made the GM Design Dome an ideal place for a show, GM's Chief of Design Michael Simcoe, who serves on CCS' Board of Trustees, said. Moving the show, whose fashion department is in its 10th year under the leadership of Italian designer Aki Choklat, also offered the opportunity to showcase the deep relationship between the Detroit automaker and the school. Automotives and fashion may not seem similar to an outside eye, but they merge through the world of design, Simcoe said. 'There's a recognition that design is now the factor that delivers a customer experience and an emotional connection between a customer and a car,' Simcoe said. 'Most things are done similarly in the (auto) business in a technical sense, so it's the design and brand that make the difference. More now than ever, customers will look at something that's a little bit different, well-branded, fresh.' Representatives from ultra luxury brands Louis Vuitton and Hermes as well as Detroit-founded workwear company Carhartt and others attended the fashion show to look for those fresh and functional perspectives. Diane Mahady, North America President of France-based brand Hermès, said the company has had a strong relationship with Detroit and its automakers for generations. Hermès was the first designer to put zippers on bags, and Ford inspired that design, she said. 'We learned that technology here three generations ago,' Mahady said. 'Our current CEO's great-great-grandfather had been here and toured with Ford cars. They had zippers for the convertible roofs, and that's where we first saw zippers and what he took back to France and applied to the bags.' Hermès started its relationship with CCS four years ago when it opened a store in the Somerset Mall in Troy, Mahady said. 'We're always looking for (students with) genuine creativity and adaptability and a certain level of practical application," Mahady said. Ben Ewy, Carhartt's vice president of global product design, said Carhartt values a CCS education and that current students and alumni work with Carhartt. 'We love student work because they don't know the word 'no,'' Ewy said. 'For them, everything is possible. It's an inspiration for us to just see their creative ways of looking at brands and products.' Small class sizes and one-on-one tutelage from professors is part of what sets CCS apart from larger fashion schools in London and New York City is its small class size and one-on-one time with professors, student designers said. The show included all seven of the fashion design program's graduating seniors and an array of works by underclassmen who impressed CCS faculty and a board of local designers by showing half of their collections. "I'm very close with all my professors, and everyone in the department is so helpful to one another,' junior design student Veronica Wardowski said. 'It's a very tight-knit community.' Wardowski has been playing the violin for 15 years and said she wanted to capture her love for the instrument in her design, especially since she has less time to play while in fashion school. 'I wanted to encapsulate the drama behind performing, performance wear, everything that goes on in a performance, when a bow hair breaks, the elegance of concert halls, and the drama of that,' Wardowski said. 'I wanted to use wood because the instruments are the beauty in my eyes.' Junior fashion design student Isabella Abohasira of West Bloomfield said, "Inglorious Bastards," one of her favorite movies, inspired her design. 'I started incorporating humor into really scary stuff,' Abohasira said. 'I wanted to make fun of everything because obviously it's easier for people to digest stuff that's funny than serious.' While hosting a fashion show may be a lot of fun, the primary opportunity is to help students find employment after graduation, said Choklat, chair of the CCS Fashion Design Department. The fashion show is just one opportunity to bring students and industry leaders together. 'They come to us because our students' work is interesting. It's new and it's fresh,' Choklat said, adding that CCS will offer a fashion business major to its curriculum in fall 2025. CCS is not just a local school but a global one. Choklat moved to Detroit from Florence, Italy, about 10 years ago. 'I saw the city as a laboratory,' Choklat said. 'I thought that we can make everything possible here. We can grow something, really, together. It's so saturated in Europe and in the big (U.S.) cities. Here, it was just a big playground for me.' Ewy said Detroit has a great history of combining art and science through functional design. 'Things need to be functional, but they also need to move you emotionally,' Ewy said. 'And I think that you see that throughout, whether it's with furniture from the west side of the city, whether it's through the automotive design worldwide, which Detroit leads, or work wear, we think that there's a great history of functional products that comes out of the Detroit area.' The fashion show celebrated CCS's 10th year of having a fashion department. 'We celebrate the hard work that everyone put into their collections, but also want to acknowledge the hard work that the people of Detroit put into this iconic city,' the Darth Vader-like filtered voice announcer said at the start of the show. 'The influence the city has is palpable in every drawing and every fiber of every collection, … We are honored to be a part of this city's history.' This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Autos, fashion collide through design at GM Design Dome
Miami Herald
07-04-2025
- Automotive
- Miami Herald
GM opens new advanced design studio in Britain, reveals EV Corvette concept car
April 7 (UPI) -- General Motors has opened a new advanced global design studio in Britain to "demonstrate its commitment to Europe," the automaker announced Monday as it showcased images of its next-generation, EV-powered Chevrolet Corvette concept car. The new studio, located in Royal Leamington Spa near Birmingham, is part of GM's plan to launch Corvette and Cadillac electric vehicle sales across Great Britain and mainland Europe. GM said its goal is to provide "fresh perspectives" into its global network. The company also has design studios in Detroit, Los Angeles, Shanghai and Seoul. "Our advanced design team's mandate extends well beyond creating production vehicles," said Michael Simcoe, senior vice president of global design. "While they collaborate within our global design network on production and concept vehicle programs, these teams are primarily tasked with imagining what mobility could look like in five, 10 and even 20 years into the future and driving innovation for GM," Simcoe added. The Corvette concept car, which was a collaboration of multiple studios, maintains its muscle car vibe and iconic "split window," but with gull wing doors and a "futuristic aesthetic" drawn from aviation. "One of the most unusual and significant aspects of our concept's design is a feature known as Apex Vision," said Julian Thomson, the lead automotive designer at the 24,584-square-foot studio in Britain. "A nod to Corvette's centerline focus, and inspired by the iconic 'split window' 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray, this feature emphasizes a singular vertical central spine that is also a structural element, providing a panoramic view of the road and surroundings." The new Corvette also includes EV battery technology and aerodynamics that channel air "without the need for wings or spoilers." While GM said it wanted its design studios to "push the boundaries of automotive design," it also wanted to respect the history of Corvette as well as its iconic image. "It was important that they all pay homage to Corvette's historic DNA, but each studio brought their own unique creative interpretation to the project," Simcoe said. "That is exactly what our advanced design studio network is intended to do -- push the envelope, challenge convention and imagine what could be." Copyright 2025 UPI News Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
