Archive for Current News
Save the Date: CBTU Region 1 Conference is Coming Up!
The CBTU Region 1 Conference will be held this summer in Albany. Download this flyer for more information.
CBTU Strategy Report
The 40th Annual International CBTU Convention was held in Las Vegas, NV in May, 2011. The convention was quite different in format from previous years, with a priority on creating solid strategies for sustainability in years to come.
The Final Strategic Report outlines the findings and report of the CBTU leadership, membership, and partners.
Reminder: Membership Dues
To our valued members:
Members need to get your membership dues into Janice so there isn’t a chance of their being registered as guests instead of delegates. If they plan to attend this year’s International Convention in Las Vegas Thursday May 26-30. Registration available at www.cbtu.org if you haven’t received it in the mail.
Any questions, Please contact me at 4163479732(c) or jgairey@ofl.ca
* Names and dues cheque will be sent to National office by March 31st and they send out your membership card.
Fundraising Caribbean Cruise
Act now! For information on our upcoming cruise, click on the link below. The deadline for booking was extended to April 12th, no, now May 15th!
GM Meeting
The next GM meeting will be held on Tuesday April 19th 2011 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the OFL building 4th floor.
Black History Month 2011, OFL Pictures
Article: COFFEE BREAK: Bob Turner broke a colour barrier
COFFEE BREAK: Bob Turner broke a colour barrier
By CLAUDE MCINTOSH
Any kid who grew up in Cornwall during the 1950s and 1960s has never confused Bob Turner, this city’s first recreation director, with the Bob Turner who spent six seasons on the Montreal Canadiens’ blue-line, earning five Stanley Cup rings.
Turner the hockey player was a white guy from Regina.
Turner the recreation director was a black guy from New Jersey who broke a colour barrier. He became Ontario’s first black recreation director. In fact, he just might have been the first black recreation director in not only Canada, but all of North America.
Remember now, this was a period in U.S. history when blacks were not allowed to drink from “white only” public fountains, enter “white only” restaurants and could not attend “white only” schools.
However, when it came to sending blacks to fight (and die) in Vietnam, the colour barrier was lifted.
Turner broke the colour barrier when the town of Colborne (population 1,500) hired him as its first recreation director in 1954.
Four years later, Cornwall hired him as its first recreation director.
It was a bold step for a lily-white community that in 1960 had its share of rednecks.
Turner was a graduate of New York City University (bachelor of physical education), spent a season with the Chicago White Sox one year after the courageous Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s colour barrier and toured for one season with the Harlem Globetrotters.
His legacy is a recreation program that is second to none in the small city category.
He laid the foundation.
Sadly, Turner never got to see the seeds that he sowed grow into what we have today.
He died, at age 35, on April 23, 1962.
His heart stopped during a minor operation at Cornwall General Hospital.
He was revived, but spent several days in a coma before passing away with his wife Dorris, his mom and two aunts at his bedside.
Thousands filed past his casket in St. Paul’s United Church.
He is buried in Athens, Ont.
A few weeks after his death, city council voted unanimously to name the new recreation centre that was built during his tenure after him: the Bob Turner Memorial Centre.
A bronze bust of Bob Turner was commissioned by council and placed in the showcase in the centre’s lobby.
The bust for some unexplained reason has been mothballed and next year the centre will be torn down.
City council has refused to name one of the ice pads in the new Benson Centre after Turner.
They either don’t understand the historical significance of Turner’s tenure, or …
One councillor scoffed at the notion of naming an ice pad (the names have been sold off) after Turner .
“If he (Turner) hadn’t been black, they would never have named it (centre) after him,” the councillor told this scribbler.
Yes, and if Jackie Robinson hadn’t been black nobody would have named a school after him.
Like Robinson, our Bob Turner helped tear down a barrier.
By hiring Bob Turner, the city council of the day made Cornwall a model of racial tolerance, at a time when racism, especially in hiring, was discreetly practised in this country.
Many residents of Colborne (near Belleville) attended his funeral (in Cornwall).
A few days later one of them wrote a letter to the Colborne weekly newspaper: “Bob’s life had known no limits and his deeds would be a living memorial to every man, woman and child who had known him. We, from Colborne, listened and how vividly we could recall the fine things this man had also done for our town.”
The parent of a band member said Turner was “a man who had an enormous impact on the young people of the village (Colborne).”
An editorial in the Standard-Freeholder said, “Bob Turner was one of Cornwall’s most popular city officials, particularly with children. Since coming to Cornwall, Mr. Turner organized and correlated physical, social and cultural activities in a recreation program which has been described as one of the best in the province.”
Mayor Nick Kaneb said of Turner, “He often went beyond the line of duty in performing his duties.”
While this community, sadly, seems to have swept Bob Turner’s memory/legacy under the rug, or at least is doing a pretty good job at trying to do just that, his legacy is alive and well in Colborne.
In 2009, when the local marching band, which Turner nurtured while recreation director, held its anniversary, his widow and two daughters were the town’s guests of honour.
We keep hearing that the city council plans to keep Bob Turner’s name alive with some sort of plaque at the new Benson Centre.
Sounds like a shameful downgrade from having your name on a recreation centre, but, nevertheless, city council missed an opportunity to tie this kind of announcement to its proclamation of Black History Month.
Tidbits About Jamaica
Do you know of other extraordinary fun tidbits about Jamaica? What about other accomplishments of Caribbean islands? If you do, please send them to cbtuontario@gmail.com for us to share with the membership.
Fun Facts About Jamaica
Jamaica had electricity in 1892, long before most of the United States.
Falmouth had running water before New York City.
Jamaica had phone cards before the United States.
Their phone system was so sophisticated it was copied by AT&T.
Jamaica has the most “churches” per square mile of any country in the world, with over 1,600 “churches” all over Jamaica. Source: Guinness Book of World Records. That number is growing.
Jamaica was the first country in the Western world to construct a railway, even before the United States. This was only 18 years after Britain.
Although Haiti was the first Caribbean nation to gain independence in 1804 from France, Jamaica is the first Caribbean Country to gain Independence from the British West Indies colonies in 1962, resulting in the collapse of the West Indies Federation.
Jamaica is the first team from the English-speaking Caribbean to qualify for the Football (Soccer) World Cup. This was the 1998 championship.
The only countries to have won more Miss World titles than Jamaica are India, Venezuela and the UK, but considering the size of Jamaica, you have to say that this achievement is monumental.
On his second voyage to the New World in 1494, the tip of the Blue Mountains in Jamaica was the first land sighted by Christopher Columbus.
Jamaica was the first commercial producer of bananas in the Western Hemisphere.
Jamaica also was the first island in the Caribbean to produce rum on a commercial basis.
The Manchester Golf Club in Jamaica, established in 1868, is the oldest in the western hemisphere.
2006-2007: World Fastest man and woman were both Jamaicans (Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson)
2008/2009 – Olympic/World fastest man and woman were also both Jamaicans (Usain Bolt and Shelley-Ann Fraser )
Jamaica has more multiple (two or more) live births than anywhere else in the world.
Jamaica was the first country to impose economic sanctions against the apartheid regime of South Africa.
Jamaica is the third largest island in the Caribbean.
Jamaica was the first Caribbean island to enact legislation, “The Motion Picture Industry (Encouragement) Act” to promote the making of films.
Jamaica is the first country to sign a Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria grant agreement.
Jamaica was the first tropical country to enter the IOC Winter Olympics. The bob sleigh team’s efforts inspired the film ‘Cool Runnings’.
Jamaica was the first colony England acquired by conquest. This was in the year 1655 when the Spanish were driven from the island.
We have the second largest butterfly in the world (The Giant Swallowtail).
Another of the interesting facts on Jamaica is that it was the first British colonial territory to establish a postal service (in 1688).
Jamaica was the first Caricom country to liberalize the telecommunications sector. Since then, other Caricom countries have opened up to competition.
Interestingly, Jamaica was the first country in the Caribbean region to launch a web site, www.jamaicatravel.com, in 1994.
And of course, Jamaica is the birth place of reggae legend Robert (“Bob”) Marley!
