Remembrance Day ceremonies in Grey Bruce Thursday will look a bit more like those of pre-pandemic years.
In-person Ceremonies are set to be held in communities throughout the area. Some local legions will also be streaming their ceremonies on Facebook or You Tube.
Owen Sound Legion President Patty Sargent-Gibson says there will, however be fewer participants in the actual event in downtown Owen Sound with about 100 people marching and laying wreaths within barriers that will be set up.
The community is invited to attend on the other side of the barriers.
Sargent-Gibson says the march will be shorter this year, going down 1st Avenue West from 9th Street to the cenotaph.
The Owen Sound ceremony will be aired live on Bayshore Broadcasting’s AM 560 CFOS and also televised on Rogers Grey County TV.
“I hope that we do see some people down at the cenotaph. It’s always nice to share it with the public,” says Sargent-Gibson who notes the pandemic version of the ceremony felt strange last year, describing it as kind of an ‘eerie silence’ without the community and the veterans in attendance.
She notes there will be some Afghanistan veterans in attendance this year in Owen Sound.
In Tara, Afghanistan veteran and Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MP Alex Ruff says he’ll be participating in the ceremony in his hometown as he always does, explaining, “It means so much to me, but for many Canadians…I think you’re hard pressed, if you go back family-wise for anybody that’s a multigenerational Canadian that doesn’t know somebody that has served at some time over the last 100 years in our Canadian Armed Forces.”
Ruff says, “For me, having lost six of my own soldiers in Afghanistan in 2007 and us having Corporal Mitchell that was killed in the Fall of 2006, from Owen Sound– I just think it’s so important to never forget the sacrifices that those Canadians have made and those that are still serving and everything that they do for us as a country. To me it’s the most important day of the year.”
Ruff joined the Tara legion a month before he joined the military where he had a 25 year career with overseas deployments in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Afghanistan and Iraq before retiring as a Colonel in early 2019.
Elsewhere in Grey Bruce, the Wiarton Remembrance Day ceremony will begin at 10:30 a.m. with a colour party leading the parade starting from the Legion on Boyd St. to the Cenotaph. The legion says it would appreciate any legion members or local veterans who are able to March, joining them at 10:00 am.
The ceremony will also be streamed on the Wiarton Legion Branch 208 Facebook page.
The Southampton Legion will hold its ceremony at the cenotaph on High Street.
The Port Elgin Legion will hold a ceremony at Cenotaph Park. It will also be livestreamed on Facebook and YouTube from the SouthPort Church’s pages.
The Flesherton Legion says there will be ceremonies at both the Flesherton and Markdale cenotaphs on November at 10:45 a.m.
There are more legions in Grey Bruce. You can look for their websites or Facebook pages to find out more about Remembrance Day ceremonies in your area.
Meanwhile, Patty Sargent-Gibson says for Owen Sound, Legion membership is significantly down this year by about 300. She says some legions, including hers in Owen Sound are still suffering due to the pandemic, “We still have condensed hours. We’re only open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. We used to be open six days a week.” She hopes to start dinners again soon but says, “Without volunteers and without people coming into the branch to support it—it’s financially, not a good business decision to make, opening up doors and not having anybody sitting in there.”
They’re looking for volunteers and new faces bring new ideas that could help them reinvigorate the legion.
She says federal funding, and funding through Ontario Command and Dominion Command has helped to keep them afloat, and notes there were also some generous donations from the community during the pandemic, “Which is very heartwarming,” says Sargent-Gibson, explaining, “Because you don’t really know how much you’re appreciated and then all of a sudden the donations start coming because they know how important we are to the community as a whole and how the legions have always been there. It doesn’t matter what city or town you’re in– the legions have always been there to help in one way or another.”