On Thursday, September 7th, 2006 the Glenorchy Residents’ Association hosted a cocktail reception in the new lobby of the Toronto Botanical Garden.  What an incredible turnout we had! Around 80 people came out that evening to see the new garden and to meet other area residents. 

          The invitations were hand delivered by five of our own residents.
 
The elegant affair (complete with white table linen, china and stemware, candlelight, flowers and Diana Krall music—all provided gratis by the committee) was organized by a group of nine ladies: Rose Abbott (Saintfield), Susan Go (Suncrest), Frida Lacaria (Suncrest), Mitra Parsa (Saintfield), Ruth Reuben (Suncrest), Bev Salmon (Suncrest), Rose Shariff  (Royal Oak) and Mary Wahl (Salonica) under the leadership of Carol Lavine (Saintfield). 

To help people identify each other on the same street, Bev Salmon had the brilliant idea of colour-coding the nametags according to streets. 

We had a wonderful spread consisting of hot & cold hors d’oeuvres, desserts, and beverages of Canadian, Spanish, Greek and Middle Eastern origin.  There were very generous donations from Inniskillin Winery, Longo’s, Oliver & Bonacini Restaurants and Pusateri’s.  Most of the foods were home made and the recipes are available if requested. 

After a bit of socializing, Carol Lavine offered the welcoming remarks and started our meeting.  Jenny Rhodenizer from the TBG spoke about the new $7 million building and garden renovations.  Evelyn Hurwitz (Royal Oak) introduced our councilor, Cliff Jenkins, who graciously offered his time to talk about some topics that our association might want to explore in depth.  He briefly touched upon the Toronto Official Plan and the proposed developments along Bayview Avenue, which will directly impact on our neighbourhood.  He suggested that we consider building a ‘war chest’ ($100 donation from each household) in case major issues arise in the future that would require us to lobby as an association.  Time did not permit us to address all the concerns that impact on our neighbourhood.  Mary Wahl thanked Cliff for his time and indicated that we will have another resident get-together in January to continue our discussions.  She also introduced the new Glenorchy Association website, www.glenorchyresidents.com, which has been set up by Tony Lee (Suncrest) and that it will be a forum for area residents to receive information about our neighbourhood and offer comments in the form of blogs.

Sammy Lee (Royal Oak), who spearheaded the reorganization of the Glenorchy Rate Payers’ Association six months ago, was on a cruise with his family and was not able to attend that night.  Alan Lavine (Saintfield) gave us a brief history of the Glenorchy Residents’ Association and asked people to fill out the membership forms.  He mentioned that Alan Connors is working on a newsletter that will be going out sometime in the fall. 

The event at the TBG was meant to be a social event to reactivate the Glenorchy Residents’ Association.  Many residents commented that it was a great opportunity to meet one another and to discuss some pertinent issues.  Some of the longer-living Glenorchy residents shared the history of the area with newer residents.  Everyone agreed that we need to create more community spirit and address common issues that affect our neighbourhood. 

After the meeting was adjourned, people stayed to enjoy the wonderful refreshments and to continue socializing.  What was intended to be a ‘reception’ turned out to be a ‘party’ and ended at around 11o’clock that night. 

The event has shown that there is a great deal of enthusiasm in reactivating our residents’ association and that we have a strong base of members for future functions.