By Tom Read
Music, dancers, poems, jokes, skits -- and a splendid dinner menu straight from Ireland -- made tonight’s St. Patrick’s Day Dinner at the Legion one to remember. Proceeds from this "sold out" event will help with the Texada Legion’s building fund.
The Texada Legion (Royal Canadian Legion Branch 232) is one of Texada Island’s most cherished community institutions. It’s a place of birthdays, weddings, funerals, remembrance ceremonies, concerts and dances, kids’ parties, darts games, crib competition, billiards contests, poker tournaments, political debates, dinner meetings, public meetings, private meetings and just plain socializing with food, drink and convivial conversation. And it’s all kept afloat by volunteers, of whom I’m proud to be one.
I’ve only been a member since 2007, but Texada’s Legion branch is 61 years old, and has occupied its current hall on Legion Road in Van Anda for about five decades. Alas, deferred maintenance has gradually taken its toll over the years, and today our much-loved hall is quite obviously in need of repairs and refurbishing. This is both a challenge and a great opportunity. The challenge is daunting: we need a new roof, new flooring, new heating system, foundation repairs, renovated kitchen and washrooms, upgrades to electrical, plumbing, and lighting systems, and many other physical improvements. These changes will require significant funds, and raising those funds will not be easy in volatile economic times.
As for the opportunity, what better way to revitalize an organization than to assertively take on such a challenge? Indeed, in the last few months the Texada Legion’s members and friends have started brainstorming and researching what we’d like our branch to look like five years into the future, and an enthusiastic outpouring of volunteer energy and community support — including from many friends in Powell River — has already started to flow. What is emerging is a growing sense of confidence that our organization, along with its physical home, will endure and even thrive.
It’s all quite exhilarating to me, this gathering transition from depressed worries about leaks in the roof to an ever-stronger belief in a secure future for our place and its people. In posts to come I’ll cover more specifics about the changes happening at our branch, but for now you can take a peek at our brand new website at www.texadalegion.org. It’s all a work in progress so do keep checking back.
