After a month of rising water and sandbagging, the Village of Borden was finally able to have a clean-up day May 25.Volunteers came throughout the rainy day with bobcats, pay loaders, track hoes, trucks and trailers to haul the over 40,000 sandbags up to the southeast corner of the sports ground were others were waiting to cut open the bags and dump the sand.
Lunch, morning and afternoon snacks were provided on site where everyone was working; then everyone was invited to the community centre for supper at 5 p.m. About 250 were on hand to partake of the ribs, smokies, coleslaw and baked potatoes with squares, cookies and watermelon for dessert. Many businesses and individuals had donated the food over the past three weeks. There was still enough left to provide a hot lunch to the students and staff at Borden School May 27.
After the meal, Tom Redhead was MC, inviting Mayor Dave Buckingham to speak. Buckingham thanked all the volunteers saying, "you are the best." He thanked everyone for the donated food that was available for eight to 10 days 24 hours a day and the staff and village councillors along with the RM councillors, all of whom met two days a week. He especially thanked Reeve Ron Saunders and Scott Sutherland who worked tirelessly for three weeks, setting aside their own farming or business to help out.
Ron Saunders thanked everyone for pitching in and said nobody complained no matter what their job. He thanked everyone for coming out that evening, stating Borden is a great community where everyone looks after each other. Ron also thanked Don Tanner and his crew from Radisson who helped out many days. Ron asked everyone to please slow down when driving in the country as the roads are very soft in some places.
Randy from EMO gave a big tip of the hat to the community and to Radisson. He said they were nearly the best he's been at since 2007, the way everyone worked together for the village and town.
Mayor of Radisson, Don Tanner joked about sending all their water down to Borden, but the crisis did pull the two communities closer together and he hopes it helps to tear down some of the barriers that have been built up over the years between the two communities. He said it was great to work together - both council and volunteers - and that Borden faced flooding 10 times worse than what Radisson had to contend with.
Following the speeches, a video was running of the flooding around and in Borden, music was playing and there were refreshments and snacks until after midnight.
Gerry Wainwright thanked Kandice Brandrick for being the EMO organizer, the students from Borden School and the surrounding communities. Jamie Brandrick is very glad he choose Borden to live. He also thanked the school kids, all volunteers, Ron Saunders, Dave Buckingham, all the village and RM councils and told how the students one day bagged 15,000 sandbags in one hour.
Also thanked were: Elizabeth Derksen, who started out as food organizer then got help from Kendall Redhead and Denise Nichol; Pam Pidwerbesky and Tony Martens; Al and Denise Nichol, who closed down their cafe for one week to help out; the firemen who sometimes were on duty for up to 24 hours; and the RM maintenance crew who spent hours at the sites. A standing ovation was held to thank everyone for all their effort in overcoming what could have been a major disaster.
Borden School held a Family Fun Night May 23. After a long winter it was time to shake off the winter blues and have fun, with games for children of all ages, relay races and music provided by Avery Fairbrother playing guitar and singing. The evening ended with a barbecue for everyone.
Borden Co-operative Association held their postponed supper and annual meeting May 21 in the Borden Community Centre with 93 tickets sold for the roast beef supper catered by the Borden United Church. John Buswell was appointed chairman and Ruben Remple recording secretary for the meeting. Gary Nickel gave the president's report in place of Rod Roenspies, stating the Borden Co-op had a good year in 2012 with the card lock paid for and showing a profit.
General manager (GM) Geoff German spoke on his 16 years in the co-op, starting out as meat manager and moving around to quite a few co-ops until becoming GM at Hepburn co-op four years ago with Borden added on last year. The local co-op only stays viable as long as the members patronize the stores, buying locally instead of in the city, and the card lock has been a good investment, with many farmers using slip tanks and picking up their fuel rather than having it delivered to the farm. He thanked all the staff at the grocery and hardware store for their efforts to attract more customers.
German went over the financial statements, showing sales of $4,092,349, cost of goods at $3,714,750 for a gross margin of $377,599. Expenses were $511,251 resulting in a loss of $91,637 which is down from the loss of $125,689 in 2011. Patronage refunds from Federated were $320,819 resulting in net savings of $213,581 enabling the local co-op to give out allocations to members of $73,019. With a breakdown from the three departments, the grocery store lost $38,000 (less than the previous year), the hardware and bulk fuel lost $1,058 due to card lock pickups and the card lock itself had a profit of $56,000. Hopefully more will shop locally, then all departments could show a profit rather than some a loss.
Luke Walker gave a report as FCL delegate, citing Federated had $8.7 billion in sales, $6.7 million in costs, $718 million of profit and returned $527 million to its members. He told of new logos/brands coming out. The refinery is fully operational processing 145,000 barrels a day. A new terminal at Carlsbad will open. New technology is expensive but will last 10 years. There is an app for smartphones that will tell you where all the card locks are in Western Canada. Federated is satisfying the needs/demands from the largest to the smallest co-ops. Co-ops can only become stronger as we are all part of a strong organization creating value for its members.
FCL was appointed auditor for 2013. Roy Saunders was re-elected to the board with directors Rod Roenspies, Gary Nickel, Denise Nichol, Luke Walker, David Sutherland, Daved Meakin and GM Geoff German.
Door prizes were drawn for throughout the meeting and they went to Jean Sawchyn, Martha Rempel, Archie Wainwright, Tony Martens and Rob Schmidt.
