• invited former members of Fort York Management Board to join us after Council stopped appointing advisory boards for city museums; in the process we secured three new directors.
• expended $160,000 on a Guard and Drum Squad of 28 young men and women to animate the site. Once again, they participated and won awards on CNE Warriors’ Day and in re-enactments at Fort George, Niagara.
• worked with the fort staff to establish a kitchen garden in the northwest bastion and with over 80 volunteers who tend 38 raised beds in the community food garden on the north ramparts.
• published a quarterly newsletter, Fife & Drum, and sent it by e-mail to almost 3000 addresses. Issues included pieces on horseracing and music and at the fort, the Smith lumber mill (now co-op housing) at Strachan and Wellington, book reviews on Isaac Brock and Stanley Barracks.
• provided as in other years two or three days of volunteer time weekly to organizing the growing collections of books, files, and images in the fort’s research centre.
• ran three full-page ads supporting the fort and 1812 Bicentennial in award-winning Spacing magazine.
• held our 13th annual Georgian Dinner where Lt-Gen. Jonathon Riley, Master of UK’s Royal Armouries, proposed a toast to Isaac Brock, the subject of his latest book.
• successfully urged Council to exempt Fort York from a study to combine local museums with Heritage Toronto and Preservation Services branch based on the fort’s size and significance.
• saw seven years’ work bear fruit when title to Victoria Memorial Square was transferred from the Government of Canada to the City, and landscaping of the park completed.
• held a Directors’ Dinner for those closely connected with the Friends and the fort.
• put eight more images in process to decorate the walls of the Assembly Room, Blue Barracks.
• held 11 monthly board meetings. One director at least, often more, attended every special event and function held at the fort.
• continued to operate parking concessions concurrent with major events at Exhibition Place.
• overcame problems in securing an acceptable design for our website, then refocused our efforts in concert with a new designer.
• sponsored six events in the Parler Fort series and helped plan a new series of notices in the Toronto Star advertising each event.
• co-sponsored two ceremonies where up to 40 people at each received Canadian citizenship.
Original printed pages
