Well, Centennial has come and gone and I should probably blog about it before it slips my memory. The four days have kind of blurred together and I have a pretty nasty cold now, so I do no promise complete chronological accuracy. I will do this one day at a time since there’s no way I have the patience to blog about the whole four days at once.

When I left you last, we had set up many of the tents for the weekend and were getting ready for volunteer orientation. Orientation went as expected and we had about 50 people on hand. We could have easily used 200 volunteers throughout, but those that we had were AMAZING! We also had many drop-in volunteers during the weekend, but I’ll get to that later.



Thursday, September 10th started out as any other day at the office would, although I had to be here at 7:30am to make sure the trailer (which we were using for our stage) was parked in the correct spot. It’s arrived promptly at 7:35 and afterwards I went to check my email and do other office-like routines. At about 10:00 volunteers arrived to start decorating the stage and building operations removed the fencing around the Legacy Art Project and covered it in a tarp.



I don’t remember exactly what I was doing that morning, but I recall I was out of the office and missed most of the decorating. Regardless, the volunteers turned an ugly old trailer into a very nice looking stage.



Shortly after they were done, one of the fellows at work set up the audio system we were using for the evening. I was to be in charge of A/V that night, but I had someone more competent set it up! The audio worked great, but after it was done I had to figure out the visual part on my own. This was all outside and it presented some unique challenges. I hooked up the City laptop and projector and everything on that end worked fine. It was far too bright out to see anything the projector was showing, but we knew it was going to be dark when we showed our video. My main challenge, and this was unexpected, was the screen. The city owns a large collapsible screen, so I figured that would serve us well. Unfortunately it was extremely windy out, so the screen was like a giant sail. Even after I tried to weigh it down, it would still blow over. We tried plan ‘B’ which was to use two big pieces of cloroplast with a wooden base. However the wind was still a problem. I tried putting them against a wall of city hall, but that didn’t work. What must have been plan ‘E’ was proposed by one of our building operations managers. We could borrow one of the large metal fences that previously concealed the art project and then tie the cloroplast to it with zip ties. After a frantic drive to a construction site to retrieve the fencing, we brought it back and it worked perfectly! I was honestly about to give up on the whole thing, but a few persistent people with clever minds came through for me!

Before the public portion of the evening started, we had a private reception for our dignitaries. They included our MP - Blake Richards, our MLA - Rob Anderson, Minister of Culture and Community Spirit - Lindsay Blackett, Lieutenant Governor - Norman Kwong, Provost of Airdrie Scotland - Tum Curley, and en entire delegation from our sister city of Gwacheon, South Korea, including Mayor Yeo.



I felt rather awkward during this part of the evening, and for the most part stayed away, ran some last minute errands and tested out the sound system with the MC, Deputy Mayor, Shawn Howard. We were just about ready to start off the ceremonies at 7:00pm when we found out that it was decided to show the dignitaries the Airdrie Centennial DVD inside before heading outside. This was fine, but it put our whole agenda behind schedule by about 15 minutes.



We finally got going at 7:15 and the dignitaries went onto the stage complete with bagpipe accompaniment. There were lots of great speeches, gift giving, and general comradery amongst our guests. Despite the very formal procedures surrounding the Lieutenant Governor, his speech was very informal and quite funny. He made fun of his wife, who was on stage, more than once! Unfortunately there were some hang-ups with the evening. Of course the audio decided to be finicky. Several times a large amount of feedback came from the speakers and everyone shot me looks when it happened. I don’t know what was going on! Actually, I think it was because we had a monitor speaker facing the dignitaries. The monitor was for the singer we were having later, so I really should have had it facing away until he went up. Anyway, someone eventually did move it, so it was okay after that. The other problem was that because we were behind schedule, it started to get dark while people were still speaking. This wasn’t supposed to happen until after the art was unveiled. :/

Anyway, the art was unveiled successfully by our volunteers and I think everyone liked it. It was commission by the City of Airdrie and the Centennial Committee and was done by artist Honsun Chu out of Cochrane. If you’re curious what it all means, here’s the description:



“The big sphere represents Airdrie, and each ring represents ten years since its inception in 1909. The three square beams represent three elements; time, space, and people. These elements support and were influenced by the growth and development of Airdrie over the past 100 years. These three beams represent the essence of the city; they are interrelated. If we study their movement, time advances in a linear direction, space expands three dimensionally, and people are the most dynamic force that move freely. Time advances in a linear direction, therefore we always have past, present, and future. People represents the residents, the communities, the businesses, the government and all the activities. People are the creator, the force that makes a location into a city. Space represents expansion and growth.”



After unveiling the art, we immediately showed our Centennial DVD. I wish I had an online version I could imbed as it’s absolutely amazing, but we are trying to sell copies (only $5!). As soon as the video was done (which went off without a hitch) the fireworks were set off, everyone had free birthday cake, and the evening was done. A tremendous success!