The Our Town - Clarenville Blog by Paul Tilley

Have you noticed the price of houses in Clarenville.   Prices are bumping into the stratosphere and this s taking a bigger bite out of every new buyer's budget.   If you are of limited financial means this this means that buying a house is becoming next to impossible and renting is becoming a major challenge. So what are we to do as a community? That's the question that the Town has posed and has generally it has been answerd by saying that the the market dictates price and if the price is too high there is little that the Town can do. A role for the Town? The Town's municipal plan clearly spells out a role of the Town.  Corner Brook  has the workings of a potential model for Clarenville.   That city provides non-profit organization's who are involved in developing affordable housing tax relief....if the Town of Clarenville sees a role for itself, this may be an idea worth pursuing here.    

I've been doing a lot of beating around over the summer, walking, running, driving and the like and I have come across a bunch of things that caught my eye that I think add greatly to the value of the town (Potential),  can be improved with minimal effort (Real) and that are downright scary (Life).  Here's what I saw: POTENTIAL Outstanding Community Involvement - The Kraft TSN Celebration Tour.  Clarenville won this competition with over 350,000 votes.  If ever person that voted, voted an average of 100 times that would mean that 3,500 people and businesses were engaged.  In fact Clarenville had the highest vote total in Canada!!  Now, if we can get that many engaged for the opportunity to win $25,000 and an hour of national TV coverage, surely we should be able to get as many involved in other critically important town issues - like voting. Dog poop on the trails is one of the banes of my, and many others, walking existence.  I was so glad to see this disp

Ahh the Newfoundland Kitchen party was alive and well at the Clarenville Events Centre this week as we began Clarenville Days 2012 Enjoy! Goowiddy Adam Randell Accordion Time Bond Peddle Evelyn Avery Curtis and Joseph Blackmore Darryl Duke Fireworks

Monday marked the beginning of Clarenville Day's here in Clarenville.  Clarenville Days is a week long celebration of what we have in Clarenville.  Last evening we celebrated what could be. After a year long development process, last night the Town unveiled its new branding strategy and logo - Real - Life - Potential . Pilot Communications designed the logo, slogan and the marketing material including a new town website ( www.clarenville.net   ) that you will see compliment the branding strategy.  kudos to them for suggesting such a  bold move and kudos to the Town Council for buying into it. (The degree to which we see the town buy-in and live up to the "Brand Promise" remains to bee seen - I am watching to see real change - See my previous post on this  http://ourtownclarenville.blogspot.ca/2012/04/sizzle-steak-brand-aid-for-clarenville.html  ).   The new logo is a complete departure from the traditional wheel and goose logos that we have seen in the past.

WOW! You could feel the tension inside the Clarenville Events Centre tonight.  Over 250 people packed the hall to hear a 3 second announcement. Here's what it looked like: After an all-nighter of voting and the dedicated support of many-many people and businesses CLARENVILLE won the Kraft Celebration Tour match-up! Final vote count: 385,717 votes for Clarenville to 354,727 for for Canning, NS. For two "small" towns that's a lot of community spirit in both! Elizabeth Swan Memorial Park will now be awarded $25,000 by Kraft foods to help make improvements.   TSN SportsCentre will also broadcast live from Clarenville on August 18th!  This was a huge community building effort that literally extended across the country - thank you all for your active involvement in making it such a success.  If you don't live in Clarenville please visit - and make sure you stop by the park that you will help improve. Emcee - Councillor Rod Nicholl Mayor Fred Best

The day is here! Today, Clarenville is paired in voting competition with Canning NS for the Kraft/TSN Celebration tour Competition prize of $25,000 for park upgrades. The voting window opens at 1:30 pm NL time for 24 hours. We are asking you to vote and vote often for us. On Wednesday evening the winning announcement will take place on TSN's SportsCentre at 6 pm EST (Wednesday 7:30 pm Newfoundland Time). Clarenville's video will begin running Tuesday at noon EST (1:30 pm Newfoundland time)both both on TV and online. OUR VIDEO TSN Video about the Clarenville/Canning Challenge Here's the voting process (Starting a 1:30 NST Tuesday):   1. Go to www.kraftcelebrationtour.ca    2. Click the Blue VOTE NOW button at the top of the between the pictures of both communities.  3. VOTE for  Elizabeth Swan Memorial Park Clarenville . 4. You have to read and type the "Captcha" code (It consist of two separate jumbles of letters. If you cann

    When Jill Monk first sent me an email on her plan to nominate Clarenville‘s Elizabeth Swan Park for the Kraft/TSN Celebration Tour, I have to admit that I knew little to nothing about neither the plan nor the tour.  But it intrigued me. I did not need to be convinced of the value of Elizabeth Swan Park.  Quite a few years ago, when our children were younger the Moody family and our family proposed to the Town that we upgrade the town’s playgrounds. With a lot of work it happened.  Elizabeth Swan’s playground was renovation #1 and we feel good about the work we had done there to make the park better.  Having been a park user for so many years, and having seen other similar community parks across the country; I am always interested in dreaming up ways to improve our park.  I noted in an earlier blog the opportunity to add a new multipurposechalet .  Jill’s thinking was truly aligned with my way of thinking.   After a bit of research (anyone can be an expert on any is