The Liverpool junior curling program at the Liverpool Curling Club teaches youth from 5 to 19. (Rick Conrad)
The possible next generation of Brad Gushues or Colleen Joneses head to the Liverpool Curling Club twice a week to work on their throwing, sweeping and hurrying hard.
The Liverpool junior curling program counts about 26 Queens County youth from five to 19 years old.
Instructors teach the kids various skills during the hour-long sessions twice a week. The youth work toward certain benchmarks and gaining badges before going on to the next level.
QCCR dropped in on a session on a recent Saturday to see what it was all about. Here are some of the sounds and people involved in the Liverpool junior curling program.
Organizers say Liverpool water conservation measures could add unexpected costs to the Canadian mixed doubles curling trials Dec. 30 to Jan. 4 at Queens Place Emera Centre. (Pixabay)
Water conservation measures in Liverpool may affect the Canadian mixed doubles curling trials being held in the area at the end of the year.
The Region of Queens has been asking municipal water users to cut their consumption in half. Because of a lack of fall rainfall, water levels in the Town Lake Reservoir are uncharacteristically low.
Greg Thorbourne, chairman of the Liverpool Championship Host Society, said this week that if the area doesn’t get substantial amounts of rain soon, the group may have to truck in water to replace what they’ll use during the event.
“Everybody’s being asked to use 50 per cent less and they expect us to use 50 per cent less and/or replace the water we use. So we’re trying to implement plans now to make that happen.
“That’s going to be a big cost if we have to go that route. We’re doing everything we can, praying for rain, fingers crossed and toes crossed that it doesn’t happen. But if it does, we have to be ready for it and buy water from somewhere.”
The area got about 45 millimetres of rain on Thursday, according to Environment Canada. It’s unclear if that’s enough to help. Nobody from the region was available for an interview this week.
Even though the trials are being held at the municipally owned Queens Place, Thorbourne said the host society may have to truck in water from an approved source to replenish the reservoir.
Seven teams have qualified already for the event. Up to 16 teams are expected to compete in Liverpool for the chance to represent Canada in mixed doubles curling at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.
It appeared earlier in the week that the event may have received an unexpected financial boost.
The J&W Murphy Foundation donated almost $149,927 to the Region of Queens. The foundation suggested the money be used to enhance curling infrastructure, programs and services in Liverpool.
Mersey Seafoods is owned by the Murphy family. But it is a separate entity from the foundation.
At their meeting on Monday, councillors voted to give $112,427 to the Liverpool Curling Club and $37,500 to the host society.
Thorbourne said the funding from the foundation via the region was money they had expected.
The foundation’s Lisa Murphy told QCCR that it can donate only to registered charities and other qualified organizations. The region is one of them.
“So we expressed a preference and that’s all we did and then after that, we step back,” she said. “As the donor, we can’t insist on it and we can’t get a refund if they don’t do it. The separation has to be there. It has to be entirely in the control of the region.”
There was some confusion at the council meeting on Monday about the Murphy Foundation donation.
Coun. Courtney Wentzell asked whether it was the foundation’s wish that the money go to both groups.
“So it’s not a coincidence that it’s the exact same money to a tee that Murphys gave us and the curling club wants,” he said.
CAO Cody Joudry said it’s up to the region to decide how the money is spent.
“I don’t think there’s any reason to hold onto any of it,” Joudry said.
Thorbourne said any donations are appreciated as the event draws closer.
“We’re just looking for support where we can get it,” he said.
“It’s a major event when you stop and think that the winner from here goes directly to the Olympics. For a small community like Liverpool, just to be involved in something of this magnitude, the community should be proud of putting it on.
“Anything you can do to help us out business-wise, if you can’t afford to put up dollars and cents, maybe they can donate some food for the volunteers. There’s all kinds of different ways you can help.”
About 100 volunteers have already signed up to help. Thorbourne said that if businesses or individuals want to contribute, they can contact him, Lorna MacPherson, Melissa Robinson, Ralph Gidney or Kim Whalen. They can also get in touch through the organizers’ Facebook page.
Full event packages and single tickets are available from Queens Place Emera Centre or through Ticketpro.
Mike Murphy of Mersey Seafoods announces the company’s sponsorship of the Canadian mixed doubles curling trials, beginning Dec. 30 at Queens Place Emera Centre in Liverpool. (Rick Conrad)
As one of the people bringing the Canadian mixed doubles curling trials to Liverpool in December, you’d expect Greg Thorbourne to love the sport.
“I used to hate mixed doubles,” he told a crowd on Monday at the Liverpool Curling Club.
“I thought, ‘Who the hell would ever play that game?’”
But after working at the last two national mixed doubles curling events, the longtime booster of curling in Queens County was quickly converted.
“Watching the calibre of curling, the shots made, the number of rocks in play, I don’t think there’s a better game in this world than mixed doubles.”
Thorbourne, chairman of the Liverpool Championship Host Society, was speaking at an event at the curling club Monday to kick off the volunteer recruitment effort for the mixed doubles curling trials planned for Dec. 30 to Jan. 4 at Queens Place Emera Centre.
The host society has been working on securing the trials since last June.
It’s the first of three major qualifying events in Nova Scotia for the 2026 Winter Olympics. Wolfville is hosting the full-team Canadian pre-trials in October 2025, and Halifax will host the Canadian curling trials in November 2025.
Sixteen teams will compete in Liverpool for the chance to represent Canada in mixed doubles curling in Italy.
Queens MLA Kim Masland speaks at an event at the Liverpool Curling Club on Monday to kick off volunteer recruitment for the Canadian mixed doubles curling trials in December in Liverpool. (Rick Conrad)
About 50 people turned out for the event in Liverpool on Monday, including Queens MLA and Public Works Minister Kim Masland, Region of Queens Mayor Darlene Norman and Liverpool native Jill Brothers, who skipped Canada to a silver medal at the 2004 world junior championships.
Thorbourne said he’d like to have about 150 volunteers for the event. Liverpool hosted the 2021 pre-trial curling trials, where the volunteer numbers were lower because of Covid.
“Normally, we have between 135 and 150. With Covid the last time, we were down around 85 so this time we’re looking at getting back up so that people don’t have to spend as many hours on site as they did the last time.”
He said they’re already getting calls from across Canada from people who want to volunteer.
“Last week, I got two calls from B.C., three from Ontario, a couple from up North, a few from Alberta, the Prairies. This is the first of three Olympic trial events in Nova Scotia. So a lot of these people will come here and get trained, work here and move forward.”
Mike Murphy, chief financial and chief operating officer of Mersey Seafoods, also announced the Liverpool company’s sponsorship of the $255,000 event.
“We want to be part of the community and we want to give back to the community when we can,” he said in an interview. “And we think events like this are really good to showcase Liverpool, the South Shore, Queens County. It puts us on the world stage. People show up from all over Nova Scotia, Canada, all over the world and we think it’s great to showcase our community.”
The value of the sponsorship was not disclosed, but Thorbourne said later that it is “substantial”. The Region of Queens has also committed $19,140 to the event. Thorbourne said they are working on other sponsorships too.
Many people at Monday’s kickoff were signing up to volunteer. Valerie Lantz of Liverpool was one of them.
This will be her third curling event in Liverpool. She volunteered at the 2021 pre-trials and the 2019 World Junior Curling Championships.
“I was a curler, … so that’s what brings me to this. Now that I’m retired i can spend the time doing this sort of thing and i thoroughly enjoy it.”
She said the event will bring much-needed business to the community at a slow time of year.
“This will put people in rooms in hotels and in restaurants. And mixed curling, it’s such a high-energy fast sport, I think it will create new patrons to the event.”
Lantz said that volunteering at the curling trials in December will be worth your time.
“You’ll meet people not only from Liverpool volunteering but people from probably around the province. It’s just so much fun. And you get to see some great curling.”
Members of the Astor Theatre’s Seniors Connecting group produced a holiday play for QCCR in December. (QCCR photo)
Non-profit groups in Queens County can now apply for wellness funds through the Queens Community Health Board.
Past projects funded by the grants include a regular seniors art and craft get-together at the Astor Theatre, learning to curl sessions at the Liverpool Curling Club, and a podcast hosted by South Shore youth.
Groups can apply for up to $3,500 for new projects.
There are 35 community health boards across the province. People can apply to more than one board if their project occurs in more than one area.
Lorna MacPherson, vice-president of the Liverpool Curling Club. (Rick Conrad photo)
By Rick Conrad
The Liverpool Curling Club will be hosting some of the best curlers in Nova Scotia starting on Thursday.
The provincial mixed doubles championship will be held from Feb. 1 to 4 at the club in downtown Liverpool. Twelve teams will be competing to represent Nova Scotia at the Canadian championships in Fredericton from March 17 to 22.
Club vice-president Lorna MacPherson says it’s a great chance to see some high-level curling.
“The games are approximately an hour and a half in length and they’re fun to watch because it’s fast curling. It makes it really fun for spectators to watch the games.”
Canada won the first ever mixed doubles curling Olympic gold medal in the sport’s debut at the 2018 games in South Korea.
“It has created quite a following and it’s becoming more and more popular.”
MacPherson, who is co-chairing the event with Cheryl Innes, says they hosted it last year with nine teams competing. This year’s 12 teams also include hometown duo Matt Sheffield and Megan Trimm, who will be representing the Liverpool Curling Club.
The mixed doubles championship is free. People can just drop in for any of the games or practices beginning Thursday morning at 9:30.
“So our kitchen will be open for breakfast and for lunches and we welcome anybody from the community to come in and join us,” MacPherson says. “It’s certainly going to be fun curling to watch but we also are going to have great food to enjoy and I think they’ll find that it will be very warm hospitality at the curling club.”
All four of the rink’s ice sheets will be in play. There will be two draws on Thursday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.. And three on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
“We welcome the community. We want people to come in, and feel free to ask questions if they don’t understand what’s happening. It’s an opportunity for people in our community to see some fun curling, but also these are competitors, they’re athletes, they want to win and so there’s the combination of the competitiveness but in an environment that everybody can enjoy.”
A new youth drop-in centre has opened in Liverpool.
The YMCA celebrated the grand opening of their Liverpool location at 40 Water Street on Monday.
The centre will be a place for youth to enjoy activities, access the internet, play video games, or talk with an outreach worker.
CEO of the Southwest chapter of the YMCA Yvonne Smith says they’ve just opened the doors and will begin a process to tailor the centre’s offerings to those of the community.
“Whenever we enter into a community, we absolutely want to engage with those who we’ll be serving. So, our first goal will be to work with youth to find out what their needs are, so we definitely want to ensure that they are part of the process, part of the planning, and you know, involved in all of it and they have been,” said Smith. “So, even to the design of how you know centre will look we make sure that the youth have their input into that.”
Along with recreational activities the centre will also cooking programs and food to attendees.
Smith says the YMCA’s mandate is to provide services to the community, free of charge.
“One of the, you know, the commitments that we’ve made to youth programming in our communities is that they’ll be barrier free. So, we ensure that there’s not a fee to access,” said Smith. “And so to do so, we do, we turn over every stone and make sure that we access all the grants that are available, so it might be through community health boards and foundations, through United Way, through the province, through various grants, and we honestly probably have at any given time, you know, dozens and dozens of grants underway to make sure that we can financially support the work that we do.”
The drop-in was temporarily being run from the Liverpool Curling Club but Smith says they wanted a location of their own to provide more programming. The Water Street location was important to ensure students could walk from school and to other parts of town.
Smith says now that the YMCA has established themselves in Liverpool, they’ll be working with youth and other organizations to learn what service gaps they may be able to fill.
For information on programs and hours of operation head to the YMCA website.
To hear the broadcast of this story click play below.
The Liverpool curling club is once again undergoing major renovations.
The group is looking to cut costs with the installation of solar panels on the roof and improve accessibility with the construction of a modular ramp and power door.
The J and W Murphy Foundation recently provided Region of Queens with funding to be used for civic improvement projects.
Region of Queens council decided at their last meeting to award $236,000 of that funding for improvements to the Liverpool curling club.
Over the past couple of years, the club has spent around $750,000 improving the club through the installation of a new roof, improvements to the heating systems and insulation and transitioning to LED lighting.
Club president Gordon Sampson says while this is the first time they’ve received funding from the municipality the club has been successful in applying and making using of several provincial grants.
Sampson says they’ve seen awareness of the club drastically improve within the community since the renovations began.
“It’s exponentially higher than what we had expected even,” said Sampson. “The enthusiasm for the club has gone through the roof.”
In addition to hosting more bonspiels and club-based engagements such as trivia nights, Sampson says the community has made use of the building for a wide range of events from air cadet meetings to Privateer Days, public health COVID vaccination clinics to YMCA outreach programs.
He says opening their doors for use as a community hub aligns with the club’s core mission.
“We’re centrally located, we’re in the downtown core. What we can offer to the town and the region, that’s what we’re all about. That’s our mission statement,” said Sampson. “That’s what we want to do and that’s why we’ve been successful.”
Sampson says installing solar panels on the club will help them get away from oil and move to electric heating while cutting their costs.
He’s hopeful adding the electric heating to the already installed heat pumps will help make the club a Net-Zero building.
And members aren’t finished working to upgrade the club as they’re writing grants to replace the kitchen and furniture.
He says the club has earned a reputation for doing good work with the funding provided which makes it easier to apply for more funding.
“Once you get a track record you can show that you do what you say you’re going to do, well then, money becomes more readily available.”
Sampson expects work will begin on the new ramp and solar panels once the curling season wraps and the weather improves sometime around April.
Region of Queens Council listens to public comment in Brooklyn during the Jan 24 meeting. Screen shot from Region of Queens YouTube video.
Region of Queens council took the show on the road, holding the last meeting in January at the Brooklyn Community Hall.
A large number of residents came out to voice their support during the public comment section for building an indoor pool instead of the outdoor pool currently in the planning stages.
The proposal was made to take the money donated by an anonymous benefactor and combine it with the money the municipality has earmarked for the construction of a new library.
The proponents expected that would account for almost $6 million.
The group would like to see the province and federal governments each contribute matching funding to bring the total amount to $18 million and build the new library and pool at Queens Place.
At this point there is no formal plan or budget to determine if $18 million is even enough to get the desired outcome.
They’ll be more on this story in the coming days.
Once the meeting commenced there were two recommendations for council to consider.
First, council approved a $236,000 grant to the Liverpool Curling Club for the installation of solar panels and the construction of an accessible entrance.
The cost of the grant will be covered by a recent donation made to the Region by the J & W Murphy Foundation for the purpose of directing it towards civic improvement projects.
Mayor Darlene Norman says the club has invested approximately $750,000 in upgrades over the past year without any ask from the Region.
Considering the community benefit the club brings for events extending far beyond curling council was glad to provide them with the help they’ve requested.
“The curling club has proven their ability to move forward on their projects,” said Norman. “They’re very successful, dedicated, hard group of workers. And of the many projects that are within Queens County this place has a definite positive impact on our Main Street Liverpool. You know it’s three-minute walk from there, this is the type of thing that we can support at no burden to the taxpayer and at the same time be helping that Main Street area as well as social, physical, forwardness from our people.”
Council also approved the second recommendation to install a new uninterruptible power supply (UPS) in the Liverpool Business Development Centre, home to the area’s largest call centre.
The new unit will replace one that has been in operation for 20 years but has reached its end of life.
Council awarded a tender to Universal Power Solutions to install the new UPS at a cost of $114,950 plus HST.
Council then heard an update from Public Works detailing the projects they are currently involved in across the municipality before turning their discussion once again to the subject of a pool.
Deputy Mayor Jack Fancy spoke as a member of the pool committee to ask that council review the recommendations previously brought forward by the committee.
The committee has proposed a site at Queens Place, the use of solar power, a pool design that features a gradual sloped entrance or “zero entry” accessible side and six lane and they’re asking to be able to apply for grants on the Region’s behalf to secure more outside funding.
The committee’s recommendations will come before council at a future meeting for discussion and a vote.
Council will return to chambers for the next meeting to be held on Valentines Day, February 14 beginning at 9:00am.
Belgian troupe Lucky Leo performing their play, The Raise. Photo courtesy Liverpool International Theatre Festival
The play’s the thing once again in Liverpool.
After four years the Liverpool International Theatre Festival is returning to the Astor Theatre.
Nine acts from around the globe will walk the boards in what is considered one of the top ten amateur theatre festivals in the world.
Chairperson of LITF Jean Robinson-Dexter says given the international nature of the performers, one of the things the selection committee looks for are plays that can be understood whether acted in English or not.
“It can transcend the language barriers. We’ll often look for plays that are less verbal or not language heavy, so to speak, so that they can make that crossover so that folks can understand what’s happening,” said Robinson-Dexter.
The festival has been held every two years since it began in 1992.
The last edition of LITF was scheduled for 2020 but like so many other events, was cancelled due to COVID.
This year the festival will start Thursday October 13 with a parade of flags down Main Street leading to the opening ceremonies in the Astor Theatre.
LITF has partnered with the South Queens Chamber of Commerce to round out opening night with a block party featuring live music and events beginning at 8pm.
The weekend will be jammed with performances followed by social evenings at the Liverpool Curling Club.
The 2022 edition of Liverpool International Theatre Festival will also see the return of the ever popular “Coffee Critique” which is open to all performers and all-access pass holders.
Robinson-Dexter says the critique started as an opportunity for performers to discuss their work amongst themselves but has become one of the most unique and popular components of LITF.
“Our audience very quickly wanted to be involved in that. They wanted to hear it and they wanted to ask questions,” said Robinson-Dexter. “It’s usually a jam-packed room. People are just so engaged in learning about how theatre happens in other countries.”
Sales of the all-access passes ends Wednesday October 5, but Robinson-Dexter says there are still multi-performance packages and individual passes available through the Astor Theatre box office.
The Liverpool International Theatre Festival runs from October 13-17.
The Liverpool Curling club is hoping almost $500,000 in upgrades over the past season will translate to new members.
President Gordon Sampson says the club is focused on two objectives.
“Everything we do tries to fit in two boxes. One of them is accessibility and inclusion, and the other one is efficiency. Because without getting our operating costs down, no matter what we do, we won’t be able to stay open,” said Sampson.
Sampson says the club enjoyed a buzz after some of the upgrades were completed last year and was looking forward to adding perhaps another 40 people to the existing membership of 75 until COVID restrictions shut them down.
He’s optimistic when they install the ice again in late October people will be just as curious to see the upgrades and give the club a try.
