My congratulations in advance to the winner of this year’s Citizen of the Year Award.
Whoever it may turn out to be, the selection for such a prestigious award, and I mean that, is reflective of the fact that you’ve had a tremendous positive impact in your community, and for your community. And unlike hockey rinks where you can just “buy” your name recognition, the Citizen of the Year accolade is awarded by others, hopefully objective others, who see and witness the impact of your efforts on things, movements, and people.
It represents positive recognition to a person who wasn’t hell bent on getting the recognition in the first place. And so, in that sense, it’s a terrific and legitimate honour.
But it won’t have the stamp of approval from the local Chamber of Commerce.
The Renfrew and District Chamber of Commerce is like all chambers here and there and everywhere, at its core a group of businesses that band together, pay dues, and greet each other with secret handshakes. It’s not a service group per se, like Rotary, the Lions Club, or the Knights of Columbus, who I’ll throw in there because it’s Ash Wednesday. It’s more of a self-service group that exists for the joint benefit of its membership, an “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” sort of thing where I can give you a discount at my store if you give me one at yours, nudge-nudge, wink-wink.
To have the Chamber involved in the Citizen of the Year is actually a bit of a surprise in that the award could go to anyone in the community, not necessarily a business-person and member. Nevertheless, it was an important thing for them to be involved with, and I personally know how proudly the award has been received by a couple of recipients and their families.
But the local Chamber is pulling out of this award and, for a period anyways, leaving a vacuum for either somebody else to fill or for the rest of us to ambivalently let wither and die.
It is, after all, the Renfrew and District Chamber of Commerce, not the Renfrew Chamber of Commerce, so I can see some members not being crazy with the organization handing out recognition and hardware to Renfrew citizens only. So, in that sense, I can see where they’re coming from, or rather, where they’re going to.
So I will say this to the Chamber. Thank you for your stewardship of this award for all those years, and thank you for your recognition of all those wonderful people who have made, and continue to make, such positive impacts in and for our town.
As I said, the dumping of the Chamber pot left a vacuum, but that it’s one where the Town of Renfrew can, and will step in to fill. Because the Town has indicated that they’re going to take over the award and keep it alive, not that they had much of a choice, since what municipality is just going to sit there and watch something as venerable as a Citizen of the Year Award get tossed on the ash heap of history?
This was brought to the attention of Renfrew Town Council by Communications and Event Co-ordinator Hannah MacMillan with a recommendation as follows:
That Committee of the Whole recommends that Renfrew Town Council appoint one Council Member and one Staff Member to a 2025 Citizen of the Year Award Working Group, consisting of one Council Member, one Staff Member, two anonymous community members, and one anonymous local business owner. And further that Renfrew Town Council authorize the Council Member and Staff Member to exclusively select the three remaining committee members, who will serve as the selection committee for the 2025 Citizen of the Year Awards.
So the town is throwing together a Working Group of folks who can get together on milk crates at the Rec Centre with pizza and a box of coffee and come up with candidates for the local Citizen of the Year Award.
It all starts with those key council and staff people selected, because they, in turn, have power of selection over all the anonymous people who will also sit on this selection committee.
The need for anonymity is a bit curious. Do they sit behind a sheet but in front of a window so the rest of the selection committee can only see their silhouettes? Will their voices be electronically scrambled? Will they wear baseball caps backwards? Will somebody light up the Dollar Store or The Warehouse for novelty noses and moustaches? Will the non-anonymous members be required to take a solemn oath of confidentiality with regard to the identity of the anonymous members?
What is it with the need for secrecy all the time? Is it to protect the anonymous members from public blowback if the public doesn’t like the choice? Do they even get blowback?
After a couple of seconds of reflection, I’m of the opinion that they probably do get blowback from people who think they, or somebody they know or love would be a superior candidate for that award. But is it to the point where we have to enter committee members into witness protection programs just for making a choice? I mean, hopefully, there are several worthy candidates for such an award, and it may be difficult to choose from among them, but sipping coffee and eating pizza behind a sheet in front of a window seems a little extreme.
I’d offer to do it all for them, but now they have me thinking my car might get fire-bombed if I make the wrong choice as defined by the angry mob outside my kitchen window.
One thing I will point out.
If the Chamber of Commerce feels they can’t be in the COY business anymore, and if they were willing to just let this thing drop into nothing, then why do we feel the need for a designated business person to be involved?
Why do we need that business imprimatur?
Business people already have an over-sized influence in a community like this, something that feeds the over-sized egos of some of their membership.
If this award is beneath the attention of their Chamber of Commerce, then it doesn’t require the participation of a business representative. I’m sure we can come up with an appropriate selection without their steady hand of guidance.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 