The Thompson-Nicola Regional District (TNRD) turns 50 years old on November 24, 2017; and the organization has several special events lined up throughout the region between April and November to celebrate.
The festivities kick off on April 1 with a writing competition (all contests are open to all residents of the TNRD and its member municipalities). Developed in conjunction with the Kamloops Writers Festival, and running until May 31, the competition is looking for original, not previously published works of up to 1,500 words in the categories of fiction, creative non-fiction, and poems.
Each category has three different age ranges for submissions: up to Grade 7; Grades 8 through 12; and aged 19 and older.
Three prizes will be awarded in each age range for each category, with all nine first place winners also having their work printed, and included in a special TNRD 50th anniversary time capsule.
“The works can be in any genre you like: horror, science fiction, romance, anything,” says Carolyn Black, the TNRD’s director of legislative services. However, all the works must be set in, or be about, the TNRD. Details are being distributed to all schools and libraries in the district, and are available on the TNRD website (www.tnrd.ca).
A special 50th anniversary website is also in development, and Black hopes that will be up and running soon.
“We’ll have weekly trivia questions on the site, pertaining to the TNRD. Each month we’ll pull one name from all the people who submitted correct answers to the questions, and they’ll receive a prize.”
Also in the works is a colouring contest for children, which will be in all TNRD Library System libraries during July and August. In September and October a photo contest will be launched, with some great prizes including a GoPro camera.
Throughout October, special events will be taking place at all TNRD libraries, with cake, refreshments, giveaways, and more. In our region, these events will be taking place in Lytton on October 6 (10 a.m. to noon); Cache Creek and Clinton on October 10 (11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. respectively); Ashcroft on October 19 (2 to 4 p.m.); and Savona on October 20 (10 a.m. to noon).
The bookmobile, which in this area serves Loon Lake and Spences Bridge, will also be taking part, hosting events during its regular run between October 18 and November 2. This will be the last major event for the current bookmobile, which will be sporting a colourful wrap to mark the TNRD’s 50th anniversary; by the end of the year it will have been retired in favour of a new bookmobile, currently under construction.
“We’ll finish off with the time capsule,” says Black. “It will contain the winning stories and poems, and we need to decide what else will be in it. We’ll be asking for things from member municipalities.”
Every August the TNRD directors have their board meeting, and other events, in a two-day session in one of the municipalities in the region. This August the meeting will take place in Cache Creek and Ashcroft, and Black says the locations were chosen for a reason.
“They were chosen specifically because 2017 is the 50th anniversary of the incorporation of Cache Creek, and the 65th anniversary of the incorporation of Ashcroft,” she notes. “We thought that if we were in that area we could do something special to celebrate.”
Regional districts are unique to British Columbia, and the RDs in the province were created between 1965 and 1968.
They were developed as a way to provide local government and services—including water systems and fire departments—to residents outside incorporated areas. Sub-regional services are offered to different regions, while regional services such as libraries and garbage collection are provided to all residents of the district.