Mark your calendars for my annual Maple Syrup Festival!
Join me for all your favourite maple syrup themed activities, including a pancake breakfast with real maple syrup. This free community event is important to me for two reasons: firstly because after a long, cold winter we can have an opportunity to gather with friends and neighbours and celebrate spring and secondly because I am a passionate amateur syrup maker and love to share this sweet part of our Canadian culture with Richmond Hill residents.
This year we will continue to have our maple syrup making demonstration and tasting booth, samples of delicious uses for maple products, and of course, thanks to our Richmond Hill Historical Society, you can purchase some of the good stuff to take home with you (all proceeds go to the RHHS). Admission is free and we ask that attendees bring a non-perishable food donation for the Richmond Hill Community Food Bank.
Together with numerous community groups, entertainers, and educators, I know it will be a fantastic day celebrating Richmond Hill community and Canadian tradition.
I look forward to sharing this sweet festival with the residents of Richmond Hill. See you there!
Saturday April 12, 2025, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Richmond Green Sports Complex at 1300 Elgin Mills Road East. www.DavidWest-RichmondHill.ca/MSF
Thanks to the generosity of The Curtain Club Theatre, the Richmond Hill Historical Society has been given a really great opportunity to fundraise. They have approved our request to be part of their Charity Night Program and offered us 25 tickets for their play All My Sons on January 23, 2025.
The play description:
During the Second World War, Joe Keller and Herbert Deever ran a machine shop making airplane parts. Deever was sent to prison because the firm turned out defective parts while Keller went free and made a lot of money. The twin shadows of this catastrophe lead to an unforgettable conclusion to a play electrifying in its intensity.
The doors open at 7:15 PM and showtime is 8:00 PM.
The tickets are $20.00 each.
If you are interested, or if you have friends or family that might be interested, please contact Andrea Kulesh at andrea-kulesh at hotmail.com, or (905) 884-2789 as soon as possible and we will hold your seats for you. Your tickets will be available when you arrive at the theatre.
Our deep gratitude to The Curtain Club and our thanks for your support.
Richmond Hill Historical Society President Jim Vollmershausen with the world’s tallest lumberjack? (Photograph by Vera Tachtaul)
Another year and another successful Mayor West’s Maple syrup Festival. On Saturday April 6th, the Richmond Hill Historical Society joined in with this annual event at Richmond Green. Weather is always a consideration for outside activities and this year we were able to enjoy the day both inside and out. The event began at 10:00 a.m., continued through to 3:00 p.m. and was very well attended. The activities were expanded including wagon rides, taffy tasting and demonstrations for everyone to enjoy seeing how maple syrup is made. There was great entertainment, raffles and pancakes served with delicious maple syrup. Carrick Bros supplied the maple products we were selling this year for our annual fundraiser. They expanded their product list to include yummy maple cream, maple sugar and flavored syrup aged in bourbon, cherry brandy, apple brandy and even tequila barrels!
My personal favorite was the fellow on stilts dressed as a lumberjack. He was very entertaining, performed throughout the event, and was popular with young and old.
A special cameo appearance by the Winter Carnival’s own mascot Ookpik (Photograph by Vera Tachtaul)
At the planning committee, numbers were being estimated to be more than last year. It was hard to tell this year with the surges of people entering the event but there were lots and lots of families enjoying the free pancakes and learning about how to make maple syrup. There will be a tally at our follow-up meeting but I’m sure it was well over 2000 people.
Our booth was very busy, and we were selling all day long. We had a bit of inventory returned at the end, but we did very well in a 5-hour fundraising effort. Jim will make a report when we get the final numbers tallied.
Thank you to members who attended and supported the Society and thank you to all of our wonderful member volunteers who made the day such a success! We thank Mayor West and his great team once again for including us as part of the event.
Maple Syrup from Carrick Bros. for sale at the Richmond Hill Historical Society booth (photograph courtesy Chris Robart)
by Andrea Kulesh
The Society joined in with Mayor West for his very first maple syrup festival as the Mayor on April 1, 2023. We have previously been involved for 3 years running pre-pandemic. Maple syrup was ordered from Carrick Bros. who generously donated all of the syrup for the pancake breakfast. Numbers were estimated for the event but no one really knew how many would come.
Estimations were made at 1,500 – 3,000 attendees. There were free pancakes and syrup and self serve coffee on hand. The tables were set up in front of the RHHS so we were in a great position to sell maple syrup to those who had just sampled the Carrick Bros. delicious maple syrup.
The doors opened at 10:00 a.m. and there were people literally running to get their pancakes! There were a lot of families and the plan had been for a lot of the children’s activities to be outside but unfortunately the weather didn’t fully cooperate. Although it was a sunny day, the wind prevented some of the activities planned to go ahead. Our member Marj Andre was “Ma Maple” demonstrating the old method of reducing the sap collected to make maple syrup. Unfortunately, the wind did stop some of the activities and they were brought inside. There was music ongoing, speeches for the official opening, lots and lots of vendors and a general and noisy hubbub with a very well attended and successful event.
Richmond Hill Historical Society booth highlighting our 50th Anniversary in 2023 (photo courtesy of Vera Tachtaul)
The RHHS was busy for the entire 4 hours. Fortunately, we were very organized to begin with. Member volunteers set up on Friday night with a very nice display of the syrup, our pamphlets and a table display about the Maple Leaf. Vera Tachtaul, immediately posted photos to our FB page with the latest images of our booth. Volunteers were on hand very early on site, to look after everything before the doors opened. We priced everything and waited until our first customer. The maple syrup started to be sold almost right away and it was evident people were interested in buying but also to learn a little about maple syrup. We had “Quik Facts” on hand and were able to answer knowledgeably about the products we were selling. Some people made the mistake of saying they would come back later to pick something up, but for those people who hesitated, they were sadly disappointed when we sold out around 1:30 p.m. We did receive a few more bottles of syrup from city staff and we sold some just before the event closed.
Denise Hughes, Andrea Kulesh, Agnes Parr, Alison Hughes and Linda Clark at the Richmond Hill Historical Society table. (photograph courtesy Chris Robart)
A special thank you to all of the volunteers who helped to make this the success it was! Vera Tachtaul, Chuck Fraser, Elinor Charters, Agnes Parr, Joan Lund, Barbara Di Mambro, Alison Hughes, Denise Hughes and Linda Clark. We could not have done it without you!
What a great success for the Society! Selling out the entire order! Of course we do have to pay for the maple syrup once we receive the invoice but this will be our main fundraiser for this year after three years of no activity….. We have to thank Mayor West for including us once again in this event. The city event staff were wonderful and worked so hard to put this event on. It was Mayor West’s first Mayor’s event and it was a wonderful day!
The Richmond Hill Historical Society is pleased to be participating in Mayor David West’s Maple Syrup Festival on Saturday, April 1, 2023 from 10:00 am – 2:00 pm at the Richmond Green Sports Complex. We will be on hand, selling maple syrup, so be sure to stop buy to get some syrup and chat with us about the Society.
Thanks to the generosity of Richmond Hill’s Curtain Club Theatre, the Society is participating in a fundraising night with the play Innocence Lost, an historic drama about Steven Truscott, on the evening of Thursday, March 23rd; doors open at 7:15 pm, show begins at 8:00 pm [showtime, including intermission is 2.5 hours].
Tickets are only $20, with all proceeds going to the Richmond Hill Historical Society. To reserve your ticket, please contact Andrea Kulesh by phone at 905.884.2789 or by email at andrea-kulesh @ hotmail.com.
About the Play
In 1959, 12 year old Lynne Harper was found dead in a farm woodlot near Clinton, Ontario. A few months later her classmate, 14 year old Steven Truscott, was convicted of the murder in a case that was later considered one of Canada’s most notorious wrongful convictions.
Directed by Sergio Calderon
Produced by Sharon Dykstra and Joan Burrows
Starring: Coral Benzie, Tamika Poetzsch, Peter Shipston, Kirsty Campbell, David Henderson, Ruby Jang, Brian Fukuzawa, Eshan Mathur, Sydney Bartlett, Devika Mathur
Richmond Hill Historical Society 