The two finalists for Volunteer Administrator of the Year at the ADL/Sport PEI curling awards being held Wednesday May 29 at the Silver Fox Curling and Yacht Club, in conjunction with Curl PEI’s Annual General Meeting, are Roger Gavin from the Western Community Curling Club in Alberton, and the PEI Strathcona Cup Organizing Committee from the Cornwall Curling Club.

Photo: Roger Gavin, winning a coaching award at the provincial Under 16 championships this year

Roger Gavin volunteers in many capacities, both at the Western Community Curling Club and for PEI curling in general. He has served on the Board of Directors for the past 18-19 years, and on the Curl PEI board for the past decade.  He has been the backbone of the Junior program at his club for many years, in an administrative, instructional, and coaching capacity. He is a certified Level 2 coach, and is working on his Level 2 Umpires and his Level 3 certification. At the club, he contacts members at the first of each year to see if they are curling, and makes up draw boards and signup sheets for all curling activities. tournaments, and provincial championships held at the club throughout the season. He has his Level 1 Ice Technicians certification, and is involved with installation and maintenance of the club’s curling ice each season. He organizes, oversees, and bartends at the club’s popular Texas Hold’Em poker nights.

He looks after all aspects of the bar, doing the bar sheets, counting and weighing the product, and balancing the cash.

In addition to preparing and looking after all draws at the club has done draw sheets for Provincial Legion and other events, and this year made up the large draw needed for the 50 team Canadian Stick curling championships, having to redo it at the last minute when the number of teams changed.

For many years, Gavin has been involved with the majority of the club’s administrative operations, including leagues, special events, bar, maintenance, sponsorship and membership, banquets, and publicity.

He is also an avid curler, and curled in the Canadian Stick Curling Championship this year in Cornwall.

All-in-all, his work is instrumental in keeping the Western Community club operating, and continually improving its programs and serviices.

Photo: Gordon Lank of the Strathcona Cup organizing committee prepares to throw the ceremonial 1st rock at the Strathcona Cup Tour event in Cornwall, while fellow organizers Jim Farquharson on the left and Roddie MacLean on the right prepare to sweep, and organizer Myriam MacLean waits at the top of the stairs with the supplies needed to toast the piper

The Strathcona Cup Tour organizing committee consisted of three couples, all from the Cornwall Curling Club – Roddie and Myriam MacLean, Jim and Diane Farquharson, and Gordon and Shirley Lank. Roddie, Jim and Gordon are the only Island men to have been on previous Strathcona Cup tours to Scotland, and they were prepared to give the Scots a big welcome on the PEI leg of their tour of Canada, with both countries vying to take home the century-old Strathcona Cup, in curling’s oldest international tournament.

The committee began planning work a year prior to the event, which would see the 20 Scots on the Eastern part of the Tour take on Island curlers at Charlottetown, Montague, Cornwall and Crapaud. The committee was responsible for arranging the venues, meals, special guests etc., as well as signing up the players, obtaining sponsors, and fundraising.

Among the events organized were several lunches, and two banquets, one with a Robbie Burns theme, where Roddie MacLean eloquently presided over the “Address to a Haggis” ceremony (click for video). At Cornwall, the Lanks enlisted three generations of their family to help serve the meal, while Gordie personally cooked the tenderloin roast, with the beef produced at his own farm. The evening banquets were followed by entertainment, including a PEI Oyster Society “shucking-in” ceremony, comedy skits, and local musicians.

Scots and Islanders alike deemed the PEI portion of the 2013 Strathcona Cup Tour to be a tremendous success.