What The Friends Do: Our Accomplishments for 2008

Raised substantial funds to benefit Fort York through donations, dinners, memberships, and our parking ventures; also secured grants of $15,000 from Toronto Culture and $15,000 from the Government of Canada for summer youth employment.

~ put 17 young men and women in uniform for the summer as the Fort York Guard and Drums to march, drill, and animate the site. Off-site they served as honour guards and represented us at battle re-enactments at Forts George and Erie.

~ published four issues of The Fife & Drum, our quarterly newsletter, and three of Drumroll, to promote special events at the fort

~ ran full-page ads in issues of Spacing magazine to make the ‘new’ Fort York better known

~ increased our mailing list by 15% after covering off attrition, and made dozens of changes-of-address.

~ attracted gifts that included a portrait of John Graves Simcoe by Charles Pachter, a medical device for the Soldiers’ Trade exhibit, and donations in memory of Robert Nurse to be used to light the model of H.M.S. Nancy in the Blue Barracks.

~ held our tenth annual Georgian dinner with 140 attending to raise funds for the Guard

~ co-operated on major book launches at the fort with Robin Brass Studios (Capital in Flames: The American Attack on York) and Coach House Press (HTO: Toronto’s Water)

~ rolled out our new logo through various media

~ took over our web address from a trustee, surveyed users of the website and then embarked upon its complete redesign

~ operated lawn-parking west of the fort for 44 event-days in spite of wet grass and the Grand Prix being cancelled this year which hurt revenues

~ co-operated with 80 volunteers who cultivated vegetables and herbs in plots on the fort’s north ramparts as part of a community-based initiative backed by Hellmann’s, Walmart, and Evergreen

~ welcomed three new directors to our board

~ organized a day-long workshop with directors and staff to kickstart renewal of our strategic plan

~ created a data bank for directors on Google Docs

~ met monthly as a board and another dozen times in committees and task forces. One director at least, often more, attended every special event and function held at the fort

~ initiated a day-long series of meetings with the director-general of National Historic Sites, Parks Canada, and convened a lunch where he met Toronto colleagues

~ formed a task force to develop a response to a TTC proposal to run a streetcar line across Fort York; continued our interest in the design of a replacement for the Bathurst Bridge and the Strachan Avenue rail-crossing studies

~ spent funds for several purposes, including the operation of the Fort York Guard and Drums ($100,000), office rental and operations ($20,000), and supplies for the on-site Research Centre ($3000)

~ loaned $75,000 to the Fort York Foundation to cover startup expenditures

~ contacted ten more British regiments whose predecessors were at Fort York – only 2 of 29 to go. Most replied with helpful leads to our shared history. The Public Record Office, London, remains the richest, untapped source for fresh information on the fort

~ continued to provide three days of volunteer time every week to organizing and cataloguing the fort’s collections of books, research files, photographs, etc. in the Research Centre