CORNEIL AUCTIONS

How Sir John A. Macdonald launched Little Britain’s Corneil Auctions

GEOFF COLEMAN

As a child, Don Corneil would pretend to auction off fence posts and mailboxes as he walked to school. The bug never really left him, and 12 years into his career at General Motors, he and his wife Sheila decided to play a hunch and enter the auction business for real.

It was 1975, and the Corneils felt an opportunity existed to help people who needed to dispose of estates. They held their first auction in the village of Columbus in Durham Region, a sale that featured books signed by Sir John A. Macdonald. In the 45 years since, two generations have seen changes in both the content and format of auctions.

Don has since died while Sheila has remained involved in the business. Their son Greg runs the day-to-day operations of the auction. Si r Jo hn A. M acd onald

Greg Corneil

Bob’s Auction Advice

PHOTO: SIENNA FROST With more than 30 years in the antique business locally, Fenelon Falls antique dealer Bob Carruth has some advice for people interested in feeling the adrenaline rush that comes with raising a bidding card for the first time. 1. Examine everything carefully prior to the sale for structural issues, but expect dents or scratches in some thing that is 100 years old. 2. Attend a few auctions before the one you want to buy at. This gets you used to how things work, and provides the chance to recognize any pricing patterns that establish the current value of items. 3. Have a cost limit in your head for your item so there’s no buyer’s remorse. Carruth says you don’t have to be an antique expert, just good at recognizing value. He adds that a quickly-growing segment of auction attendees is young people who are just estab lishing their homes. They see the dollar value in solid wood furnishings, and the added environmental value in reusing items.

When asked how auctions have evolved, Greg said furniture is still a common offering, but that the sale prices have dropped significantly. He observes that people today are not collectors like the previous generation, and that has changed the business. Solid walnut dining suites for example, would realize $2,000 15 years ago, but they top out around $300 or $400 today. Similarly, since virtually every house now has closets, antique armoires sell for a small fraction of what they once did. The same goes for oak tables, dressers and wash stands.

On the other hand, vinyl LPs and advertising signs are doing well. Long-time Fenelon Falls antique dealer Bob Carruth chalks that up to the influence of television shows like American Pickers and Pawn Stars. He says items that those pickers perceive as having value during their mid-week episodes move well at Friday night auctions.

Beyond our Borders Where are these former Kawartha Lakes residents now?

Greg Corneil says Corneil’s Auctioneering Services in Little Britain has sold everything from authentic Group of Seven paintings to human skeletons to livestock.

Tools, household goods and truly distinctive items have continued to sell briskly since the 1970s. Greg Corneil says Corneil’s Auctioneering Services in Little Britain has sold everything from authentic Group of Seven paintings to human skeletons to livestock. He identifies a Moorcroft vase and a peg top table (most commonly found in western Ontario) as among the more memorable items to cross the block. Both sold for more than $4,000.

With so much shopping done online, he reasons that many furniture purchases are made by people who don’t even enter a store, let alone an auction house. And he sees this as the impetus for another significant development in the auction game: the online auction. No longer the domain of eBay, virtually all smaller auction companies host sales online.

While Corneil’s will run Internet auctions, it is, by-and-large, a live auction venue. Greg Corneil’s regular customers often remark that they hope he doesn’t switch to online auctions exclusively. They point out there is no substitute for plugging in a radio to ensure it works, or examining a piece of china to make sure any cracks were not cleverly hidden in the photos from an auction site. Many also see live events as a social gathering as much as a business transaction, providing an opportunity to see neighbours and friends at the same time as nailing down a bargain.

name Hunter Stuart Picken

age 26

family Single

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a favourite ckl business Kawartha Dairy

favourite ckl places Boyd Island (Pigeon lake), Highlands Cinemas

great memory Riding dirt bikes with friends, boating and fishing

chances of moving back one day The Kawartha lakes will always be my roots, but the chances of me returning for good anytime soon are slim to none

LOCAL HEIRLOOM RECIPES Main Course Cabbage Soup

Community motivator Anne Hardy shared this cabbage soup recipe with Manilla Church Guest House and B & B owner Sarah Prowse. Sarah invited the cookbook camera into her historic space to document the preparation of the community soup. Vera Mollon, who was born and raised in Manilla, says the soup is a popular local food that has been found at many community events since the 1960s. It is traditionally made at home by contributors and then mixed together in one big pot.

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ALL YOUR FAVOURITES ALL DAY LONG

Sharon Walker is the creative director at Maryboro Lodge: The Fenelon Museum. She is documenting local, heirloom recipes for a cookbook. If you have a recipe that you would like to see featured, contact her at sharon@maryboro.ca.

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COLBORNE STREET WEST CONSTRUCTION

Colborne Street West in Lindsay will undergo phase one of reconstruction beginning in early spring 2020. The scope of the project will include replacements of water mains, storm sewers, sanitary sewers, curbs, gutters, sidewalks and intersection improvements. Phase one will include reconstruction work from William Street North to Adelaide Street North. Stay tuned for more details on dates and timelines.

SEEDLING SALE 2020 KAWARTHA CONSERVATION

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LOGIE STREET PARK

Expected to open near Canada Day 2020, the new reconstructed park will include a splash pad, several kawarthaconservation.com/seedling-distribution 705.328.2271 ext. 242

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KAWARTHA LAKES PUBLIC LIBRARY Real local journalism. In print and at lindsayadvocate.ca No registration required. Non-corporate. Family business. The Advocate exists only thanks to their continued support! Thank you for using our advertisers. play structures, a zip line, an outdoor skating track, upgraded trails and the return of the lilac gardens. For more information, visit the City’s “major projects” page. TRANSIT STOPS

Transit shelters and stops will go through replacement and upgrades for accessibility throughout 2020, in accordance with the City’s transit master plan.

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FRIENDS & NEIGHBOURS Health promoter works upstream for our community health

JAMIE MORRIS

34 www.lindsayadvocate.ca For all of us, health care wears a human face. We think of personal experiences of ill health and of friends or relatives who have chronic conditions, cancers, or have had heart attacks, and can easily picture the physicians, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists and others who’ve treated them.

Harder to picture are those whose mission is wellness and prevention of illness. They’re working “upstream” and aren’t as visible.

In our community it’s the Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit (HKPR) that has the task of preventing illness, protecting us against disease and promoting healthy lifestyles.

To put a human face on this side of our health system and learn more about how it operates, I arrange to sit down with the health unit’s Lisa Kaldeway. MEETING LISA

When we meet at Boiling Over’s Coffee Vault, I’m surprised to learn the youthful-looking Lisa has been with the health unit for 18 years.

She came here from Nova Scotia where she’d earned a Bachelor of Science degree in health education from Dal housie (since then she’s completed a master’s degree and in April will add a Health Services Management Certificate). The first thing I learn from Lisa is that HKPR covers a huge area (Kawartha Lakes, Haliburton and Northumberland counties) and has a range of responsibilities equally huge — everything from inspecting restaurants to ensure they follow safe practices to providing support to breastfeeding moms.

Some staff members focus on health promotion, some on health protection. Lisa’s in one of the three health promotion sections: healthy communities. (The others are healthy schools — addressing topics such as oral health, vision screening and substance use; and healthy families — public health nurses supporting the health of babies and their parents.) Her job title is “health promoter.” Over the years Lisa has made presentations on topics ranging from cannabis and healthy living to car seat safety, led healthy workplace and smoking cessation programs and a Ministry of Health and Long Term Care-funded heart health project, and initiated the age-friendly City of Kawartha Lakes project.

She’s passionate about what she does and models healthy living practices. She eats well and has balance in her life, meaning her diet, exercise, and work-life balance. Her most recent vacation with her husband, Dan, involved hiking Newfoundland’s Gros Morne mountain. Over her 18 years at HKPR Lisa has seen changes. Public policy and education have reshaped attitudes toward tobacco, but new challenges have emerged: Cannabis, opioids and vaping are concerns. Increased levels of inactivity and more time spent sitting, much of that in front of screens (at an earlier and earlier age) pose growing health risks. Lisa Kaldeway

Increasingly, public health staff members have shifted their approach to working with community partners to implement healthy changes through policy development, training other professionals (e.g. naloxone distribution) and creating environments that support health for all. Changes in government funding have also necessitated a need for health units to find ways to do their work differently. The provincial government has initiated a review of the way all public health units are structured and funded, including changing their funding formula. As of January 1, 2020, health units are to receive 70 per cent of their funding from the province and the remaining 30 per cent from the municipalities they serve. Before the change, the province provided 100 per cent of the funding.

“Everything I do in the community is in partnership,” says Lisa. “That is how we are successful — building relationships and working to meet mutual mandates.”

Being strategic is another key to success. “We can determine where there’s a need, where there’ll be more impact and greater uptake. It’s possible to be creative in how we meet our requirements,” says Lisa. HOW IT PLAYS OUT

So how does this play out in practice? Lisa describes two initiatives. First, the Kawartha Lakes Sport and Recreation Council. Lisa helped bring together seven agencies and sport and recreation providers, among them the City and the Boys & Girls Club, to apply for a Trillium grant. Since the council’s formation, Lisa has co-chaired the council and overseen the work of the coordinator.

The council recently partnered with the Ontario Early Years Centre to offer a program that gave early child-care providers skills for teaching young children how to move confidently and competently — an efficient train-thetrainer approach. Another, the Active Again program, was for older adults, and provided support for activities such as pickleball, walking rugby and cycling. The second initiative Lisa points to involves active transportation. Walking and cycling provide healthier alternatives to driving — for individuals and the environment — and for some it’s the only option, given that not everyone owns or can operate a vehicle.

Since 2007 Lisa has worked with trails associations and cycling groups and she contributed to the City’s Integrated Community Sustainability Plan, which included an Active Communities section.

More recently, when the City asked for agency comments on plans for the development north of Wilson Fields along Colborne Street, Lisa pulled together a group who were happy to contribute advice to refine plans for multipurpose walking and cycling pathways.

An important step will be creation of an Active Transportation Master Plan to ensure a future that makes walking or cycling the easier choice. Now that council has committed to funding the plan, she’s sharing models from other communities and looking forward to contributing to our local process. BACK TO WORK

The hour Lisa’s allotted for our conversation from her demanding schedule is up and she heads back to work.

You won’t see the impact of what she does right away, but, operating upstream, she’s helping shape a healthier community for all of us.

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