by Elizabeth Campbell

Anyone interested in joining a TLSARL trip to Scotland in the summer of 2012? We are still planning, but need to know who is seriously interested so we can plan destinations according to descendant interests – there’s no point in going to Kildonan if no one from the Kildonan descendants is on the tour, right?

Again, I return to the AGM at the end of September this year. The newly elected Vice President of TLSARL, Roy McLeod, stopped me as I was entering the venue. He’d found some articles written by my great-aunt in a couple of old copies of Saskatchewan History, and kindly, he gave them to me. Imagine my excitement when I found her contributions were (an annotated copy of) a journal her aunt kept while on a canoe trip made in the 1920s!

I realised after publishing the last dog entry that I had forgotten to mention what my plans for our new puppy, Stella, were! So just in case anyone was following the entries in order to find out….

I have two somewhat unusual hopes for Stella.

Christian Matheson & Angus Matheson, 1815 Group

The Digital Photo Archive is one of the projects I would like to see underway in the Genealogy department of TLSARL.

Some people at TLSARL might be very comfortable with how we are now. There are a lot of really good things about the organisation and the people who are members. Absolutely. I don’t know who you people are, actually, I would be pretty surprised if you really are out there. I don’t believe that there is anyone in our Association who hasn’t got an opinion on how we should do something better or different or not at all. That’s just human nature, and guess what?

Those of you who are not members of TLSARL but have been reading the last few entries might be forming some opinions about us as an organisation. I kind of hope that members who are reading are also thinking a bit more about who we are and where we are headed.

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about where we are at TLSARL as an organisation. Others have been doing that, too – one of the comments at the Reunion was that we need to get more younger members.

Another of the issues raised at the Annual Reunion/AGM this year was what the Association should do with its accumulated historical artifacts and documents, etc., specifically, a time capsule placed in the care of the City of Winnipeg Archives after it was removed from the plinth placed in 1912 at Portage and Main and intended for a memorial statue of Lord Selkirk, and several carousels of photographic diapositive slides and related notes that were used in school lectures given by Anne Henderson in the 1960s.

Members may have noticed some changes over the last few years at TLSARL.

Our Executive meets twice a year to discuss what individuals have been doing in their department, ways to make TLSARL more visible to the public, ideas for celebrating our Bicentennial in 2012, and other projects. We are a small group, many of whom have been working behind the scenes for years.