Indoor, outdoor services should complement each other

Editor:

In response to David MacCallum’s opinion pieces published in The Guardian on Nov. 19, 2013 “Organizers should consider moving Remembrance Day services indoors,” and Oct. 29, 2014, “Let’s consider having Remembrance Day Cenotaph service indoors,” I propose a complementary approach to indoor and outdoor Veterans’ commemoration in Charlottetown.

In my experience, as chair of the Remembrance Day organizing committee and emcee for the Charlottetown cenotaph ceremony from 2009 to 2013, most of our veterans prefer the status quo, i.e. outdoors, on Remembrance Day for the following reasons.

There is a longstanding tradition to an outdoor parade and ceremony at a proper cenotaph that engenders incredible, heartfelt solemnity. For those veterans unable to march, a very comfortable bus has been donated by George Brookins for the past 30 years.

Eastlink TV has an all-volunteer crew that has been broadcasting the Charlottetown ceremony across the Island for the past 20 years so that those unable to attend in person may still watch the service. In recent years, the sound system that is supplied by the P.E.I. government has provided absolutely excellent audio to everybody at the cenotaph, plus it is transmitted through the Veterans’ bus entertainment system and the Pat & the Elephant vans’ FM radios.

With Summerside’s indoor service at Credit Union Place (commencing in 2013), Charlottetown’s outdoor cenotaph ceremony, and Eastlink’s television coverage, Islanders have a choice of Remembrance Day venues. I contend that the outdoor ceremony continues to hold a key place in our Charlottetown commemoration and Remembrance services. This is confirmed by the record crowds that we have seen at the Charlottetown cenotaph on Nov. 11 in recent years. Depending on the weather, our aging veterans may choose to remain on the bus or they may disembark and sit in chairs positioned adjacent to the dignitaries’ area.

To complement the outdoor service, however, we need a continuation of the excellent indoor tributes performed recently at The Confederation Centre of The Arts, namely Unsung Heroes in 2013, and the Charlottetown City’s Tribute to Veterans in 2014. These tributes were both very well received, and I submit that events of this calibre should be presented every year, indoors, near the beginning of Remembrance Week. Allan Callard, CD, Mermaid