The South Bayview Bulldog

Chief Mark Saunders, Angela James, late John Bitove Sr.

Angela James Arena in Flemngdon Park will be ringing to the sound of kids hockey Sunday (January 10, 2016) as the ProAction Hockey League (PAHL) gets underway for kids eight to 11 years. Chief Mark Saunders will be present for this important Cops for Kids event as will Angela James, who played senior hockey locally in the 1980s and 90s. Ms. James is now 51 but is still a revered figure in the community. It’s believed Mayor Tory will also make a visit. The PAHL season will begin with a puck-drop at 2.45 marking the start of the league’s 2016 season. PAHL is organized by officers from 54 Division, members of the community and sponsored by ProAction Cops & Kids and Canadian Tire Jumpstart. The puck drop and all league games are played at Angela James Arena at 165 Grenoble Drive.  ProAction is a charity that is not well enough known. It works in co-operation with the police. It was founded in 1991 by John L. Bitove Sr.  PAHL provides kids from priority neighborhoods like Flemingdon Park and Thorncliffe Park Drive with an opportunity to play hockey. Officers, volunteers, ProAction Cops & Kids and corporate sponsors, are able to provide the kids with equipment, teach them hockey skills as well as coach them during games. Many of the youth are new or first-generation Canadians who would never have the opportunity to play hockey if it wasn’t for the program. Very good work everyone.

Rafal B rzoska

The InPost invasion comes courtesy of a Polish business tycoon named Rafał Brzoska. (inset with profile below). The evidence of his grand plan in Canada can be seen outside Loblaws on Moore Ave. So Loblaws knows all about this project. So does Shell Canada and no doubt many other big corporations. There’s a locker in the Shell station in Summerhill on Yonge St. All across Toronto, and apparently Canada, a huge program of locker placement is proceeding quickly and smoothly. InPost parcel lockers are now, by the firm’s release, the biggest international network of parcel lockers providing “a fast and convenient method of shipping and collecting parcels around the clock, seven days a week, with no queues and at a convenient location.”

CORPORATE OWNER IS INTEGER.PL

On its website, the Polish firm says InPost has already introduced its parcel lockers in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Poland, Ireland, Iceland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Colombia, Canada, Australia and Saudi Arabia. It says it plan was to have over 5,000 of parcel lockers across Europe, both Americas and the Middle East by the end of 2015. It is planning to deploy a further 4,000 such lockers. According to the release, development of the InPost parcel lockers network is being conducted by the easyPack company, in collaboration with the PineBridge Investments Fund. This is a subsidiary of Integer.pl Group headquartered in Krakow, Poland’s second largest city. On the Internet, the president and apparent genius behind InPost is Rafał Brzoska.

COMPETES WITH “MONOPOLIST” POSTAL SERVICE

The company describes Brzoska this way: “He created a nationwide network of door drops and addressed marketing materials distribution, turning Integer into the leader on the distribution market in Poland. InPost, which has been operating for just a few years, already competes successfully with the Polish postal services monopolist, Poczta Polska. has continued its dynamic expansion of the InPost parcel lockers network by increasing its reach in key European e-commerce markets including, amongst others, the UK and Italy. The company has also intensified its activity on other continents.”

The news blog Yonge and Roxborough News has taken this picture of an InPost locker in the Shell station at Yonge and Rowanwood. It’s a service to receive and pick up online merchandise orders. One such locker has been installed beside the Loblaws at 301 Moore Ave. How it works 

 It must say something about the people of Truro, N.S. that they lined up 100 cars deep (at least) at a Tim Hortons drive-thru on Christmas morning to get coffee, hot chocolate and/or doughnuts. Someone observed “most of the town” was waiting in line. This was at the  place on Robie Street for those who know Truro.

Previous CES

Appetite for food is endemic as is that other well-known hunger. So it is that a food protest by inmates at a Regina prison has seen not only a review of the edibles but the dismissal of a food worker for having sex with an inmate in a freezer. The food protest has ended with a tart remark from the Premier, Brad Wall, that the food looks okay to him and if one doesn’t like prison food the choice as to where one eats is only a matter of going straight. Mr. Wall did not comment on the freezer activity, although the food worker cannot come back to prison, probably not  even if  she is convicted of something, which she isn’t. Thank heavens it’s not illegal. There appears to be no protest about the quality of her overall work in the freezer.

ONTARIO PRISON WORKERS SETTLE

In other prison news, the union representing 6,000 Ontario correctional workers says it has reached a tentative agreement to settle all outstanding issues in contract talks with the province. The deal was reached around 5:30 a.m., Ontario Public Service Employees Union President Smokey Thomas told CP24 in a phone interview Saturday.

A sign at a stop for the 28 Bayview bus at Bayview Ave and Merton St says nothing in 13 languages. It appears the sign, posted over the regular stop beside a construction site, is intended to give directions to a temporary stop. But it doesn’t. The English part says Board Bus Or Streetcar At and then nothing. What appears to be the same message in 12 other languages (or not) may be helpful for something but seem unlikely to give away the location of the temporary stop. The 28 Bayview runs from the Davisville station to the Brick Works on weekends but is promised by the TTC as a permanent weekday service sometime this year as soon as the necessary buses arrive from a manufacturer. Fingers crossed. (Further searching finds a stop by Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, but no thanks to the sign).

Erratic driving and then a wrong-way plunge down a ramp of Highway 410 caused a head-on collision Friday evening. When OPP officers leaped out of their cruisers to deal with the crash a man involved in the collision got into one of the cop cars and drove away.  The cruiser has been located using its GPS but the suspect is still on the loose. The Commissioner may have something to say. CBC

Many businesses would like the problem. The number of customers at Sports Swap at 1541 Bayview Ave. has caused the firm to post a notice on the front door asking people to be patient.  The “high volume” of business has a caused delays apparently and now Sports Swap asks patrons to give the names to the cashier so that “everyone is served in order”.