DAN CEARNS The Standard

SCUGOG: Megalore is once again looking for community support as they get ready to hold the 2017 edition of their fundraising events.

Megalore, formerly Megalore Group, will be holding their ‘Spring Fling Dance’, at 320 Queen St. in Port Perry, on Friday, May 5th, from 8 p.m. until 1 a.m. The charity event will include live music, provided by ‘The Brian and Ted Show.’ There will also be a late lunch, cash bar and door prizes. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at Envoy Business Centre.

Megalore will also be holding their charity golf classic tournament at Crestwood Golf Club on Saturday, July 15th., Nextly, they will be holding a ‘New Country vs. Classic Rock Fall Dance’, again at 320 Queen St. on Friday, Sept. 15th.

Megalore is a non profit organization of caring individuals in the community, who strive to help people in the local Scugog purview. Their mandate is ‘to assist community members, within Scugog Township, who are faced with life-altering challenges and are in need of financial assistance not obtainable through insurance plans or government programs.' All of the money Megalore raises stays in the Scugog community.

“Everyone I've talked to about Megalore, they say they're happy that the money stays here in town,” founder Lynn Doucette told The Standard.

Some of the donations Megalore has made include: $2,000 to R.H. Cornish Public School’s Healthy Start Breakfast program; and $500 to a Scugog area family who became homeless, after losing their home to a fire. They have also helped children with cancer, helped pay for eye operations, a senior in need of dental work and many more. Since the organization started, they have donated almost $15,000 to Scugog residents in need.

Lynn explained where the name of the organization came from.

“I said to Jim [Doucette, her husband and co-founder], I want a name for the group, and he was in the kitchen with me, and he said, ‘like what?’ and I said ‘I don't know.’ He blurted out Megalore and I said ‘that’s it.’ I turned to him and I asked where that came from, and he said it was his great great grandfather's first name,” she said.

Lynn also stressed, the non profit organization couldn’t have done anything without the support of the community.

"It's with much gratitude that we extend our heartfelt appreciation and thank you to those who continue to support our cause. It is through your attendance of our three annual events that we are successful in helping those in need,” she said.

Megalore would also like to thank all of the volunteers who have helped them at their events each and every year.

For more information on Megalore and their upcoming events, contact Lynn or Jim, at 905-985-4372 or 905- 259- 2753.

DON WILLMER
Special to The Standard

SCUGOG: On “Maundy Thursday”, April 13th, at 7:30 p.m., in the sanctuary of Port Perry United Church, there will be a live re-enactment of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting masterpiece, the Last Supper. Maundy Thursday recalls the night in which Jesus shared in the Passover meal, in the upper room with his twelve disciples. Later that night he was betrayed by one of them, and the next day, Good Friday, Jesus was publicly executed by the Romans, by crucifixion.

The name “Maundy Thursday” is derived from the first word of the Latin phrase, “Mandatum novum do vobis,” which means, “A new commandment I give to you,” and continues, “That you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 13:34) This teaching was part of Jesus’ last supper discourse.

While, by no means the only artistic representation of this key event in the gospel story, Leonardo’s is by far the most famous. Indeed it is one of the best known of all paintings, perhaps second only to the Mona Lisa, also painted by Leonardo.

In 1494, already recognized at age 42 as a genius accomplished in many fields, Leonardo was commissioned by the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, to do a fresco on the theme of the last supper, for the refectory, the dining hall or cafeteria of the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, a favourite shrine of the Duke’s new young wife, Beatrice.

The fresco took three years, Leonardo’s working on and off, to complete, and is now over 500 years old. It occupies 14 x 30 feet of wall space.

It shows Jesus and the twelve disciples, seated along one side of a long table, at the moment when Jesus had spoken the words, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.” Already, each of the disciples had begun to wonder which one of them could commit such an horrific act, and whether it might even be they themselves.

Leonardo’s painting of the last supper offers quite a story, both in its creation and in its subsequent history.

Leonardo was not good at finishing projects he had begun, even those for which he had received a commission. The prior, the head of the monastery, was aware of those bad work habits, and he took to nagging da Vinci whenever he saw the great painter standing staring at the wall. The story goes that the prior took the matter up with Leonardo’s patron, the Duke. The Duke was very much aware of what an unrivaled artist he had working for him, and raised the matter with Leonardo with great delicacy. At that point, Leonardo explained to the Duke, he had but two faces left to paint, that of Judas and that of Jesus.
As to Jesus, he was unwilling to look for a human model, for he doubted human imagination could conceive of the beauty and grace that properly belonged to the Son of God. But a model for the face of Judas was a problem more easily solved. Between them, Leonardo and the Duke decided the face of the tactless and unfortunate prior would serve as the model for the face of Judas!

Even without the benefit of the many preliminary sketches, which Leonardo prepared and are still preserved, we can make educated guesses at which figures represent which disciples. For example, we know that Judas served as the treasurer for the group, and the fourth disciple from the left is holding a money bag. One can see the dark and defiant look on his face. He has already made the bargain of betrayal.

The face of Jesus was deliberately never completed. That work must have been attempted by one of the several who tried to restore the work.

In the upcoming presentation, the thirteen actors remain absolutely still, in the pose depicted in the painting. One by one, each comes aout of their pose, to offer a short monologue on what is going through their mind: remembrances of the ministry of preaching and teaching and healing shared with Jesus, the compelling nature of their leader, and their own human frailty.

At the end of the presentation, the sacrament of holy communion will be celebrated, for those who wish to partake. There is no charge for admission to the presentation, and no offering will be received.

DAN CEARNS  The Standard

UXBRIDGE: The Earl of Whitchurch Pub in Stouffville has broken Guinness World Records for the longest concert and the longest continuously live-streamed concert.

The longest concert record was officially broken, early on Sunday, April 2nd. The concert began, on Friday, March 17th, and ran until Tuesday, April 4th.

Uxbridge’s Leah Daniels and Ben Hudson were two of the many artists who performed at the record-breaking concert.

“When they first asked me, I thought it was crazy. I didn’t know how they were going to do this, Ms. Daniels said.

However, she added that, once she talked to the organizers the vision made more sense to her.

“It was something that I definitely wanted to be a part of, it was the coolest thing. It is very cool to say that I was a part of that [record breaking concert].”

Mr. Hudson told The Standard, he enjoyed being a part of the pub’s record-breaking concert.

“It was an incredible experience. The amount of support and the number of people that showed up was amazing,” he said.

Some of the rules the organizers had to follow in order to break the record for the longest concert, included: Each song must be at least two minutes long; there can be no more than 30 seconds between songs; there would be no more than five minutes between musical acts; there must be at least 10 conscious people in the audience at all times; and no song be repeated within a four hour period.

“It was pretty exciting to be a part of something like this, but it was also the most stressful gig I’ve ever done,” Ms. Daniels said.

The event raised money for a different charity each day.

DAN CEARNS The Standard
SCUGOG: An abstract art exhibition, titled “26 paintings by Ron Lambert”, is coming to the Kent Farndale Gallery in Port Perry, starting Saturday, April 8th.


The exhibition is meant to honour the 26 artists that were involved in the Canadian Abstract Exhibition in 1952. That exhibition featured works from artists Lawren Harris, Alexandra Luke, as well as Oshawa based artist Ron Lambert and 23 others. Mr. Lambert is the last surviving member of those 26 artists.
“I think it will be an eye opener for a lot of people,” Mr. Lambert told The Standard.


Mr. Lambert is credited as being one of the first of his generation to do a style of painting known as postwar abstraction.
“It is a great sense of relief when the colours do what I want them to do,” Mr. Lambert said.


Lawrence Brissenden has been following Mr. Lambert’s career for a number of years and helped organize this show.
“I said ‘where do you want to do a show?’ I was thinking somewhere like New York, and he said Port Perry. He said he spent a lot of great times in Port Perry,” Mr. Brissenden said.


An opening reception for the exhibit will be held at 2 p.m. on April 8th, and the exhibit will run until Thursday, May 4th.

For more information on the exhibition, there is a YouTube video below