Leaside Rotary has many great members with long histories with the club. One such member is George Hurst. He joined the club in 1987, so he has seen and done a lot. He was recently awarded King Charles III’s Coronation Medal for his outstanding community work. George shared the highlights of a couple of events that were extremely popular back in the day:
Bingo
Bingo was held seven days a week in the ’70s and ’80s at a church basement on Sherbourne Street. There were 1,200 people (75% of them women) per morning, afternoon, and evening shift. This was before lotteries started so bingo was the chance to win a big prize of $100! People returned twice or three times per week. Some were very skilled with their favourite dauber pens and some even ran up to 20 bingo cards at a time! Everyone was smoking at the bingo hall, so you had to wash all your clothes after your shift. The end of bingo, which used to be a terrific way for many clubs to raise funds for their various charities, came in the late ’80s when smoking was banned in all indoor facilities.
Metro Toronto International Caravan Festival
Caravan was a city-wide 10-day international summertime event that started in 1969 and ran for 35 years. It was promoted as a chance for participants to travel around the world, metaphorically, in one day. There were more than 55 different pavilions supporting the multicultural aspects of Toronto (including Italian, French, German and Japanese). The Leaside Rotary Club was host to the Calgary Pavilion located at Todmorden Mills. Everyone wore cowboy hats, cowboy boots and bandanas. Every night we served a roast beef dinner. People were entertained with a casino, live bands and variety shows (supported by local university students). This annual event ran for many years and was extremely popular – even Queen Elizabeth II attended, in 1984. This was the precursor to the many international food festivals held in Toronto today.
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This article was guest contributed by Craig Hutchinson.