Our athletes need your support–join the North Toronto Athletics Committee!

Whether on the field, on the ice, or in the pool, NT has enjoyed success for many years. However, we need more resources to keep that tradition alive.

The North Toronto Athletics Committee (NTAC) was formed three years ago to meet that need. Made up of NT alumni, staff, and parents, NTAC’s mission is to connect the past with the present and build towards the future. It has raised over $10,000 since forming, and has helped purchase equipment for the weight room and team uniforms, as well as cover tournament fees.

But there is more to do.

Come to our next meeting on November 25 at 6.30 p.m. at NTCI Room 251 or contact Michael Colley at michaelcolley@bell.net to find out how you can support our athletes!

School pride on display at Red & Grey Day 2019

Do you remember the words of our school song?

Hail North Toronto! was a key feature of this year’s Red & Grey Day, NT’s annual celebration of athletics and school spirit. This year, each home form picked a theme to celebrate, then decorated their classroom and dressed up according to that theme. Each class sang the school song, and the different versions were then pulled together into two (mostly) spirited videos. Follow along with students in grades 9 and 12 and grades 10 and 11.

October 10 also featured assemblies, a hot dog BBQ lunch, and a performance from the school band. Of course, the day’s main attraction was a packed sports schedule, with students being dismissed early to watch different teams play throughout the day. A great day for NT sports, as the school won or tied every game: two field hockey, two boys volleyball, girls ultimate, girls basketball, boys soccer, and a football game.

Reunion Announcement: Calling All Members of the Class of ’69…

To celebrate “50 Years Later”, exciting plans are in the works to hold a Class of ’69 reunion this coming October. At this point the exact timing and location of the event is TBD although the tentative plan is to hold a dinner event at a Toronto venue and include a visit to the new school.

To make sure you don’t miss out, watch the NTCI Foundation website for more information and/or contact any of the organizing committee:

Looking for NT’s Entrepreneurs

Are you an artist, writer, musician or inventor? Have you established your own business specializing in a unique product or service? If so, we would love to hear from YOU!

To further support NT alumni and share the many different career paths NT grads take, the Foundation is initiating a new feature highlighting entrepreneurial alumni. If you have started a venture that you would like to share with fellow alumni, please send a note to entrepreneurs@ntcifoundation.ca. We will get in touch with you and do a short Q&A to post on the website along with a brief bio, photo, and your business contact information.    

Our first featured entrepreneur is Bernice Lum (‘82)

Bernice Lum (’82): An NT Entrepreneur

After graduating from North Toronto, Bernice studied graphic design at Sheridan College. Following her graduation from Sheridan, she freelanced at several Toronto design companies as well as CityTV. In 1988, she relocated to London, England where she continued to freelance for design consultants. With more design work being done by computer, Bernice decided to do the other thing she loved to do…draw! In recent years, her career as an illustrator has taken her in many directions. She has published over 50 books and has clients in North America and abroad. In addition to illustration, her unique “bowling pin” characters are adding to her success story. Foundation vice-chair Lisa Cain recently spoke to Bernice about her creations.

You have a great body of work behind you but most recently you have been having great success with your bowling pins. Tell us a little bit about how that started?

The shape of the bowling pins emulate the human form in a fun caricature way so I decided to use the pins as my diary of sorts. The inspiration to use bowling pins came from the story of when my oldest brother, Charles, was born. On that day, my mother was at Women’s College Hospital and on that very same day, my father had a Bowling Tournament Final, so he went to play while my mother was at the hospital. When Charles was born, the hospital called the bowling alley to tell my dad the news and celebratory cigars were bought for everyone at the bowling alley. The idea to work with the pins was to pay homage to my brother who passed away seven years ago and my father who passed away just three years ago. 

Your bowling pins were featured at PULSE Contemporary Art Fair in Miami in December. Congratulations on a SOLD OUT show. How has this new notoriety changed your life?

Thank you and it was so very unexpected to have all the pins sell out. As for the notoriety… I wouldn’t say there has been notoriety, but I will say that it has definitely helped my trajectory, my confidence and [provided] a lovely confirmation that the work I am doing is connecting with people.

Thanks to Bernice for sharing her story; to contact Bernice or find out more about her work, point your browser to: www.bernicelum.com and https://galerieyoun.com/en/artists/bernice-lum.

Internship Request

Recently, the Foundation was contacted by a 2018 NT grad seeking a summer internship opportunity (May to August). She is currently completing her first year at the University of Western Ontario in engineering and is specializing in mechatronics, which is a combination of software, mechanical and electrical engineering. She stated that she would be content to be involved with something directly related to her field of study or in any professional workforce that would help her gain experience and diversify her skills. If you are able to provide such an opportunity or know of someone who could, please contact Foundation chair Ron Wakelin (rwakelin@utschools.ca); he will put you in contact with this very promising grad.

Editor’s Note: At the Foundation’s last meeting, the receipt of the above request sparked a discussion of how the Foundation might be a platform for connecting established alumni with current students/recent grads. If you are interested in providing mentorship, internship or other career enhancing opportunities to other alumni, please contact Ron Wakelin at the above address.

Saving Our Heritage – The Scholarship Winners’ Photographs

Editor’s note: For the past number of years, the NTCI Foundation’s archivist, Nancy Baines, has been working on a labour of love – the cataloguing and digitizing of the University Scholarship Winners’ photographs. In the following article, Nancy shares this journey.

If you attended NT any time prior to the 1990s, you will probably remember the rows of scholarship photos that lined the main wall of the foyer. Discretely framed, with five faces to a frame, these photos of former NT university scholarship winners, displayed our bragging rights to academic excellence from 1919 to 1986 when this practice was discontinued. Sometime in the 1990s, these photos were taken down and carelessly stored anywhere that space could be found for them. Some were piled in the back of the auditorium under the stairs, others in the former “kitchen-cum- archives room” in the basement and still others were placed in the boiler room and caretakers’ room. There they languished until it was decided to build the new school. 

When I took over the care of the archives, I did not realize that the photos were so unloved. But eventually, realizing that something had to be done to preserve them, I appealed to the TDSB’s conservationist for advice on how to take better care of them. Needless to say, 348 framed photographs took up too much space to properly store them in their frames. So, several months before the big move, I had the caretakers comb the school to locate all the photos. Then I removed them from their frames, carefully noting the information about them. Fortunately, I also had a typed list that a former secretary had kept of the winners. After destroying the frames, I got some pleasure in smashing the glass to little pieces, wrapping it and putting the whole mess out for the garbage. But no more could be done until well after the move. Then I took on the chore of scanning the photos and placing the pictures themselves into binders, recording each name and scholarships won. All this has been done to the best of my ability and now four large binders are available for anyone who would like to see them. We also have a USB key with the scanned photos.

However, much to my dismay, some of the framed photos never resurfaced when we went looking for them in 2010.  The following photos / scholarship information are missing:

  • 1964:   Susan Lederman, Douglas Long, Warren Milne, Glen Patterson, Peteris Zvilna
  • 1965:   Francis Aboud, Jacqueline Constam, Georg Gunther, Lorraine Koffman, Sheldon Larry
  • 1969:   Wendy Wayling  (although listed as having no photograph) 
  • 1971:   Paul Eprille, Ingid Jarvis, Jan Shapiro, Dianne Short, Martin Snelgrove, Marilyn Thomson
  • 1981:   Peter Chan, Helen Ferrigan, Stephen Ko, Christopher McLeod, Paul Quinn
  • 1982:   Michael Armstrong, Peter Wan
  • 1983:   Jill MacDonald

I have scanned and enlarged the yearbook photos for the students listed above. They are fuzzy but better than nothing. If anyone has information about the scholarships these alumni won and/or a copy of their scholarship photos, I would appreciate hearing from you. Please contact me at: ntcifoundation@ntci.on.ca.

Your Dollars at Work!

Each fall and spring for the past few years, the NTCI Foundation has held a “Dragons’ Den” where current student groups present their requests for funding. This event allows for a direct connection between alumni and current students, ensuring that the Foundation is supporting the proposals that contribute to a vibrant experience for all NT students. This year, the 2019 spring edition of the Foundation Dragons’ Den was a spirited affair with several groups important to NT student life, Graffiti and PALS, stepping up to make their respective cases.

With the current Graffiti editorial computer now 10 years old, the newspaper’s energetic business team made a compelling presentation about the need for a replacement. Their argument was strong and full funding was allocated. The grant will allow the editorial team to continue the tradition of producing an award-winning student newspaper for their fellow NT students.

The Peer Assistance Leaders, or PALs as they are known in the school, were the second group to make their funding appeal to the Foundation Dragons. The organization of 131 members, which helps transition Grade 9 students to high school life, was looking for financial support for a variety of initiatives. These included mentorship workshops, holding pizza “breaking-the-ice” lunches with the Grade 9s and buying additional vests/t-shirts to identify members of PALS as approachable and friendly faces to whom young students can reach out to. The PALS reps made a convincing case and secured their requested financial support, thus ensuring that the students in the 2019/20 NTCI Grade 9 class will be welcomed and supported.

To show your “graditude” to NT and support student groups of today, please donate to the NTCI Foundation: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/north-toronto-collegiate-institute-foundation/.