Willow Square Officially Opened August 2012

The WIA has always been the heart of the community’s summer life.
It is where our parades begin, birders gather and dancing, music and theatre happen. 

It also fronts the path that takes thousands of visitors to the boardwalk and Ward’s Beach each year. But over years the space around this historic clubhouse seriously deteriorated, with cracked sidewalks, uneven ground and on the city’s side of the path, broken glass and garbage from the weekly garbage collection.

In the winter of 2010 we dreamed of transforming this space into something beautiful and celebratory – and then we asked you to help us realize that dream.  

And you did, in numbers greater than we could have ever imagined.  More than 175 people and several organizations and corporations have helped create this Willow Square. An amazing community effort. 

Thank you, everyone – pebblers, gardeners, builders and donors – you made it happen.

We owe a special thanks to Maggy Howarth who taught us how to make pebble mosaics. And to Warren Hoselton and his City Parks staff who never said “no”. 

We now have a beautiful space where people can gather for events or sit and reflect looking at the gardens or just eat an ice cream cone sitting with friends on the armour stones. Over time there will be more plants, new benches, a water fountain, bulletin board. Next year we will install the restored Landing Stage, connecting us back to the early years of the Ward’s tent community.

But that’s for the future – for now we declare Willow Square officially open.

Kathleen Doody, Jerry Englar and Penny Lawler

Photo by Sean Tamblyn

As always, welcome to the Toronto Island Community website.

The site has been updated to the latest software that has allowed a few new features: RSS feed of the public "torontoisland' Yahoo Group now shows on both the home page (on the right) and on the Bulletin Boards page.  If you want to add an item, then post it to the "torontoisland' email list at Yahoo and wait for the volunteer moderator(s) to approve it.

The new look and feel continues to features a banner of rotating images from a featured Island artist.  Our first guest artist is Rick/Simon.
Should other Island artists wish to be featured, please make your desires known.

Testing of the new section "For Islanders Only" ​continues.  In order to see it, you have to login after having your registration vetted (the vetting is similar to the MyNeighbours eGroup list process).  Forums software (a bit like MyNeighbours), videos, and possible electronic payment ideas are floated here.

Future plans are to try for an improved Island Events Calendar... if only the cats would herd properly!

Please note: older internet browsers might have difficulty with a few of the pages.  If this happens, try using a different or newer internet browser.

Kind regards,
Eric
ericzhelka at gmail dot com
webmaster emeritus