While astronomical summer doesn’t end until the fall equinox on September 22, the town of Sackville held its End of Summer BBQ at Bill Johnstone Memorial Park on Thursday to mark the end of summer recreation programming. CHMA dropped by to meet some of the folks involved.
Deanna Cadman, Program and Special Events coordinator with the town of Sackville was on hand to oversee the event. “We’ve had a really good summer with our staff and it’s sad to see them go,” says Cadman. “But I know they’re all raring to get ready to go back to school.”
Cadman says her next order of business is the Fall Fair, and planning for that is well underway. “Our theme is this year is ‘Fall in Love’, hoping that everybody will come together,” says Cadman. Fall Fair starts on September 21 and features a big tent in the parking lot beside Goya’s Pizza. A schedule of events is available here.
Sackville Mayor Shawn Mesheau also made it down to the park to celebrate the end of summer, and CHMA also caught up with him.
“I’m excited to see the kind of hustle and bustle start coming back into the community,” says Mesheau. “We’re seeing that influx again, of the University influence in our community, and seeing lots of young faces on the streets and people coming back. So this is good time.”
This fall could be a tough one for the Mayor, as he faces an election and the final throes of the amalgamation process which will see Sackville became a former town that’s part of the new Tantramar municipality. “Changes is tough at times, right? And it’s hard to embrace change,” says Mesheau. “You have to look at it as maybe, where’s the opportunity in that change?”
Mesheau said he had the opportunity this summer to speak with other mayors at the Atlantic Mayors Congress, and heard from others who had been through amalgamations. They told him, “yeah, it was tough. But overall, after five or so years, they’ve managed to get to a spot where it’s actually helped them grow.”
“It’s good to hear how other communities have dealt with it,” says Mesheau. “And ultimately, it’s here. The train has left the station, and so we need to kind of find a way through that’s going to work for our new community.”