October 20, 2010

INTERNATIONAL CHURCHILL SOCIETY – CANADA

Dear Fellow Canadian Churchillians:

New Members

2025 International Churchill Conference

Join us for the 42nd International Churchill Conference. Washington, DC | October 9-11, 2025

2025 International Churchill Conference

A very warm welcome is extended to the following new members:

Carl Copeland, Claude David, Pat McCulloch & Duncan McGregor

A Pre-Remembrance Day Event

Tuesday, November 9th, 6.30 pm; Albany Club of Toronto

Details of the talk by Dr. Eric McGeer on, Claiming the Lion’s Share: Churchill, Alexander and the Gothic Line:

The Canadian Campaign in Italy, August-September 1944, are in the enclosed flyer. To bring down the cost we have dispensed with the meal portion, and also in response to concerns on including drinks, there will now be a cash bar.

Please join us – and bring your friends!

See our Calendar of Events for more information

Canada 1914 – 1918 Ypres

Members attending our May 10th 2009 annual dinner will recall the famous Canadian actor and director, R.H. (Robert) Thomson speaking of his efforts to make the current generation aware of the sacrifices made by Canadians in the “Great War”. This included projecting the names of all 68,000 Canadians who died in the war onto the facade of Canada House in London, with the presence of the Her Majesty the Queen at the opening ceremony.

This year Robert has embarked on “Canada 1914 – 1918 Ypres” which brings in 150 schools across Canada, from Labrador City to Victoria . From November 4th to November 10th, during the day and evening, every 25 seconds the name of a member of the armed forces who died will be shown. Full details are on the web site www.1914-1918.ca including the procedure to ascertain when a specific person’s name will be shown.

ICS Canada, along with our sister organization the Churchill Society for the Advancement of Parliamentary Democracy, is proud to have been able to assist Robert and his colleague Martin Conboy, by obtaining a grant from Veteran Affairs Canada for this project.

Robert’s initiative and dedication resulted in an announcement on October 4th by the Minister of Veteran Affairs Canada, that he had been awarded a well deserved “commendation.” The Minister said: “The Commendation recipients being honoured here today are heroes-not because they wield great power and influence, but because they care enough about our Veterans to come to their aid and to make great sacrifices on their behalf.”

From The Newspapers

Extract of an Article by Roy MacGregor – The Globe and Mail, 28 June 2010.

“A Humbler Summit that Produced Big Results”

“This,” says Alphonse Griffiths with a grand sweep of his paintbrush over the windswept bay in front of him, “was the First Summit.”

The self appointed keeper of the memory of the Atlantic Charter has been painting most of the day. First he worked on the little memorial Parks Canada erected two miles out from a gravel road to the beach where Winston Churchill once picked wild flowers, while he contemplated the state of the world. Now Griffiths is finishing up the anchor at the beginning of the harbour where the British P. M. and U.S. President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, met in the summer of 1941, to forge the Atlantic Charter.

Griffiths considers it among the most important international documents ever agreed upon and even keeps the table – on which Churchill and Roosevelt and a handful of assistants hammered it out – in his living room, propped up against the wall behind the couch.

“I found it in a warehouse in New Jersey,” says the 53 year old ship’s carpenter with Marine Atlantic. “Cost me $2,000 to ship it here.”

Compared to the recent Summit in Toronto, Security was rather different in Newfoundland. Apart from the naval presence, Churchill’s bodyguard Walter Thompson and Roosevelt’s bodyguard Mike Reilly passed the time hanging out together with nothing really to do. Churchill insisted on going ashore to walk the beach and think, but since no one else was around it was hardly a concern. The people of Ship Harbour had no idea who the lonely figure was walking along the stone shore in the distance.

The Atlantic Charter’s import, Alphonse Griffiths says, cannot be overstated. He hopes to have a website (www.atlanticcharter.ca) up and running soon. Too few, he believes, are even aware that such a pivotal summit took place in the waters off what would soon be Canada’s 10th Province.

Comments, suggestions, articles would be appreciated. Please write or e-mail to Terry Reardon, 182 Burnhamthorpe Rd, Toronto, Ontario, M9A 1H6. Tel. 416 231 6803 or [email protected]

www.winstonchurchillcanada.ca