🔦 In This Issue of Kingston Spotlight
🎸 On the Cover: Five Posters, One Band
🔦 Several amazing local spotlight articles are coming up soon !
🎸 What to Pack and Where to Park for Forever Hip
✈️ Kingston’s New Control Tower Watches the Sky Through 12 Screens
🔋 One More Saturday to Get the Paint and Batteries Out of the Garage
🏅 Seven Volunteers Took a Bow at City Council on August 11
🎸 Cher Reynolds Painted a Guitar for the Hospital That Cared for Her Mother
🤝 The Question the Providence Care Board Asks Itself: What Would the Sisters Do?
🎸 Forever Hip, the Whole Weekend at a Glance | Downtown Kingston | Aug 20 to 22
🎤 Thursday: Choir! Choir! Choir! Leads, Plus More | Downtown Kingston | Aug 20
🎬 Friday: Long Time Running Screening, Plus More | Downtown Kingston | Aug 21
📺 Saturday: The Final Concert Rebroadcast, Plus More | Downtown Kingston | Aug 22
It’s gotten too long to include here in the summary! Click Events Calendar to see our list for the next few days.
Too long? Too short? About right? Tell us what you would like to see more of, and less of.
🤟 Learn ASL From Someone Who Grew Up in It
Some people learn ASL for their job. Some learn it for one particular person. Our sponsor SignAble Vi5ion teaches both.
Leah Riddell is Deaf and a certified ASL instructor, and she built the courses to cover Deaf culture and Canadian accessibility alongside the vocabulary. That is the difference between memorising signs and being able to use them with an actual person.
There are two ways in. Sign2Connect is a live virtual beginner class, taught by SignAble Vi5ion with guided instruction and practice. Sign2Thrive is self-paced, built from workbooks and video lessons, for going at your own speed.
Start wherever suits you.
We went deep this summer on Leah's story, from four schools and a cochlear implant to the day Kingston became the first city in Ontario to proclaim International Day of Sign Languages. Read the full spotlight.
We save this space for local businesses worth knowing. Drop us a line.
🔦 The Cover
🎸 On the Cover: Five Posters, One Band
The Tragically Hip, assembled from five separate posters on the Kingston Visitor Information Centre at 209 Ontario Street. Photos, composite and background by Les Cseh, Kingston Spotlight. Posters from the City of Kingston and Tourism Kingston’s Forever Hip campaign.
Five posters are up on the limestone front of the Kingston Visitor Information Centre on Ontario Street, across from City Hall, one for each member of the band, alternating between Forever Hip and Toujours Hip. We shot them separately, cropped them, joined them and built a background around them, so the whole Hip lands in one frame.
📰 Kingston & Area Local News
🎸 What to Pack and Where to Park for Forever Hip
Forever Hip, Kingston, next 7 exits. New Highway 401 signage points visitors at the Hip’s hometown. Photo via Les Cseh, Kingston Spotlight
The Hip played their last show on August 20, 2016, which makes this issue’s date the tenth anniversary to the day. We highlight the three free days in the New Events section further down in the newsletter. Downtown lots and garages are all walkable, free park-and-ride sites feed into Kingston Transit, and accessible parking runs on Clarence Street between King and Ontario, with a reserved space for accessible seating in Springer Market Square. Market Street is closed August 19 to 23, with more closures around the Square during event hours, and Municipal511 carries updates. Rain or shine.
Read the full story at: City of Kingston
✈️ Kingston’s New Control Tower Watches the Sky Through 12 Screens
A row of 12 screens replaces the windows in a remote air traffic monitoring console. Photo via Nav Canada.
NAV CANADA has finished a digital aerodrome tower at Kingston Airport, the first of its kind in Canada. A camera on top rotates around it, others pan, tilt and zoom on anything that looks like an obstacle, and controllers work from a bank of 12 screens standing in for windows. The cameras see about three times further than binoculars do. A year of remote monitoring will run alongside regular air traffic control, with Hamilton next in line to be watched from Kingston, though that year has now slipped to next year. NAV CANADA and CATCA, the controllers’ union, both say a human stays in charge.
Read the full story at: CBC News
🔋 One More Saturday to Get the Paint and Batteries Out of the Garage
The kinds of things the drop-off takes: batteries, paint, fuel, bulbs and cleaners. Graphic from the City of Kingston’s Facebook page.
The City’s permanent household hazardous waste facility will not open in 2026. The custom receiving building was delayed when critical equipment failed at the manufacturer, and the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks needs it installed and running before the facility can open. So there is a second drop-off event instead, on Saturday, August 29, at the Public Works Sand and Salt Dome at 1307 Innovation Drive. It is drive-through, staff handle everything, and GFL Environmental is collecting. Last car in line at 3:30 p.m. If you are not sure whether something qualifies, check What Goes Where or call 613-546-0000.
Read the full story at: City of Kingston
🏆 Community Champions
🏅 Seven Volunteers Took a Bow at City Council on August 11
Rumit Sohal, First Capital Honourable Achievement Award.
Shawn Quigley, First Capital Honourable Achievement Award.
Alicia Gordon, First Capital Honourable Achievement Award.
Gabriel Bergeron, Mayor’s Award for Youth Volunteerism.
Zein Al Abideen Hammad, Mayor’s Award for Youth Volunteerism.
Lucas Perri, Mayor’s Award for Youth Volunteerism.
Marion Westenberg, First Capital Distinguished Citizen Award.
The seven recipients of the 2026 Mayor’s Civic Awards, presented at City Council on Aug. 11. Photos from the City of Kingston.
Mayor Bryan Paterson presented the 2026 Mayor’s Civic Awards at a City Council meeting on Tuesday, August 11, at City Hall. Marion Westenberg received the First Capital Distinguished Citizen Award. Rumit Sohal, Shawn Quigley and Alicia Gordon received First Capital Honourable Achievement Awards. Gabriel Bergeron took the Mayor’s Award for Youth Volunteerism at the secondary level, and Zein Al Abideen Hammad and Lucas Perri took it at the post-secondary level. In the City’s own announcement, Paterson said the awards recognize people who give their time, talents and energy to support others and strengthen the city around them.
Read the full story at: CFRC
🎸 Cher Reynolds Painted a Guitar for the Hospital That Cared for Her Mother
Cher Reynolds with her guitar, The Constellation Heartbeat: One Star at a Time, outside Hotel Dieu. Photo from uhkf.ca.
Play Me Kingston has put eleven artist-made guitar sculptures around the downtown core until November 1, and one of them stands on Brock Street outside Kingston Health Sciences Centre’s Hotel Dieu site. Cher Reynolds made that one. She moved to Kingston as a teenager when her mother came here for cancer treatment, and her mother kept being cared for at those hospitals until she died. Her guitar is called The Constellation Heartbeat: One Star at a Time, limestone-toned with gold accents and heartbeat motifs, and it carries donation prompts for UHKF, which sponsors it. The Downtown Kingston BIA produced the project with eight artists, and its page maps all eleven.
Read the full story at: UHKF
🤝 The Question the Providence Care Board Asks Itself: What Would the Sisters Do?
Marc Varin has chaired the Providence Care board for the last two of his nearly seven years on it. Photo from providencecare.ca.
When the Providence Care board faces a big decision, it comes back to one question: what would the Sisters do? That is Marc Varin, who has sat on the board for nearly seven years and chaired it for the last two. In a profile published by Providence Care, Varin describes growing up in a small town where volunteers made the difference, and says, “I’ve always believed in giving back.” Varin describes the thread running through every Providence Care program as helping people live better lives, and says Providence Commons, the affordable housing project, pushed the board to think differently about health care.
Read the full story at: Providence Care
🙈 I wrote a book about getting reviews. Guess who never asked for Kingston Spotlight.
A few years back I wrote Get More 5-Star Reviews, which is exactly what it sounds like: a guide to helping small businesses ask properly and avoid what can get them into big trouble. Then I started Kingston Spotlight, got busy putting it out twice a week, and never once got around to taking my own advice.
So, awkwardly: Kingston Spotlight has a Google listing, and it is a bit bare. If the newsletter has pointed you at something good, a neighbour worth knowing about, or an event you would have missed, that is worth saying out loud where other people can find it.
I am not going to ask you for five stars. Honest is the only kind worth having, and that is in the book too.
🆕 New Events In and Around Kingston
🎸 Forever Hip, the Whole Weekend at a Glance | Downtown Kingston | Aug 20 to 22
Three days, all free, all in Springer Market Square. Graphic from the City of Kingston.
Ten years ago, on August 20, 2016, The Tragically Hip played their last show in Kingston, and the granite marker in Market Square carries that date. Three days mark the anniversary, all free, all in the Square. Thursday is Rockin’ the Square, with Choir! Choir! Choir! leading a mass sing-along. Friday brings archival video, Kingston Music Office walking tours, a local music merchandise market and an outdoor screening of Long Time Running, the documentary about the band’s farewell tour. Saturday is the CBC rebroadcast of A National Celebration. The City Hall exhibition is open Friday and Saturday. And the Hip are not finished with Kingston after this weekend, because the stage musical It’s a Good Life if You Don’t Weaken runs at the Kingston Grand Theatre October 22 to November 8. Full schedule on the City’s Forever Hip page.
🎤 Thursday: Choir! Choir! Choir! Leads, Plus More | Downtown Kingston | Aug 20
Rockin’ the Square, presented by Empire Life, opens the weekend on the anniversary itself, and the main event is everybody singing. Choir! Choir! Choir! leads a mass Tragically Hip sing-along, which needs no audition and no rehearsal, only a square full of people who already know the words. Tribute sets come from Miss Emily, The Abrams, and Cam Wyatt and Thom Draper of Kasador. Free to attend, and the lineup is on the City’s Forever Hip page and Tourism Kingston’s Forever Hip hub.
🎬 Friday: Long Time Running Screening, Plus More | Downtown Kingston | Aug 21
The Hip take it all in at the end of their final concert, August 20, 2016. Long Time Running tells the story of that tour. Photo via Tourism Kingston.
Friday runs on archive and memory. Kingston Music Office walking tours take people through the city’s music history, and one of them needs registration. A local music merchandise market puts money straight into local musicians’ pockets. Then the big screen carries Long Time Running, the 2017 documentary about the band’s farewell tour, outdoors and free. The City Hall exhibition runs extended hours the same day. Details at Tourism Kingston’s Forever Hip hub and the City’s Forever Hip page.
📺 Saturday: The Final Concert Rebroadcast, Plus More | Downtown Kingston | Aug 22
“Everybody was in it, from miles around.” The final show is already cut into the granite in Market Square. On Saturday the concert comes back to the same spot. Photo via Tourism Kingston.
In 2016 thousands of people packed Springer Market Square to watch the CBC broadcast of The Tragically Hip: A National Celebration on a screen. On Saturday, August 22, it plays again, in the same spot, free. The granite paver set into the ground there already carries the date and a line from that night. The City Hall exhibition is open the same day. Full weekend details on the City’s Forever Hip page and Tourism Kingston’s Forever Hip hub.
📅 Events Calendar
What’s happening in and around Kingston over the next few days
⛳ 3rd Annual YGK Healthcare Champions Golf Tournament | Loyalist Golf & Country Club, 1 Loyalist Blvd, Bath | August 20
🎤 Forever Hip Day 1: Choir! Choir! Choir! Sings The Hip | Springer Market Square | August 20
🔭 Free Fridays at the Museum of Lennox & Addington | Museum of L&A, 97 Thomas St E, Napanee | Fridays to August 21
🎬 Forever Hip Day 2: Long Time Running Screening and Music Walking Tours | Springer Market Square | August 21
🎸 Forever Hip: Tragically Hip 10th-Anniversary Celebrations | Springer Market Square | August 20 to 22
📺 Forever Hip Day 3: CBC Final-Concert Re-Broadcast Viewing Party | Springer Market Square | August 22
⛳ Little Heroes Charity Golf Tournament | August 22
🎶 Music Festival in Compton Park | Compton Park | August 23
⛳ Power of Hope Golf Tournament | August 24
🍿 Movies in the Square, Season 19 | Springer Market Square | Thursdays to August 27
💃 Free Zumba in the Park | Breakwater Park | Tuesdays and Thursdays to August 27
🎥 To Labour, with Love Film Screening and Mixer | Broom Factory, 305 Rideau St | August 27
🎨 Tett Centre Adult Arts Retreat | Tett Centre for Creativity & Learning | August 24 to 28
🗓️ That is just the next few days. The full Kingston events calendar lives here.
Festivals, free weekly programs, museum seasons and every farmers’ market we know about, all in one place and updated with every issue. See the full Kingston Events Calendar, and bookmark it while you are there.
BTW, if you don’t want to receive this anymore, please help all the subscribers by just using the Unsubscribe link at the bottom instead of marking this as SPAM… remember, you did subscribe ;-)
All feedback and suggestions are appreciated!
What would you like to see more of, and less of?
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Email Les at [email protected]
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