Accolades received for Caledon’s Town Crier

September 11, 2013 · 0 Comments

By Bill Rea
Caledon’s Town Crier Andrew Welch is not only busy representing the Town — he’s successful too, with the hardware to prove it.
Welch recently won recognition as the “Best Representative of Their Town and Community” at the International Town Criers Contest, which was held early last month in Kingston.
It was while Welch was being recognized for that accomplishment by Caledon council that he announced he took part in the Marshville Heritage Festival Town Crier Competition in Wainfleet Sept. 1. He won top prize there and was presented with what he said its the world’s largest Town Crier trophy.
Mayor Marolyn Morrison praised Welch for his strong showing representing the community. The event in Kingston, she pointed, is something like the olympics; held every four years. She added there were 37 Criers at the event, from seven different countries.
“We’re very proud of you,” she said.
Welch said there were criers from Australia, Belgium, Netherlands, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States at Kingston, and he delivered three proclamations there. One proclaimed the virtues of Caledon, another as about Sir John A. Macdonald and the third (available on YouTube, in which he is seen on stage, accompanied by his wife Elswyth Fryer) was a humourous offering about Kingston as the capital of Canada (which is was, along with several other cities, until Queen Victoria finally selected Ottawa). That cry also contained some pithy observations about the Senate, which drew loud applause.
“A proposal has been mad to change the system for convening the legislative council, now called the Senate,” he proclaimed. “It has been suggested that compensating each senator for travel expenses from their home riding to the capital might be more cost-effective than the existing system of continually relocating the capital to each of their home ridings.”
The entire cry can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmzWmzZx8eQ
Referring to his Marshville festival triumph, he said that included crying for craft vendors at the show.

Mayor Marolyn Morrison congratulated Town Crier Andrew Welch on his recent success, accompanied by Councillors Nick deBoer, Gord McClure, Allan Thompson, Rob Mezzapelli, Richard Paterak, Doug Beffort, Richard Whitehead and Patti Foley.
Photo by Bill Rea