It was perfect parade weather on Saturday, December 7th when Santa and his helpers visited our neighbourhood. We were ready with donations for the Westboro Food Bank and of course, lots of holiday cheer.
The parade volunteers got themselves organized with Groomer Dave leading off and hoping that Santa granted his wish for a nice big early snowfall. Craig followed next with his vintage trunk and the tree. Santa came next along with all his helpers who collected donations.
We captured Santa and his helpers in action along the parade route and he was in fine form and his helpers were quite busy.
Many thanks to all of the neighbours who participated and contributed! The numbers are in… we delivered two van loads of food to the Westboro Food Bank and $650 in cash donations. Amazing!
On Sunday, May 4, 2025, an enthusiastic group of Westboro Beach residents got together to replant Atlantis Woods following the removal of the invasive buckthorn. The weather was perfect, over 60 people came out to help, we got the job done and we had a blast!
The NCC provided all of the trees, shrubs, plants and seeds and subcontracted the project management and installation to the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority (RVCA). Many thanks to both organizations!
Approximately 588 native trees, shrubs, ground cover were planted. Also, 4 kilograms of native wild flower seeds were spread. The complete breakdown below.
We will monitor the growth of everything that we planted – they are all marked with red flags.
The RVCA will be back in the fall to evaluate the success of the planting.
As a community, we will continue to keep an eye on the buckthorn and regularly remove roots as they appear. This will take effort and persistence!
There is an Atlantis Woods What’sApp group. Please contact Briar Howes (Briarhowes@gmail.com) if you would like to join and get regular updates on Atlantis Woods.
The weather was great. The Easter Eggs were plenty and of course, well hidden. There was hot chocolate. And most important, the kids were ready to go. Every one had a great time on Sunday, April 20th for our annual Easter Egg hunt. Families from all over the neighbourhood joined us for a morning of fun. It all started at the beach where we gathered the little ones for a parade through the neighbourhood and an opportunity to make as much noise as the they wanted.
The parade ended at our new Easter Egg hunt location, Selby Plain near Churchill and Selby which provided lots of open space and great hiding locations. The smallest children were given a head start and then they everyone joined in to find the many eggs that had been hidden by the organizers, volunteers and parents.
We wanted to extend a special thank you to our local organizers – Indi, Karina, Imogen and Jasper who helped make this all happen. We consider them “graduates” having been part of the Easter Egg hunt when it was just a simple activity in the neighbourhood to something that has grown to a neighbourhood event, now run by them. Also, a special shout out to Gabriella, a young organizer in training and part of the next generation.
We are already starting to think about our End of School/Beach Opening party in June, just two months away now. We will be trading in chocolate eggs for burgers and hot dogs. See you then!
It’s our third year participating in Cleaning the Capital to make our neighbourhood a cleaner and safer place to live and play. Cleaning the Capital is a city-wide cleanup that occurs in the spring and fall of every year, bringing Ottawa residents together as a community to help clean litter from our public spaces.
Join your neighbours from April 17 to May 2 and help make the Westboro Beach Community a little bit cleaner.
WHO: Neighbours and friends of Westboro Beach Community WHAT: Grab a garbage bag and gloves, and pick up waste when you see it! (locations with stars on map: 219 Royal Ave, Mahoney Park, Churchill/Workman bench, others TBD) WHEN: Between Thursday, 17 April and Friday, 02 May, noting 19 Apr & 03 May are Garbage/Recycling Days! Blitz Day will be Saturday, 19 April, 0900-1100 to prep for the EASTER HUNT WHY: To keep our neighbourhood clean and get ready for summer! WHERE: Anywhere within Westboro Beach Community, your street or local forest or park! BLITZ Day will start at Selby and Churchill Avenues intersection and end with Earth Day cake at 219 Royal Avenue! How: Garbage bags and gloves are available at Mahoney Park, Churchill and Workman (bench), and 219 Royal Ave as of 17 April, or use your own! Pick up garbage when you’re out for a walk, and throw it away with your regular trash on garbage pick-up day!
BONUS DAY: 22 April 2024 is EARTH DAY, and picking up garbage is a great way to maximise your morning or evening walk:) We’ll be celebrating early this year on Saturday, 19 April with an Earth Day Cake at 219 Royal! Are you a Business Owner in the neighbourhood? Why not get your team out for a group clean-up on a coffee or lunch break?
Have your own garbage pickers? What a great reason to get out and use them?
We had the snow and perfect winter weather on Saturday. It was a great way to end Winterlude or make it a fun Family Day weekend. A big thank you to all of our volunteers – the chili makers and our volunteer who sold bowls of chili the entire afternoon, the snow block makers, the set up and tear down team, the fire pit managers, the volunteers who helped the kids at the snow blocks, the hot chocolate and cookie makers and of course, the marshmallow support team. Most of all thanks to everyone who dropped by, bought some chili, made a donation and had some fun.
The carnival included our traditional snow block wall and spray bottles for kids to paint, the fire pit to roast marshmallows (we went through 6 bags of marshmallows), hot chocolate (many large pots came and went) and over 16 dozen homemade cookies. We sold homemade chili, we borrowed a large warming fire pit and we had a snow soccer pitch! The kids were busy and the we all had a chance to connect and socialize.
A special shoutout to our very own Dave Adams and Cheryl Caldwell from Kichi Sibi Winter Trail who helped out by grooming the area, transporting supplies and providing the large fire pit warming area. Dave and Cheryl arranged for extra help this year. A very special thanks to two sponsors. Spencer from Meridian Bank for taking care of the marshmallows and skewers and Tom and the team at Caldwell Wealth Management for the hot chocolate and lots of volunteers.
We are already starting to plan our 2026 Winter Carnival, making it bigger and more fun next year. In the meantime, start planning ahead and mark your calendars for June 27th, 2025 for our End of School Beach BBQ! Let us know if you have any suggestions, we love hearing from you!
Santa and his elves made an appearance in Westboro Beach on December 1, and we were ready with lots of holiday cheer and with our donations for the Westboro Food Bank!
Many thanks to all of the neighbours who participated and contributed! The numbers are in… we delivered two truck loads of food to the Westboro Food Bank and $1140 in cash donations. Amazing!
Mark your calendars for December 1 and get ready to kick off the holiday season with us! Santa will be spreading holiday cheer and collecting food and cash donations for the Westboro Food Bank. Check the poster for details.
We are holding our AGM on Tuesday, November 26th from 7:00 p.m to 8:45 p.m. We would love if you could join us that evening. We have a great line up of speakers and topics.
Our guest speaker is Alex Cullen, past president of the Federation of Citizen’s Associations (FCA). The FCA is an association of local Ottawa citizens associations. Member associations share information about issues facing their communities and, when appropriate take joint action. There is power in numbers. Alex will be joining us to chat about pace and scope of change from all three levels of government (municipal, provincial and federal), what it means to local communities and how communities can effect change when working together.
We also have Bill Baggs joining us to introduce the Island Park Traffic Coalition. Bill will take about 10 minutes to talk about the recently-formed group that is a coalition of local community associations which is focused on Island Park Drive traffic issues and how they impact the local community.
Finally, and definitely never least, our Councilor Jeff Leiper joining us to give his perspective of the last year, what to expect in 2025 and to answer your questions and we’re sure there will be many.
Our AGM is open to everyone. Our signup form allows you to specific whether you live in our catchment area and are entitled to vote on WBCA matters or whether you don’t, and will be there to listen and ask questions.
Make sure to signup/register soon. We will send out the meeting video link to everyone who signs up. We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday, November 25th at 7 p.m.
It’s hard to believe but it has been 5 long years since we did our last beach BBQ. The pandemic then followed by smoke and air quality had stopped us. But NOT this year! The weather was great. The food delicious and everyone had fun. Thanks to the many volunteers who made it possible and to the 200+ people who came out to celebrate the end of school, have some fun and just enjoy the beach.
We met a lot of new people from outside our community which made the day even better. The grills were hot and our cooks worked extra hard that day. We had a mix of meat and veggie burgers/hot dogs along with lots of free watermelon and treats.
We have already started planning for our end of summer evening event in September and yes, we’re even starting to think about our big winter carnival next January. For the moment though, we’re all going to enjoy the sun and a great Canada Day weekend. A special thanks to the Rotary Club Of West Ottawa for providing extra volunteer help.
It is time to clean out your attic and basement. The annual Kitchissippi Garage sale is less than two weeks away on Saturday, June 1st starting at 8 a.m. (Rain date is June 2nd).
The nine community associations, including the WBCA are coordinating with Councilor Jeff Leiper’s office to hold a community garage sale across the entire ward.
Do you want to make sure your yard sale is noticed? Jeff’s office has created a map of all the yard sale locations. Add your yard sale to the google map by emailing jeff.leiper@ottawa.ca. The map is updated daily. The map makes it easy for people to plan their shopping day and makes it easy for them to find you!
Westboro Beach Community Association 