Adam Prudhomme
Editor
To the Royal Canadian Sea Cadet Corps Napanee, the Lennox Agricultural Memorial Community Centre was more than a building-it was their home base.
When training was in session, the York Street arena was no longer viewed as a mere edifice. Instead it was treated the same as a ship in the Royal Canadian Navy, complete with a colour and sunset ceremony, just as any sailor would do on a warship.
Naturally, the news of the Oct. 23 fire was devastating as the Cadets lost more than just a facility.
“We’ve lost tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment and the clothing,” said Lt. (N) Andy Ashworth, Commanding Officer of RCSCC Napanee. “The heritage items that have been lost in terms of photos, which date back to our namesake HMCS Napanee, they’re priceless. We can’t recover those easily. All the certificates that have been given out, the records of the corp’s history, they’re gone.”
Fortunately not everything was lost as the section of the building that housed their air rifles was reinforced with brick and steel.
“The contents of that room have been smoke damaged and a little bit of heat damage, but we did manage to salvage some of our equipment,” said Ashworth. “From a perspective of a crusty old sailor, the important thing for me was the ship’s bell was discovered. We’ve lost a lot of heritage….but we have the ship’s bell and we have some of the training equipment.”
Ashworth estimates the Cadets have been using the old arena for about 20 years now.
“The Cadets were one of the first regular users of it in its new guise,” Ashworth said of 170 York St. “We had two of the old dressing rooms that were full of Cadet equipment, our uniforms and our training equipment. It was a fantastic facility for what we were doing. The arena floor was great for allowing the Cadets to have their formal parade and practicing their marching and drills.”
Ashworth says the community had been a huge support in the days following the fire. Cadet corps across the country have reached out, offering to donate spare equipment. The Navy League Napanee Branch has launched a fundraiser known as Operation Phoenix as they aim to rise from the ashes. A link to their online donation form can be found on the RCSCC Napanee Facebook page or via e-transfer nlnapaneetreasurer@gmail.com.
Ashworth says its important to keep up the momentum of the program, as they’ve gone from nine cadets up to 35 in the last two years. Despite the setback and loss of equipment, they still plan to be very much involved in this year’s local Remembrance Day ceremonies.
“We are seeing this as a speed bump in the road, nothing more,” said Ashworth. “There will be Cadet training tomorrow night. We have an alternate location for tomorrow and we have an offer for a longer term location which I’m going to be looking into next week. The Cadets in Napanee, rest assured, are intending to stay.”