Peterborough Blogs
11 Great Date Ideas In Peterborough
/Tired of the same old song and dance on date nights? You’re probably not alone. There is only so much Netflix worth watching before you find yourself watching repeats. With that in mind, here are some date night ideas in Peterborough…
1. Get out and listen to some live music: Peterborough has some awesome venues around town— the Memorial Centre, Del Crary Park, The Venue, Market Hall, Showplace, the Garnet, The Twisted Wheel, the Historic Red Dog and more!
2. Pull out your dabbers because it’s time to play BINGO! Go in a big group to Delta Bingo on Clonsilla for a load of laughs or take your special someone for some intimate number calling action.
3. Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall, a walk through Jackson’s Park is perfect during them all. This park is a gem in our city and has some incredible scenery to take in. Take advantage of it!
4. Get out and chuck some axes at the Peterborough Axe Club! Get out all of your pent-up frustration and aim for the bull’s-eye at this incredibly fun facility. Like it so much on your date that you want to play again? They have a lot of league options—and they’re licensed!
5. Take your date to new heights with a night out at the Rock and Rope Climbing Centre. Combine a unique physical experience with a tough mental challenge to find out what you and your partner are really made of.
6. Cheer on a local sports team! The Peterborough Petes and Century 21 Lakers provide a lot entertainment all under the iconic Memorial Centre roof.
7. Visit the Canadian Canoe Museum and take part in an artisan workshop. It might not be like the romantic pottery scene from Ghost, but coming out with a paddle or pair of moccasins you made would be kind of cool.
8. Bundle up and strap on your skates in the wintertime for a skate on the canal! (Make sure the Green Flag is up because nothing sounds like more of a date ruiner than falling through the ice.)
9. Dinner out—and dancing! Somewhere downtown. For its size, Peterborough seemingly has more amazing restaurants, cafes, pubs and dance clubs per capita than almost anywhere else.
black honey cafe & gerti’s Pub
10. Try out your problem solving skills at the Escape Maze. Fun is the name of the game in their challenging interactive game rooms.
11. Take a stroll along the paths and check out the animals at Riverview Park & Zoo! Go for a ride on the train during its seasonal schedule, and then show your daring side by riding down the super slide.
—post by Aaron Elliott
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Needle Box Program Expanded In The City of Peterborough With Four New Boxes Installed
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More Locations Added To Increase Community Safety
Read MoreWatch: Peterborough Humane Society Picks Up 8 Dogs In Montreal Transferred From South Korean Meat Farm
/On Friday, November 9th some members of the Peterborough Humane Society team including Executive Director Shawn Morey and Manager of Development & Outreach Susan Dunkley travelled to Montreal to pick up eight dogs transferred there from a South Korean meat farm.
Susan Dunkley helping load a dog onto the truck
This was part of a collaboration with Humane Society International, and resulted in PHS giving these dogs a new chance at life. They will soon be up for adoption here in Peterborough, looking for their forever homes.
Shawn Morey in Montreal during the transfer to Peterborough
Watch the video below (it has garnered over 10,000 views already) to learn more as our agency StudioPTBO documented the day…
Look At The New Canoe Museum’s Stunning 1.5-Acre Green Roof
/The Canadian Canoe Museum has announced that the Dalglish Family Foundation has made a $1.2 million commitment to its capital campaign.
Camilla and Peter Dalglish, directors of the foundation and longtime supporters of the organization (see photo below), were at the museum on Monday (November 13th) for the announcement of the generous gift, which will support capital costs for the new facility to be built along the Peterborough Lift Lock on the Trent-Severn Waterway. The new museum’s 1.5-acre green roof—with its accessible boardwalk, extensive pollinator gardens and exhilarating views of the National Historic Site—will be named in their honour.
The 83,400 square-foot facility has been designed by the award-winning team of Dublin, Ireland-based heneghan peng and Toronto-based Kearns Mancini Architects. The building—purpose-built for the world’s largest collection of canoes, kayaks and paddled watercraft—will blend almost seamlessly into its landscape, emerging from the drumlin and complementing and contouring the waterway.
The roof will welcome visitors of all ages and abilities, and encourage them to explore the spaces along a boardwalk—inspired by the High Line public park in New York City. The roof will feature up to 50 local plant species, including a wildflower meadow. Many of the species are of significance to Indigenous cultures in the area, and have been chosen because they will bloom at various times of the year and thrive in the climate and conditions.
The outdoor spaces at the new museum—including the roof and the waterway—will allow programming to flourish as visitors will have integrated experiences that include its world-class collection. The roof will be among the areas that will allow for ecological exploration and experimentation.
Engage with us on social media on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Write to us at tips@ptbocanada.com. Sign up for PTBOBuzz newsletter here. Watch our PTBOCanada Love video here.
Holiday Shopping Passports Are Now Available For Downtown Shopping
/Make sure to shop downtown with your Holiday Shopping Passport over the holiday season for your chance to win up to $3,000 in downtown money.
There are more than 140 places to collect stamps this holiday season in downtown. The passports feature three early bird prizes of $500 in downtown money to be drawn December 5th, 12th and 19th with the grand prize of $1,500 in downtown money to be drawn January 9th.
The Holiday Shopping Passports program rewards people for supporting local businesses by shopping, dining and enjoying downtown. Last year’s program saw shoppers stamp a whopping $1.9 million worth of Holiday Shopping Passports.
Left to right: Joel Wiebe, Terry Guiel, Theresa Foley, Jonathan Moreno, James Wallwork and Lena Wallwork
HOW THE HOLIDAY SHOPPING PASSPORT PROGRAM WORKS
-> Every time you spend $10 at a participating business, a box on your passport will be stamped.
-> When your passport is filled (20 stamps), complete the form and drop it off at a ballot box at one of the participating businesses.
-> Each completed passport is a ballot for a draw to win downtown money. There are more than 100 participating businesses downtown.
-> Bring your Holiday Shopping Passport downtown on November 23rd for Black Friday as more than 100 downtown businesses put on some of the biggest sales of the year.
FREE PARKING DOWNTOWN
Also, the DBIA’s annual promotion of two hours free street parking starts on Black Friday and runs until the end of December thanks to the City of Peterborough Parking Division.
Check out downtownptbo.ca for the full list of participating passport locations.
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The Most Adorable Peterborough Video Of 2018 Might Be These Meerkats With A Halloween Pumpkin At Peterborough Zoo
/A cute video the Riverview Park & Zoo recent posted to their Facebook page is getting thousands of views across various social media platforms.
The zoo thanked all the people that dropped off pumpkins there after Halloween, as the pumpkins are great enrichment for many of their animals. The pumpkins were definitely a smashing success for the Meerkats.
The post has become of our most retweeted of 2018…
Watch the Riverview Park & Zoo’s original video that has amassed nearly 12,000 views so far on their Facebook page…
Throwdown: Peterborough Police United Way Team Issues Cheeseburger Food Court Eating Challenge
/Move over Joey Chestnut, there is a new local food eating challenge on the horizon and it’s all about squads.
The Peterborough Police United Way team have issued an open challenge to all City of Peterborough services, including Peterborough Fire Services and Peterborough Paramedics, to a cheeseburger eating contest at the Lansdowne Place McDonald’s location in the food court on Tuesday, December 4th.
Image courtesy Peterborough Police
Starting at 11:30 a.m. on December 4th when the cheeseburgers will be fresh off the grill, teams will pack away as many as possible all for a good cause—and bragging rights of course. All proceeds from this fun event are going to the United Way Peterborough and District.
The challenge is capped at 10 teams, and this year they must be City of Peterborough services with plans to expand the event next year already being discussed. To sign up your City of Peterborough services team, simply contact the Police Services United Way Co-Chair here with your team info. Each team is asked to make an initial $100 donation to the United Way Peterborough District and anything on top of that is a bonus.
Learn more about the burger throwdown in this video Peterborough Police put out…
—post by Aaron Elliott
Engage with us on social media on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Write to us at tips@ptbocanada.com. Sign up for PTBOBuzz newsletter here. Watch our PTBOCanada Love video here.
Why VentureNorth Hub Has Quickly Emerged As One Of The Most Innovative & Important Spaces In Peterborough
/“Startups are at the core of everything we do. An individual’s life is a startup that begins at birth. Every city was once a startup, as was every company, every institution, and every project. As humans, we are wired to start things.” —Brad Feld in “Startup Communities: Building An Entrepreneurial Ecosystem In Your City”
Since opening in 2016, VentureNorth (270 George St. N.) has emerged as one of the most important buildings—”spaces” is perhaps a better word to describe it—in Peterborough, standing tall in the heart of downtown and symbolizing the city’s path as an innovative, entrepreneurial destination to encourage startups and existing businesses to grow and thrive.
VentureNorth building
Housing the likes of Innovation Cluster, Peterborough Economic Development, JA Peterborough, Community Futures Eastern Ontario, Peterborough & The Kawarthas Tourism and now Community Futures Peterborough, the VentureNorth hub has become a gateway to growth and networking for multiple startups and entrepreneurs, and those visiting or considering relocating to Peterborough. Not to mention it’s just a stone’s throw away from the business-growth, community-minded DBIA and Peterborough Chamber offices.
VentureNorth lobby
“We have been very excited about the success of the hub,” VentureNorth Co-Founder Paul Bennett tells PTBOCanada. “Now, Peterborough has a true one door location to start/expand/help a business grow and succeed. What we have seen in the last couple years has been amazing. The success of the Innovation Cluster, PED and JA has been inspiring. With Community Futures joining EOCFDC as part of the VentureNorth team, the sky is the limit for the future of entrepreneurship in our great community.”
The hub—which overlooks both the downtown and Otonabee River—took inspiration from similar successful models in Waterloo (Communitech), Toronto (DMZ) and Oshawa (Spark). But it has now forged a unique identify itself, fuelling an ecosystem of local leaders and innovators with its own “all-inclusive” ethos of offerings and organizations—a concierge service, if you will, to experts with a wide range of subject experise in various areas with a want to help you succeed.
”When the concept of VentureNorth was first envisioned, the goal was to bring all these great organizations together to help entrepreneurs and showcase the competitive advantage that we believe Peterborough has—the people and the place,” Bennett tells PTBOCanada. “We have an overwhelming supportive community and a way of life that is truly second to none. Once people are able to experience living and working in this great community, the roots get planted very quickly.
Indeed, collaboration has been a key ingredient in building momentum in Peterborough for forward thinkers and progress. Breaking down silos (something that can prevent you from thinking outside the box, excecuting on ideas, and just getting stuff done) has shed the barriers to growth, innovation and beta testing.
Growth can be accelerated here as Peterborough—with all the amenities of a big city but a small town feel—is primed to become an entrepreneurial region. It has great support partners at the hub and beyond, and Trent University and Fleming College are absolutely key ingredients and partners in training students and talent, many of which will stay here (retention is key) and become entrepreneurs and leaders.
The concept of VentureNorth from the get-go was to create an ecosystem where entrepreneurs and business people can connect and work alongside each other in open concept spaces to drive success and thrive. Startups and organizations can grow and succeed when they work side-by-side—learn from each other, motivate each other, push each other.
That is happening at VentureNorth, and indeed this hub—itself a startup still in its infancy—has been so successful that it is encountering a problem many startups face: running out of space. “Our struggle moving forward is that we don’t have any more space to offer,” Bennett tells PTBOCanada. “We have had many private businesses (local and from outside town) show interest in being part of this exciting ecosystem, but we don’t have anything to offer them.”
Rendering of what Phase 2 of VentureNorth Building could look like
In response to this, the VentureNorth founders have begun planning a second phase to their vision for the building (see renderings above and below), which would bring much needed expanded space along with further aesthetic exterior and interior upgrades to a hub that has a contemporary design and feel.
“The idea would be to extend the same overall concept that was started with VentureNorth but expand to include some exciting private businesses and a banking partner,” Bennett tells PTBOCanada. “Much the way that Communitech in Waterloo expanded, we want to see VentureNorth expand and bring a great deal of life to our business sector downtown. This will hopefully spur more residential demand and supply in our core to see a new level of vibrancy in our downtown.”
Night rendering of what Phase 2 of VentureNorth Building could look like
These are exciting times for VentureNorth, which is helping put Peterborough on the map right up there with other Canadian cities like Waterloo that have fully embraced the innovation and tech economy. They are willing to play the long game to execute on their vision for building our innovation economy.
To further engage the community about VentureNorth and its promising future, there will be an Open House and Christmas Party on December 4th that the public is welcome to attend, where they can check out the building and see some of the exciting new businesses showcased in the Innovation Cluster showcase. More details will be coming on that soon.
Engage with us on social media on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Write to us at tips@ptbocanada.com. Sign up for PTBOBuzz newsletter here. Watch our PTBOCanada Love video here.
Watch: Our "We Are PTBO" In Conversation With Wayne Ferguson At Black Honey Cafe
/PTBOCanada.com in collaboration with our spinoff agency StudioPTBO have launched a new Docu-Series called "We Are PTBO". The series spotlights ordinary citizens in the community who help make this city extraordinary.
Wayne Ferguson
