Dateline…Maple Creek…Friday, June 26th

Guest Blog by Evan Ozirny, Vice President, Saskatchewan Liberal Party

As much as people may have a love/hate relationship with politicians and those who work hard for them, they really have little, or no understanding of how just how much work goes into making a political event work…or at least TRYING to make it work.

The planning for our “come & go” coffee reception in “MC” was particularly cumbersome as I had not physically been in the town since 1996…even though my own family has a history there dating back to the 1960s. (My Grandpa & Grandma owned the Jasper Hotel there; one of the first hotels to allow “integrated” drinking, ie. men and women actually having a friendly drink together…YAY, for Provincial Government OVER-REGULATION!)

What would eventually become a 90-minute event for the "Round Our Way" tour and our members who wanted to meet Ryan Bater for the first time actually started coming together the week before. Consulting our key contacts about a format and location for the event, trying to determine a time that the "Millennium Falcon” (our RV/travelling billboard) could fit into its tour schedule, arranging what food and beverages would be served and…oh, yes, the minor task of phoning 60 ID’d members/contacts on a Blackberry while making my way down the Trans-Canada from Vancouver to the Southwest corner of Saskatchewan.

Suffice it to say that being a Friday before a picturesque weekend (with Grad ’09 going on in town “to boot”), the turnout could have been better — especially after all of that work — but those who were there appeared to be impressed by what Ryan had to say and by the depth of his commitment to restoring the Sask Liberal Party to its former greatness. And no doubt the RV being parked on main street for the afternoon got a lot of attention as well - people certainly knew that we were in town.

Afterwards, upon my recommendation and Ryan’s insistence, we made a personal visit to see one of our older members who was unable to make it to The Star Café & Grill. Despite being 96-years young, the elderly gentleman was overjoyed to see that the Liberal Leader actually would take time out of his schedule to come visit him in his care home. Not only was it our pleasure to meet with him, and ask him about his life, his interests and his hopes for his great-grand children’s future, it made us all realize how just a simple visit can really brighten someone’s day!

As much as being an “advance person” can be a worrying, exhilarating, and exhausting experience simultaneously—and even though, the events themselves can be quite a lot of fun—there is nothing that makes an organizer SO HAPPY as to “pull-off” yet another (relatively) successful event. To top it all off, we ended our visit by having a celebratory beer in what was my grandparents’ old hotel with a bunch of guys we met out on the patio…one of them who I had coincidentally talked to the night before on the phone.

I know that my grandparents, who have since passed on, would be quite proud of my efforts to help welcome the Leader of the REAL “Saskatchewan” (i.e. the Sask Liberal) Party to the Cypress Hills!