Hird wins service award

Five-year Ontario service award presented to Alison Hird, What's On Ontario Web Site, by Joe Tascona, MPP Barrie, Simcoe and Bradford. Among the crowd of around 250 volunteers invited to the June 21 presentation at the Barrie Event Centre was Caledon's Alison Hird of What's On Ontario.

Hird was presented with a five-year service award for her work with What's On Ontario.

Many visitors to the site are unaware that Hird runs this community Web site and events calendar in her spare time. Initially created to offer local arts and nonprofit organizations free publicity for their events and provide a fully comprehensive events calendar to the public. This well established Web site has been running now for more than six years. The City of Toronto add their events, along with some 600 event managers in the local area and across the GTA. Visitors bookmark the site for other useful information too.

"Sometimes I am told that I have created a monster! Staying on top of the many emails and event forms that arrive each day is no small task," Hird said. "One challenging element is staying in touch with local groups. Each year the chair or marketing person changes, so I have to chase around to stay in touch with each organization. Add to this the number of times people change their email address and the general enquiries from visitors to the site, then the hours add up."

On a quarterly basis Hird provides a service to the In the Hills magazine.

"For several years I have worked closely with In the Hills magazine. I gather the appropriate events from the What's On database and provide them in house style to the magazine. This paid consultancy along with a few ads helps offset operating costs of the Web site.

"My husband, Chris Hird is an IT specialist. He provides technical support and has automated many of the activities that I undertake. For instance, when an event is added to the database, the sender automatically receives a confirmation email that includes a link to their event listing. This helps immensely, but it still takes a good deal of my time. The site is run under the auspices of Shield Advanced Solutions, as a non-profit entity operating under its own trading name.

"I am thrilled to receive this recognition for all the long hours of hard work."

For local theatre, restaurants, live music, art and children's events visit www.whatson.on.ca.