Join our team in the role of Member Engagement, Lifecycle & Experience!

About Us

The Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce (GKWCC) provides strong, continued service to over 1700 members in one of Canada’s marquee pioneering and entrepreneurial business communities. For the past 140 years, dating back to the Chamber’s founding as the Berlin Board of Trade, we have expanded into one of the largest and most innovative Chambers in Canada by focusing on the needs of all our members, big and small. For more information, please visit greaterkwchamber.com.

About the Role

The GKWCC is seeking an Member Engagement, Lifecycle & Experience role who is the owner of the member lifecycle experience. The role is around onboarding, activation, ongoing engagement, expansion, leadership development, retention, advocacy, referrals, personalization, revenue support, and lifecycle metrics.

With the guidance of the COO, coordinate and execute at a high level to perform the following tasks:

Member-Focused Tasks

• Design and manage the full member lifecycle experience from onboarding to renewal
• Lead the new member onboarding journey after the sale
• Ensure new members understand how to access Chamber value early
• Recommend first events, programs, introductions, and opportunities for new members
• Help new members become active within the first 30–90 days
• Identify member goals and connect them to relevant Chamber services, events, peer groups, committees, and contacts
• Build relationships with members beyond the primary contact
• Encourage members to add additional employees or department contacts to their profile
• Support contact expansion within member companies
• Monitor member engagement and identify members who may be inactive or at risk
• Conduct re-engagement outreach with inactive or low-engagement members
• Reinforce Chamber value before renewal periods
• Support retention conversations by helping members understand the value they have received
• Identify opportunities for members to participate more deeply in Chamber activities
• Connect members to committees, roundtables, Peer2Peer groups, speaking opportunities, sponsorship discussions, or leadership pathways
• Identify high-engagement members who may become ambassadors, referral sources, committee members, or future leaders
• Encourage member referrals, testimonials, case studies, and advocacy participation
• Support member recognition and success story opportunities
• Provide personalized recommendations based on member interests, industry, size, engagement level, and goals
• Ensure members feel welcomed, connected, supported, and valued throughout their membership

Operational Tasks

• Develop and maintain the member lifecycle framework
• Create onboarding workflows, checklists, scripts, and timelines
• Coordinate onboarding touchpoints with Sales, Membership Operations, Events, and Marketing
• Define engagement stages such as onboarding, activation, ongoing engagement, retention, renewal, and advocacy
• Work with Analytics to define engagement indicators, lifecycle KPIs, and at-risk member triggers
• Review engagement dashboards and member activity reports
• Use CRM/AMS (customer relationship management / association management system) data to identify inactive members, single-contact members, high-potential members, and renewal-risk members
• Maintain engagement tracking notes in the AMS/CRM
• Coordinate re-engagement campaigns with Membership Operations, Marketing, and Analytics
• Provide input into segmentation models and engagement quadrants
• Help design member communication journeys for onboarding, activation, retention, and renewal support
• Track progress against engagement KPIs, including activation rate, time to first event, repeat participation, contact expansion, and re-engagement rate
• Provide leadership with updates on member engagement trends, risks, and opportunities
• Support campaign planning by identifying member groups needing targeted outreach
• Coordinate with Membership Operations to ensure member records are updated after engagement activity
• Coordinate with Analytics to evaluate whether engagement efforts are improving participation and retention
• Coordinate with Finance on members with renewal or overdue concerns where value reinforcement may help
• Coordinate with Events to align programming with member interests and lifecycle needs
• Coordinate with Sales on handoff from new member sale to onboarding
• Coordinate with Marketing on testimonials, success stories, referrals, and member communications
• Support committee and leadership pipeline tracking
• Maintain process documentation for engagement workflows
• Recommend improvements to the member experience based on feedback, behaviour, and data
• Support AMS/CRM implementation by defining lifecycle, engagement, segmentation, and relationship-management requirements
• Identify opportunities to use automation or AI to improve onboarding, engagement tracking, and member follow-up

Other Duties as Assigned 

As you would expect, the chamber is unpredictable and requires you to adapt to many different situations. As such, there are always “other duties” that come up unexpectedly that you should be prepared for.

About You

Member Lifecycle Mindset

The applicant needs to understand that engagement is not a single event or campaign; it is a full member journey. They should bring the ability to guide members from onboarding through activation, deeper participation, renewal, referrals, and leadership opportunities.

Systems Design and Personalized Member Engagement This role requires strong systems design ability to build and execute repeatable engagement programs serving 1,500 members. The successful candidate must design practical workflows, member segmentation, CRM/AMS processes, automation, and follow-up systems that deliver measurable results. They must also connect one-on-one with individual members, understand their goals, and provide tailored support and introductions, using sound judgment to identify when personal outreach will have the greatest impact.

Relationship-Building Strength This person must be a strong connector who can build trust with members, understand their goals, and help them find value in the Chamber. They should be comfortable reaching out, listening, making introductions, and strengthening relationships over time.

Strategic Engagement Thinking The applicant should bring the ability to think beyond attendance numbers and focus on meaningful participation. They need to understand how to move members from passive to active, from active to invested, and from invested to advocates, ambassadors, or leaders.

Retention and Value Focus The role requires someone who understands that retention is built through ongoing value. The applicant should be able to identify at-risk or inactive members, reinforce the value of membership, and support renewal conversations before members disengage.

Strong Communication Skills The applicant must communicate clearly, professionally, and persuasively with members, staff, volunteers, and leadership. They should be able to write strong follow-up messages, lead welcome conversations, explain member benefits, and present engagement opportunities in a compelling way.

Data-Informed Decision Making This person does not need to be the data analyst, but they must be comfortable using data to guide action. They should be able to interpret engagement reports, identify patterns, understand member behaviour, and use dashboards or CRM information to prioritize outreach.

Program and Experience Design The applicant should bring the ability to design practical member journeys, onboarding processes, engagement pathways, and re-engagement campaigns. They need to think in terms of member experience, not just individual tasks or isolated programs.

Collaboration Across Teams The Engagement role will work closely with Membership Operations, Analytics, Sales, Events, Marketing, Finance, and senior leadership. The applicant needs to bring a collaborative mindset and the ability to coordinate across departments without duplicating or taking over other roles.

Initiative and Follow-Through This role needs someone who can proactively identify opportunities and act on them. The applicant should bring strong follow-through, persistence, and the ability to move members from interest to action through timely, consistent, and thoughtful engagement.

Professional Judgment and Diplomacy The applicant will often be dealing with members who are inactive, uncertain about value, considering cancellation, or ready for deeper involvement. They need to bring sound judgment, discretion, tact, and the ability to handle sensitive conversations with professionalism.

Growth and Revenue Awareness The applicant should understand that engagement supports growth. They should be able to identify opportunities for referrals, testimonials, additional contacts, sponsorship interest, event participation, committee involvement, and other ways members can deepen their relationship with the Chamber.

Adaptability and Continuous Improvement The applicant should be comfortable working in a changing environment where systems, data, processes, and member expectations continue to evolve. They should bring a willingness to test, learn, improve, and help build a stronger member experience model over time.

Application Process

To Apply: Please send your application to hr@greaterkwchamber.com. When applying, please provide a resume, and a cover letter.

Next Steps: We thank all those who apply, however, only those candidates who are selected to move forward in the application process will be contacted. The posting will remain open until the position is filled. The start date for the successful candidate is flexible, but preferably they will start in 2026.

The Specifics

Hours of Work: Monday – Friday, 8:30am – 4:30pm, with a 30-minute paid lunch for a total of 37.5 hours each week. Hybrid work model with 2 days a week in the office. (subject to change)

Compensation: $45,000 – $65,000 annually, plus benefits. Placement within the range and the position level will reflect the successful candidate’s relevant experience, qualifications and demonstrated skills.

Benefits:

• Healthcare including dental and vision plan, as well as an EAP program, which all starts 3 months into employment.
• RRSP matching, which starts 3 months into employment.
• 2 weeks’ vacation + stat holidays
• Monthly mental wellness half-day Friday (subject to change)
• Hybrid work model. (subject to change)
• Professional Development opportunities.
• Parking included.

The Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce believes that everyone is free to be their true self and receive the same respect and opportunity, regardless of ethnicity, gender, culture, identity, sexual orientation, age, beliefs, language, or disability. We have an inclusive work environment that is a safe and welcoming space for all and we encourage applications from all qualified candidates. If you require accommodation at any time during the recruitment process, please email hr@greaterkwchamber.com.

The post Job Posting: Member Engagement, Lifecycle & Experience Role appeared first on Greater KW Chamber of Commerce.

♦

On October 24, 550 supporters, community leaders, volunteers, partners, staff, and friends gathered at Bingemans Marshall Hall for Friendship Dinner 2026.

Together, we celebrated an extraordinary moment in House of Friendship’s history: the upcoming opening of Cedar Village, the official introduction of Friendship Village as a connected housing campus, and the announcement of Phase 2, which will bring 70 new affordable housing apartments to Waterloo Region.

Throughout the evening, the message that everyone deserves a place to belong remained at the heart of every story shared from the stage.

Board Chair Alan Uffelmann reflected on a year of momentum for House of Friendship and the collective effort that has brought Friendship Village to life.

He reminded guests that home is much more than a building. It is stability, dignity, and community. While Friendship Village represents a remarkable achievement, it is also a reminder that the work of addressing homelessness and housing insecurity in Waterloo Region continues.

The evening celebrated what is possible when a community comes together with a shared commitment to creating pathways toward health, housing, and belonging.

♦

In her first Friendship Dinner as CEO, Jennifer Scott shared her own journey to leadership and reflected on the importance of connection, compassion, and community.

Jennifer spoke about the importance of creating environments where people feel safe, valued, and welcomed. Drawing inspiration from House of Friendship’s beginnings in 1939, when three women welcomed men experiencing homelessness in for a warm meal, she reminded guests that the organization’s work has always been rooted in the simple act of helping people belong.

Today, that same spirit continues through programs in housing, food insecurity, addiction challenges, and neighbourhood supports through 40 locations in Waterloo Region.

Jennifer highlighted the growing housing crisis in Waterloo Region and the urgent need for innovative solutions that support not only housing, but healing, connection, and long-term stability.

That vision is at the heart of Friendship Village.

One of the most exciting moments of the evening was the public introduction of Cedar Village, House of Friendship’s newest supportive housing building that will soon welcome 100 residents home.

Guests also learned that Cedar Village is part of something larger.

For the first time, House of Friendship shared the vision of Friendship Village as the name of the entire housing campus, bringing together:

• Cedar Village
• Charles Village
• Eby Village

♦

Together, these buildings create a connected housing continuum that supports people as they move toward greater stability and independence.

Unlike traditional housing systems that often require people to leave behind their support networks as their needs change, Friendship Village is intentionally designed to keep residents connected to their community, relationships, and supports throughout their journey.

It is a model that recognizes belonging is part of healing.

♦

Guests also heard from Jen McGuire, Cedar Village Program Development Manager, whose keynote address brought the vision of supportive housing to life through stories of resilience, courage, and hope.

Drawing on more than a decade of experience working alongside participants, Jen challenged the audience to rethink what success looks like.

Success is not one-size-fits-all.

For some people, success may mean reconnecting with family. For others, it may mean learning a new skill, building confidence, improving their health, or taking a first step toward independence.

Take a look to hear directly from participants:

At Cedar Village, residents will receive individualized support through five key program areas:

• Community & Connection
• Housing Stability & Life Skills
• Health & Wellness
• Identity & Inclusion
• Purpose & Meaning

These supports will help residents pursue goals that matter to them while building a future grounded in stability, dignity, and hope.

Jennifer Scott also shared exciting news from the Welcome Home: Friendship Village campaign.

Thanks to the generosity of donors, community groups, businesses, and supporters across the region, all 100 apartments at Cedar Village have been fully furnished.

When residents move in, they won’t walk into empty units. They will walk into homes that have been thoughtfully prepared by a community that believes everyone deserves a place to belong.

While the opening of Cedar Village represents a major milestone, guests also received a glimpse into the future.

Jennifer announced that Cedar Village is only Phase 1 of Friendship Village.

Once residents move into the new Cedar Village building, the current Charles Village building will be redeveloped as Phase 2 of the campus. In its place, House of Friendship plans to build 70 new affordable housing apartments, significantly expanding affordable housing opportunities in Waterloo Region.

♦

Friendship Village is not the finish line, it is the next step in House of Friendship’s ongoing commitment to creating innovative housing solutions that help people move from crisis toward stability, belonging, and independence.

Friendship Dinner 2026 was a celebration of community.

We are deeply grateful to our volunteers, sponsors, donors, elected officials, community partners, planning committee members, and guests who joined us for this special evening.

We extend special thanks to our Presenting Sponsor, the RBJ Schlegel Family Foundation, and to all of our Transform, Inspire, Hope, and In-Kind sponsors whose generosity helped make the evening possible.

Most importantly, thank you to everyone who continues to believe in a Waterloo Region where everyone can belong and thrive.

Because of your support, more people will soon walk through the doors of Cedar Village and hear two words that can change everything:

Welcome Home.

♦ View our event photo album: www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1531478632337867&type=3

♦ Watch event videos:

• House of Friendship: A Place to Belong
• The Path Forward
• Friendship Village

Learn more about Friendship Village: houseoffriendship.org/friendshipvillage/

The post Friendship Dinner 2026: Welcome Home appeared first on House Of Friendship.

Kitchener, ON – On Wednesday, October 27,2026, the Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce hosted the 2026 Small Business Awards, presented by BDC. More than 60 small businesses were nominated across 8 award categories, which culminated in an exceptional celebration during BDC Small Business Week.

Mike Farwell hosted the evening’s celebrations with nearly 200 guests, including business owners, dignitaries, and community leaders. The event was hosted at 2 local venues, with the Reception at THEMUSEUM, followed by the Formal Awards Show at Conrad Centre for the Performing Arts.

Small Businesses were not only recognized across the award categories but were also featured as Event Partners. Small businesses like The Dessert Artist, The Lord of the Tacos, Fo’Cheezy Food Trucks, Meal In A Jar, Caudle’s Catch Seafood provided food to guests throughout the evening. The Awards themselves were also handmade by a local artist, at Blown Away Glass Studio.

The evening’s final award presentation, for the “Exceptional Small Business of the Year Award”, was presented to Food4Kids Waterloo Region. This award is unique, as it’s open to public voting – showcasing the incredible impact that the business has in the community, and the respect they have from their customers and peers.

The event was presented by BDC during BDC Small Business Week – a celebration of entrepreneurship that BDC has organized for 45 years.

Service Excellence Award      

Winner: FoodZen

FoodZen is an Indigenous-owned personal chef and meal service based in Cambridge, Ontario, serving the broader Waterloo Region. The company specializes in weekly pre-made meal deliveries, in-home personal chef services, and interactive culinary workshops that emphasize fresh, locally sourced, and seasonal ingredients. With a commitment to Indigenous food sovereignty and holistic nutrition, FoodZen provides healthy, minimally processed meals tailored to various dietary preferences, while also offering artisanal spice blends and cook-along kits through its retail line, Rooted Path.

Family Business of the Year Award    

Winner: Shuh Orchards

Shuh Orchards is a fourth-generation family farm located just north of Waterloo Region in West Montrose. Spanning 50 acres with tens of thousands of modern trellis-system apple trees, the farm specializes in growing popular varieties like Honeycrisp, Gala, and Ambrosia. Operating a vibrant seasonal agritourism destination open through the late summer and fall harvest, Shuh Orchards offers pick-your-own apples, tractor-drawn wagon rides, a corn maze, an interactive petting zoo featuring farm animals, and roadside fruit sales.

Event Impact Award

Winner: Hospice Waterloo Region

Hospice Waterloo Region is a community-based, charitable organization located at 100 Solstice Way in Waterloo that provides compassionate comfort, care, and support to individuals and families impacted by life-threatening illnesses or grief. Offering comprehensive in-home and facility-based programs alongside the residential Cook Family Residence, the organization delivers professional palliative support and bereavement counseling entirely free of charge to patients and their loved ones.

Skilled Trades Award

Winner: Cross Heating & Air Conditioning Ltd.

Cross Heating & Air Conditioning Ltd. is a local HVAC contractor providing residential and commercial heating, cooling, and indoor air quality services across the Waterloo Region and surrounding communities. Operating locally from Waterloo and Kitchener, the company specializes in the installation, repair, and maintenance of furnaces, air conditioners, heat pumps, and water heaters, while also offering custom ductwork, maintenance plans, and emergency repair options.

Employer of the Year Award

Winner: Centre For Mutual Wellbeing For Racialized Communities

The Centre for Mutual Wellbeing (formerly known as the Coalition of Muslim Women of Kitchener-Waterloo) is a non-profit organization based in Kitchener that provides culturally responsive support, advocacy, and programming for racialized communities across the Waterloo Region. The organization focuses heavily on empowering racialized women and youth, offering specialized services that address gender-based violence, anti-Islamophobia, and racism, alongside operating transitional housing programs like Dar-al-Aman and community bridge-building initiatives.

Professional of the Year Award

Winner: Shriaa Sheth (Accelerator Centre)

Shriaa Sheth is the Events Manager at the Accelerator Centre, where she helps entrepreneurs across the Waterloo Region build and grow technology companies by transforming events into a structured, measurable function that connects founders with mentors, investors, partners, and peers. In less than two years, she expanded event delivery past target goals, increased founder attendance to over 51% through data-driven programming, and streamlined operations using monday.com templates and automations. Beyond her core role, she led the growth of Battle of the Bands – Tech Edition to raise funds for the Canadian Mental Health Association Waterloo Wellington and established a regional peer group uniting event professionals across Communitech, Velocity, MIX, Catalyst Commons, SPUR Innovation, and the AC. With a lifelong passion for event planning that began at age 16 and a background running her own South Asian cultural events business and earning her MBA, she was promoted this fall to Events Manager in recognition of her impact on the regional startup ecosystem.

Entrepreneur of the Year Award       

Winner: Ravenwood Tabletop

Ravenwood Tabletop is a premier tabletop social club and immersive gaming space located at 28 Weber Street West in Downtown Kitchener. The venue specializes in tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) like Dungeons & Dragons, offering private, highly customizable gaming rooms equipped with adjustable lighting and sound. Alongside self-led and hosted campaign adventures, they provide learn-to-play sessions, youth programs and camps, artisan miniature-painting workshops, and a specialized pro shop for gaming supplies.

Exceptional Small Business of the Year Award         

Winner: Food4Kids Waterloo Region

Food4Kids Waterloo Region is dedicated to setting the standard for exceptional service in addressing childhood hunger in Waterloo Region. Founded in 2016, the organization has grown from delivering just 17 food packages to now supporting over 1,300 children each week, providing three meals a day and snacks during weekends and school breaks.

Food4Kids Waterloo Region is driven by a small but mighty team of just five staff members, supported by a dedicated network of volunteers. Their work is hands-on and multi-faceted: fundraising, organizing events, coordinating with schools and social workers, advocating for children in need, and delivering food directly to homes and backpacks.

Through their tireless efforts, Food4Kids Waterloo Region exemplifies service excellence, operational efficiency, and an unwavering commitment to one of the most vulnerable members of our community.

The winner of this category was determined solely on public voting, acknowledging the devotion that they have to their customers, and the appreciation their customers have for them.

The post 3rd Annual Small Business Awards Highlight Achievements of the Local Business Community appeared first on Greater KW Chamber of Commerce.

Firstly do we address both at once or one at a time? Right now we have a sort of unanimous understanding of the facts. Unfortunately the unanimity comes from the guiltiest parties (MECP, Lanxess), the less guilty parties (Woolwich Twn., RMOW), and the least guilty parties (TRAC, media). Unanimity however certainly does not equate truth anymore than a majority does. Remember Hitler actually won an election to initially gain power in Germany. The yoyo to the south of us, Mr. Trump, has been elected twice, three times if you believe his drivel. 

Based upon the knowledge and facts that I have and the current control and direction of those listed above I would say that the chances of either Elmira's drinking waters being restored to drinking water standards or the downstream Canagagigue Creek having the bulk of DDT, dioxins, mercury and PCBs removed is likely nil. The parties above all believe in blatantly lying to the public as they have for the last 37 years. Despite it now being public knowledge that Uniroyal, Crompton, Chemtura, M.O.E., MECP have been lying about restoring Elmira's drinking water aquifers by 2028, where is the outrage? Why are local residents and citizens not attending public TRAC meetings and screaming at all those lying bustards? 

Currently these parties are pointing TRAC in the direction of some alleged enhanced bioremediation of chlorobenzene. This should buy them at least another three or four years while they come up with their next red herring. If magic bullets won't work then perhaps lazer beams bounced off of satellites using special technology is next. I hear tell that if Trump annexes Canada as the 51st state he will immediately clean our Creek and groundwater the following weekend. You heard it here first!

Tell us the truth! If 10 billion dollars and ten years is required then spit it out. If the cost is too high then tell us if natural attenuation may take another 150 years. Of course who are informed citizens going to believe? Certainly absolutely zero of the swine who have been lying to us have any credibility left. How about religious leaders, scientists, famous environmentalists; who will be both most informed and most honest? This is what becomes of our elected leaders lying to us for so long on so many matters. I expect that the truth will only come to us after all the guilty parties are removed from the remediation equation.  

Short answer: look for a marketing strategist who starts with your business, not your channels: someone who asks about your customers, numbers and sales process before recommending tactics, has experience with companies like yours, and can show how their past strategies turned into results. Be wary of anyone who leads with a channel, a guarantee or a template.

"Marketing strategist" is one of the loosest titles in business. It can mean a senior leader who reshapes how a company grows, or someone who mostly schedules social posts. Here's how to tell the difference before you sign anything.

A strategist decides what to do and why, before anyone decides how. In practice that means:

• Defining who your best customers are and why they buy

• Clarifying your positioning: what you're known for and why you win

• Choosing the few channels and offers worth investing in, and the ones to stop

• Setting goals and metrics tied to revenue

• Making sure the team, freelancers or agency execute against the plan

1. They ask before they answer. In the first conversation, a good strategist asks more questions than they answer: about your customers, margins, sales cycle and what's been tried before.

2. Relevant experience. They've worked with businesses at your stage and in your model. SaaS, eCommerce and service businesses need different playbooks.

3. Proof, not adjectives. Ask for specific examples: what the situation was, what they changed and what happened. Anonymized is fine; vague isn't.

4. Channel-agnostic thinking. If every problem looks like a paid social problem (or an SEO problem, or a content problem), you're talking to a specialist, not a strategist.

5. Comfort with numbers. They should talk easily about customer acquisition cost, conversion rates, lifetime value and pipeline.

6. A bias toward execution. A strategy that never leaves the slide deck is worth very little. Ask how they make sure the plan actually happens.

7. Honesty. The best strategists will tell you when something isn't worth doing, including hiring them.

• Guaranteed results. Nobody can promise rankings, leads or revenue numbers before understanding your business.

• A template plan. If the proposal could have been written for any company, it was.

• All tactics, no priorities. A long list of things to do is not a strategy. Strategy is choosing.

• No interest in sales. Marketing that ignores how deals actually close rarely moves revenue.

• Vanity metrics. Followers, impressions and "engagement" without a link to pipeline or sales.

These overlap, so it helps to be clear about what you're buying:

• A marketing strategist or consultant usually delivers a plan or advice, often for a defined project.

• An agency executes in specific channels and is accountable for its deliverables.

• A fractional CMO owns your marketing function part-time: strategy, leadership and results.

If you need a plan, a strategist may be enough. If you need someone accountable for making the plan work over time, look at a fractional CMO. For a sense of the investment, see how much a fractional CMO costs in Canada.

1. What would you need to know about our business before making recommendations?

2. Walk me through a strategy you built that didn't work. What did you learn?

3. How do you decide which channels to prioritize?

4. What will we have at the end of the first 30, 60 and 90 days?

5. How will we measure whether this is working?

Do I need a strategist if I already have an agency? Often, yes. Agencies execute well inside their scope, but someone still needs to own the overall plan.

Should a strategist have industry experience? Experience with your business model and stage matters more than your exact industry.

How long before strategy shows results? Early wins often come from fixing what's broken in the first few months; compounding results take longer.

If you're trying to figure out what kind of marketing help you need, book a strategy call. I'll tell you what I'd do in your seat.

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A few weeks ago, I went to the cinema with my partner to watch the brand-new movie, Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

We were both excited to see it. Well, to be honest, my partner was way more excited than I was. He’s a real Spider-Man fan. You know, the kind who actually owns a Spider-Man hoodie. 🕷️

As for me? I wasn’t expecting that much.

But by the end of the movie, I had to admit it was worth every minute. Even the slight back pain from sitting in that cinema chair for almost three hours🍿

For sure, you start wondering what Spider-Man, the cinema chair, and my back pain have to do with our SQL.

Fair enough, and somehow you caught me. I wanna cry out a bit of my back pain 😅 BUT while I was thinking about that movie night, I realized that a cinema hall is actually a pretty good place to explain one of SQL’s simplest-looking, but pretty overlooked, differences COUNT(*) vs COUNT(COLUMN).

Somehow, the pain was worth it and helped me shoot 2 rabbits with one bullet: I enjoyed the movies, and the analogy for this article jumped out in my mind. 🐇🐇 (no bunny was hurt while writing this article 😉)

Now back to the good part 😁

Imagine you’re the manager of the cinema where the movie is going to be screened, and while you sell the ticket for the movie, someone asks you 2 simple questions:

→ How many seats are there in the cinema hall where the film will be shown?

AND

→ How many seats have already been booked?

It’s all about the same cinema, same seats, and yet 2 different questions, and how you already guessed we will use COUNT() to answer both of them.

Before going deeper, you, as the manager of the cinema, must know your cinema hall, and for that, before answering these 2 question, let’s take a look at the hall:

As you can see, your system shows you what seats were booked and how many are available for future movie fans. All these details are found in your database in a table called cinema_hall_1_seats that have the following structure and data:

So, as we can see, we have the seat_id and ticket_id that was assigned to the seat. Keep in mind the ticket_idcolumn because they will help us do the trick 😋

Let’s take our seats and inviteCOUNT(*) on the stage 👏 . As we saw above, our table has a seat_id column that contains, as you guessed (somehow I heard you say out loud, do not ask further 😂), the identifier of each seat of this hall.

But, let’s not go deeper with the uniques and identifiers because it’s not our scope for now (if you’re really curious, you can read more about it 👉here👈).

Going back to our business, it’s time to answer our first question:

How many seats are there in the cinema hall where the film will be shown?

Nothing is easier than this, because our COUNT(*) is present tonight to help us.

SELECT COUNT(*) AS total_seats
FROM cinema_hall_1_seats;

The result?

15 seats! (At least in our little scenario, cuz’ I doubt there’s a cinema hall that small😂)

Did it matter whether those seats were booked or not?

Not at all! And that’s because COUNT(*) counts every row in your table, regardless of its state (booked or not).

So as long as the seat is in a row in that table, it gets its moment in the spotlight when the counting begins 🎥

But wait… what if our cinema manager doesn’t care about the total number of seats?

What if they only want to know how many seats have already been booked?

Well, that’s another question to answer to. 👀

That’s the most interesting part for a manager, ‘cuz money talks after all. So, for this, somehow we have to change our tactic, but not our main actor, the COUNT() .

What column tells us that a seat is booked? That’s right, the one we promised to keep in mind, ticket_id .

SELECT COUNT(ticket_id) AS booked_seats
FROM cinema_hall_1_seats;

As we saw above, our ticket_id column also contains NULL values, but what do you think? Will COUNT(ticket_id) count those NULL values, or will it simply ignore them?

It will ignore them completely! 😎 That’s the beauty of: it counts only the values that are not NULL.

The result?

As you already thought, it is 8 seats that have a ticket associated with them, so COUNT(ticket_id) returns 8.

Did it matter that we have NULLs in our columns?

Of course not! And that’s because COUNT(column_name) it counts every not null values in the column that you specified.

So, let’s have a short recap of what we have learned for our little Spider-Man movie night️🕷️

Remember: SQL doesn’t know that you’re counting cinema seats or booked tickets. It only goes after what you’ve asked it to count.

Now I’m sure that the next time you see COUNT(*) or COUNT(column_name)you won't have to wonder what you're actually counting. 😉

Below is the script with the data I used for the examples above:

CREATE TABLE cinema_hall_1_seats (
    seat_id INT PRIMARY KEY,
    seat_number VARCHAR(5),
    ticket_id VARCHAR(10)
);

INSERT INTO cinema_hall_1_seats
    (seat_id, seat_number, ticket_id)
VALUES
    (1,  'A1', 'T001'),
    (2,  'A2', 'T002'),
    (3,  'A3', NULL),
    (4,  'A4', 'T003'),
    (5,  'A5', NULL),
    (6,  'B1', 'T004'),
    (7,  'B2', NULL),
    (8,  'B3', 'T005'),
    (9,  'B4', NULL),
    (10, 'B5', NULL),
    (11, 'C1', 'T006'),
    (12, 'C2', 'T007'),
    (13, 'C3', NULL),
    (14, 'C4', NULL),
    (15, 'C5', 'T008');

P.S: I used Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio as my IDE 😄

So…Until next time, happy querying! 🧑 💻💓

🍿 Our data journey doesn’t end today,
There’s always more to learn along the way!

Explore more data stories on Medium and see what you might find,
And if you enjoy my articles, buy me a coffee — that’s incredibly kind! ☕

Thanks for stopping by and reading along,
Until next time, data friends — keep curiosity by your side! 💛

COUNT(*) vs COUNT(column): What Are You Actually Counting? was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

♦

In the wide world of flatbreads — Persian, Indian, Salvadoran — surely the focaccia is among the tastiest, especially with its rosemary accenting.

The pizza-like dough, thick and airy, gets a good dose of olive oil and salt that settle into rows of finger-made depressions before it gets baked.

Liguria, whose coast is the Italian Riviera in the northwest of the country, is a strong contender for where the bread originated; it’s also a place where pizza might be also called focaccia.

This now artisanal and “crafted” bread was once considered quite humble and has been described as one of “the nourishing basic dishes of a poor and isolated population.” But that is harsh.

It might be classified as a “hearth cake” — the word focaccia likely deriving from the Latin word “focus” or “hearth.”

It’s likely related to the wonderful fougasse of Provencal. Try it with whipped ricotta.

Check out my latest post Focaccia: fun to say; great to eat from AndrewCoppolino.com.

We’re celebrating our Club’s 70th anniversary this season and what better way to celebrate than to get our members and past members together to curl!

We’re planning:

• Two draws with three six-end games each
• Lunch, dinner, prizes, and entertainment
• Those who aren’t curling will be able to join us for dinner and entertainment
• Register as a pair with a preference for front-end or back-end positions – you and your partner will be randomly teamed up with another pair each game – we’ll find you a partner if you register as an individual

We welcome past members to join in the fun! Come on out to curl with us, get to know some of our new members and reminisce with some of our more experienced ones. Past members can sign up with a current member or as an individual and we'll pair them up with a current member. 

The deadline for registering is Thursday, November 5.

 In today's K-W Record reporter Luisa D'Amato suggests that incumbents have a serious advantage, that being name recognition. Generally speaking both I and history agree with her.  Luisa suggests that the reason why every Mayor but one in Waterloo Region got the boot was that voters are unhappy. I agree with that as well but I wish to expand upon it. I do not have a very high opinion of our citizens political awareness. Generally speaking I find them uninformed both generally as to who and how government interacts with each other political body to deliver various services. Specifically I also find that citizens really have no idea who their own councillors are much less who their neighbours councillors are. For example I expect that at best 1% of Waterloo Region citizens and residents could name all sixteen (including the Chair) regional councillors prior to Monday's election. Now while I have a reason to have memorized all sixteen of those names please, please do not ask me to name councillors names for example of the Townships (Wilmot, Wellesley, North Dumfries) other than my own (Woolwich). That said I do indeed know the names of all the Mayors of each Township and city (Waterloo, Kitchener, Cambridge) because all the mayors are also regional councillors. Since approximately last December and the start of the Waterloo Region Water Crisis I have been sending all sixteen councillors (including Chair K. Redman) my Blog posts from this Blog (Elmira Advocate) five or six times per week and have thus memorized all the names and e-mail addresses. I understand how easy it would be to do group e-mailing but where's the fun or mental exercise in that?

Getting back to unhappy voters and name recognition I suggest that what has occurred is that unhappy voters did recognize their own mayor's name and that person became the scapegoat for all the ills making voters unhappy. Maybe they blame the one at the top (i.e. mayor) and only vote against them and consciously or not spare most of the rest of the municipal councillors. Conversely they might not even recognize the names of the other councillors on the ballot and revert back to unconsciously voting for the name that rings a bell (hence name recognition). 

Removing most of the incumbent mayors from regional council is a good thing but what a damning indictment that voters did not clean out many of the others who are responsible along with the Chair (Redman) for the disasters in Wilmot (770 acre removed as farmland, well interference due to increased regional pumping) and the overall Water Crisis in the Region that despite falsehoods and inaccuracies has not even begun to find new water sources to replace all the contaminated wells both by industry (TCE, benzene, NDMA etc.) and by agriculture (nitrates).  

In this episode of The Cordial Catholic, I'm joined by our very good friend Austin Suggs from the Gospel Simplicity YouTube channel. Austin is a Protestant YouTuber – a brilliant, thoughtful, and kind guy – that I first met 6 or 7 years ago after he made a video talking about some of his Catholic misconceptions. Austin and I have stayed in touch since our first conversation way back then and reconnect once in a while to have discussions like this one. 

This is a rich, poignant chat about where Austin's come in his Catholic thinking, where he still disagrees (and why), and how he'd answer some of the toughest challenges to his "protest" against Catholicism. 

It's a great chat. I hope you love it. Check out our YouTube channel or search our podcast archives for all of my previous conversations with Austin.

For more from Austin find Gospel Simplicity on YouTube. 

Send your feedback to cordialcatholic@gmail.com.

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♦

A breakfast favourite, Eggs Benedict is one of those food phrases with a dubious origin and namesake. They are, of course, delicious, but how did the name evolve? The story is as good as the eating.

Essentially eggs with an egg sauce, you make eggs Benedict with an English muffin, some Canadian back bacon and a French sauce, so it’s a sort of Canuck-Anglo-French breakfast or brunch.

The poached eggs in the dish are given a generous blanketing of Hollandaise sauce, traditionally made in a double-boiler — butter, egg yolks and lemon juice.

As for the name, it may have all started at the famous Delmonico’s in Manhattan.

A couple of spoiled-rich patrons whined that there was nothing new on the lunch menu, so staff whipped up the eggs with the classic French sauce to assuage them.

Alternatively, it was a chef Charles Ranhofer and Waldorf Hotel creation in about 1860.

Either way, someone named Benedict, it could have been LeGrand or Lemuel, and his wife who were likely the snooty whiners asking for something new.

As always, the lore of the kitchen and food history is murky and sometimes confused — but interesting nevertheless.

Check out my latest post Eggs [by LeGrand] Benedict from AndrewCoppolino.com.

WATERLOO, ON, October 28, 2026 — The Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery invites the public to celebrate the launch of Remembrance Every Day, a special publication commemorating the sacrifices of soldiers and peacekeepers through the work of Canadian clay and glass artists, on Saturday, November 8, 2026, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. The event will take place in the Gallery’s exhibition space. Admission is free, and light refreshments will be served.

Lead authors John Short and Denis Longchamps, the Gallery’s former Executive Director & Chief Curator, will be in attendance to sign copies of the book and participate in a conversation with the Gallery’s current Executive Director & Chief Curator, Sarah Stanners.

Beautifully designed by Christine Goucher, Remembrance Every Day brings together art, personal reflections, and stories that honour the service and sacrifice of those who have served. The publication opens with contributions from notable Waterloo Region public figures, including the Honourable Bardish Chagger, P.C.; MPP Catherine Fife; Chair Karen Redman; and City of Waterloo Mayor Dorothy McCabe.

The book features full-page colour illustrations of works inspired by Remembrance Day, alongside reflections on the contributions of 25 artists who participated in the Gallery’s Remembrance Every Day exhibition in 2025. It also documents artist-led workshops and installations presented across Canada, extending the project’s spirit of remembrance beyond the Gallery and into communities nationwide.

A dedicated chapter, “Veterans’ Stories,” offers a more personal perspective through rare photographs and testimonials from individuals with military and public service backgrounds. Contributors include retired RCMP Staff Sergeant Major John A. Buis, M.O.M., B.G.S.; Owen Lackenbauer, CD, retired Army Major and former Honorary Colonel of the RHFC; Major Kent Griffiths; and retired Canadian Armed Forces Corporal A.J. Mullett, CD.

Together, these contributions make Remembrance Every Day a lasting tribute to the people whose service and sacrifice deserve recognition—not only on Remembrance Day, but every day.

Remembrance Every Day is available in hardcover for $75 and softcover for $55 at the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery Shop.

• What: Remembrance Every Day book launch and author conversation
• When: November 8, 2026, 2–3:30 p.m.
• Where: Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery, Waterloo, Ontario
• Admission: Free; light refreshments will be served
• Registration: Register your attendance on Eventbrite
• Books: Hardcover $75; softcover $55, available at the Gallery Shop and online

-30-

ABOUT THE CANADIAN CLAY & GLASS GALLERY
The Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery is an award-winning national institution based in Waterloo Region celebrating the art and craft of clay, glass, and enamel. As a dynamic cultural organization, they continue to amplify diverse stories — opening dialogue and inspiring social change. Through exhibitions that address issues relevant to our times, an impressive selection of works in our Gallery Shop, and public programs that engage, educate, and excite — the Gallery is accessible to all. For more information, visit: www.theclayandglass.ca

CONTACT
To schedule a media interview or for more information, contact Peter Flannery, Senior Curator & Collections Manager, at 519-746-1882 ext. 235 or peter@theclayandglass.ca

The post Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery to Host Book Launch for Remembrance Every Day first appeared on The Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery.

Now despite the title above in fact the removal of the mayors of Waterloo, Cambridge, Wilmot, Wellesley will replace four regional councillors as well with the newly elected mayors. Also both the mayors of Woolwich and North Dumfries did not run again hence there are two new regional councillors there as well. Finally if we take the risk of assuming that Regional Chair Karen Redman is toast then seven out of 16 regionl councillors are gone which is good albeit nowhere good enough. 

That insipid, incompetent if not corrupt council needed a whole scale flushing. True I expect that some of the newer regional councillors over the last four years carried less weight and influence than the more experienced ones. Firstly there was and is the Region of Waterloo Water Shortage. Despite the K-W Record hopping on board the bandwagon and agreeing that emergency and interim actions have solved a crisis that has been building for decades; it is not remotely resolved. Secondly there is the 770 acre land acquisition removing productive farmland that we need. Thirdly we just found out this morning that our regional council has managed to seriously upset our major transit partners GrandLinq to the point of a major lawsuit. How utterly convenient for the incumbent twits oops I mean councillors that the Record delayed publishing this story until the day AFTER the election!  

I have serious concerns about the independence and integrity behind the Record these days. Has that paper mostly become a mouthpiece for the status quo or has it always been so? I still see occasional good things from the Record but I also see way too much of the opposite.

There’s something special about the holiday season in Waterloo Region. From twinkling lights and festive markets to cozy cafés, family-friendly traditions, and neighbourhoods that feel a little more magical this time of year, there are so many ways to make the most of the season close to home.

Whether you’re planning a weekend outing with the kids, looking for a festive date night, or hoping to start a few new holiday traditions, Kitchener-Waterloo has plenty to offer. And the best part? You don’t have to travel far to find a little holiday magic.

To help you make the most of the season, we’ve rounded up 15 things to add to your Kitchener-Waterloo holiday bucket list.

Keep reading to get more details about each idea (plus a few extra tips or ways to make the activity even more fun!)

Nothing says the holidays quite like an evening spent admiring sparkling lights. Bundle up, grab a hot chocolate, and explore local light displays throughout Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, and the surrounding communities.

Keep an eye out for seasonal displays at local parks, public spaces, and neighbourhood homes. You can even turn it into a family tradition by choosing a new route each year or letter everyone vote on their favourite display.

Make it a little more fun: Bring along a thermos of hot chocolate and create a holiday lights svaenger hunt.

Lights to look out for:

• Wonders of Winter in Waterloo Park (November 28 – January 2)
• Gift of Lights at Bingemans (November 20 – January 2)
• St. Jacobs Sparkles in the Village of St. Jacobs (November 12-15, 19-22)

If you love the atmosphere of a traditional European Christmas market, the annual Christkindl Market is a must-add to your holiday calendar. Isnpirated by German Christmas markets, this festival event brings the downtown core to lfie with seasonal decorations, artisan vendors, holiday treats, and plenty of opportunities to get into the spirit of the season.

Browse the vendor stalls for unique gifts, enjoy something delicious, and soak up the festive atmosphere with freinds or family.

Did you know: This year, the Christkindl Market is celebrating its 30th anniversary by expanding to 10 days of festive fun!

Skip the crowded big-box stores for an afternoon and discover some of the incredible independent shops throughout Waterloo Region.

From handmade ceramics and locally crafted jewellery to specality foods, home decor, and thoughful gifts, shoping local is a great way to find something unique while supporting the businesses that make our community special.

Explore independent shops in Downtown Kitchener, Uptown Waterloo, Belmont Village, and the surrounding neighbourhoods. You might even dsicvoer a new favourite store to visit all year long.

Make it a challenge: Try to find a gift for everyone on your list from a local business this year. You could even turn it into a family-wide rule this year!

Show even more support: One way you can support local businesses for free is by giving them some love on social media. If you find a shop you love, give them a follow and share some of their posts!

We’ve already included it as a holiday lights destination. A short drive from Kitchener-Waterloo, St. Jacobs is a wonderful destination for a festive day trip. With its charming village atmosphere, independent shops, and nearby market, it’s a great place to slow down and enjoy the season.

Pick up seasonal goodies, find great gifts, and enjoy a leisurely afternoon exploring the village. Depending on the timing of your visit, you may also find special holiday events and seasonal activities.

Our tip: Take a look at the St. Jacobs Sparkles event schedule to find out when certain festivities are taking place. That way you won’t miss out on free horse-drawn wagon rides, carollers, or the big man himself.

Few winter activities feel as nostalgic as skating outdoors. WHen weather and ice conditions allow, head to a lcoal outdoor rink for an afternoon or evening on the ice.

Kitchener and Waterloo have a variety of indoor and outdoor skating options, making it easy to find something for beginners, experienced skaters, and families alike.

A few tips:

• Dress in warm layers
• Check municipal rink schedules and outdoor ice conditions before leaving home (Outdoor skting availability depends on the weather).
• Ice skates are available to borrow from the Waterloo Public Library’s Eastside Branch year-round, and seaonally fromt he McCormick Branch.
• Finish your skate with a cozy drink

Sometimes, the best holiday activity is simply getting out and exploring your own community.

Spend an afternoon walking through Downtown Kitchener or Uptown Waterloo to admire seasonal decorations, browse storefronts, and discover local restaurants and cafés. Stop for a coffee, pop into a shop you’ve never visited, or enjoy a meal somewhere new.

It’s an easy, low-cost way to enjoy the season without having to plan an entire day around a major event.

Try this: Pick a neighbourhood, park the car, and see how many local businesses you can discover on foot.

The holidays are made for sweet treats, and Waterloo Region has plenty of bakeries and cafés worth exploring.

Make a morning of it by visiting a local bakery for gingerbread cookies, festive pastries, butter tarts, shortbread, or another seasonal favourite. You could even create your own holiday treat tour and visit a few spots across the region.

Looking for a new family tradition? Pick up a selection of treats to enjoy at home while decorating the tree or watching a favourite holiday movie.

Bonus points: Once you’ve tasted a few treats, support a local bakery by ordering your holiday desserts ahead of time for a big family event.

A trip to the Kitchener Market is a great way to shop for fresh ingredients, discover local vendors, and find inspiration for your holiday table.

Browse seasonal produce, baked goods, specialty foods, and locally made products. It’s also a great place to pick up ingredients for a festive brunch, put together a thoughtful host gift, or find something delicious to bring to a holiday gathering.

If you’re hosting thie year, shopping at the market is a simple way to add a lcoal touch to your celebration.

Our favourite idea: Build a holiday snack board using ingredients sources from local vendors.

When the holiday hustle starts to feel a little overwhelming, a quiet winter walk can be the perfect reset.

Waterloo Region has plenty of trails and natural spaces to explore, including scenic sections along the Grand River. Bundle up and enjoy the peaceful winter scenery, crisp air, and a little time away from busy shopping centres and packed schedules.

Choose a route that suits your group’s comfort level, and remember that snow and ice can make some trails more challenging during the winter months.

Make it a tradition: Take a family photo in the same spot every December and watch how the seasons (and your family) change over the years.

Who says holiday activities have to be all about the kids? The season is also a great excuse to plan a special night out.

Book dinner at a local restaurant, catch a live performance, explore a festive event, or enjoy an evening walk through a decorated downtown. You could also make a night of trying a new restaurant followed by dessert or coffee at a neighbourhood café.

The goal is to step away from the holiday to-do list and spend some quality time together.

Date-night challenge: Plan the entire evening around businesses and activities you haven’t tried before.

If you’re looking for gifts with a little more personality, add a local craft market to your holiday bucket list.

Seasonal artisan markets throughout Waterloo Region often feature handmade goods, artwork, jewellery, home décor, and specialty food products. They’re a great way to discover local makers while finding gifts that feel more personal than something picked up off a shelf.

Keep an eye on community event listings, like the Etsy Waterloo Region Holiday Market, as the holidays approach to find markets happening near you.

Why we love it: You get to support local creators while checking a few names off your shopping list.

Few things capture the excitement of the holiday season quite like a Santa Claus parade! Make it a family tradition to bundle up, find a spot along the parade route, and enjoy the festive floats, marching bands, community groups, and, of course, a special appearance from Santa himself.

The Kitchener-Waterloo area is home to beloved seasonal parade traditions, making this a wonderful way to get out into the community and celebrate with neighbours. Bring the kids, pack some warm drinks, and arrive early to find a good viewing spot.

This year’s parade will take place on November 21.

Don’t forget:

• Bring food donations or money to donate to the Food Bank of Waterloo Region.
• Pack your letters to Santa for Canada Post to deliver.

Waterloo Region offers plenty of opportunities to make the holidays exciting for little ones. Depending on the year’s programming, you may find seasonal workshops, family events, holiday performances, and special activities at local attractions.

Check the event calendars for places such as THEMUSEUM, local libraries, community centres, and nearby family attractions to see what’s happening during the school break.

You can also create your own adventure with a holiday scavenger hunt, a neighbourhood lights tour, or a day spent exploring somewhere new.

Parent tip: Choose one or two activities rather than filling every day. Leaving room for unplanned fun can make the holiday break feel much more relaxing.

Sometimes, a change of scenery is exactly what you need to get into the holiday spirit. Fortunately, Kitchener-Waterloo is surrounded by charming communities and outdoor destinations that make excellent winter day trips.

Consider exploring Elmira, St. Jacobs, Elora, or other nearby towns for independent shopping, scenic walks, local cafés, and seasonal events.

Depending on the weather, you could also plan a winter hike or visit a nearby conservation area for a little outdoor adventure.

Idea: The Elora Santa Claus parade is a great evening parade. The parade travels through the beautifully lit-up downtown. It’s a sight to see!

Planning tip: Check opening hours, event schedules, road conditions, and trail advisories before setting out, especially during the winter months.

Our final bucket-list item is one you can enjoy without buying a ticket, making a reservation, or driving anywhere.

The holidays are a wonderful time to create traditions that make your house feel like home. Whether you bake cookies every December, host an annual holiday brunch, decorate the tree together, or invite friends over for a festive potluck, small rituals can become the memories everyone looks forward to year after year.

If you have children, let them choose one activity to add to the calendar. If you’re hosting friends or extended family, consider starting a tradition that brings everyone together.

And if this is your first holiday season in a new home, it’s the perfect opportunity to make the space your own and create traditions that will grow with you.

From exploring festive markets and discovering local businesses to enjoying winter walks and creating cozy traditions at home, there are so many ways to enjoy the holiday season in Kitchener-Waterloo.

You don’t need to check off all 15 activities to make the most of the holidays. Choose a few that suit your family’s interests, try something new, and leave plenty of room for the little moments that make this time of year special.

After all, one of the best things about living in Waterloo Region is having so many wonderful experiences right in our own backyard.

The holiday season has a funny way of making us feel like we need to bring home more: more decorations, more tableware, more throw pillows, more seasonal everything.

But a festive home doesn’t have to mean a shopping trip.

In fact, some of the best holiday decorating comes from using what you already have, and bringing back the pieces you look forward to seeing every year. Because traditions are often what make a home feel the most festive.

Here are a few ways to make your home feel holiday-ready without buying anything new.

Before you browse the holiday aisles, take a look at what you already have tucked away in storage.

Maybe you have a box of ornaments, a favourite garland, a collection of holiday mugs, or decorations that have been part of your family’s celebrations for years. Bring them back out and give them a fresh spot in your home.

And remember: you don’t have to use everything every year. Choosing a few favourite pieces can make them feel more special and keep your home from feeling overcrowded.

There’s something comforting about seeing the same decorations year after year.

The same wreath on the door. The same ornaments on the tree. The same stockings by the fireplace. Maybe even the same holiday tablecloth that has somehow survived years of Christmas dinners.

We often think of decorating as an opportunity to create something new, but repeating the same decor can be a tradition in itself.

Those familiar pieces become part of the holiday experience and over time, they can carry memories of people, places and celebrations from years past.

So don’t feel like you need a completely different look every December. Sometimes, familiar is festive.

You don’t necessarily need new decor. You may just need a new arrangement.

Move a few existing pieces to a different room. Group decorations together on a console table or bookshelf. Bring a favourite piece into a more visible spot.

A few simple changes can make your home feel different without adding anything to it.

You can also try decorating in unexpected places. A small collection of ornaments in a bowl, a string of lights around a mirror, or a favourite holiday piece on an entryway table can add a seasonal touch without requiring a whole-room makeover.

The pressure to keep up with decor trends stems from a number of things, but you don’t always have to have a fully decorated home each holiday season. If you talk to your friends, they’re probably feeling similar.

Want to switch things up without spending a dollar? Invite a few friends over for a holiday decoration swap.

Everyone can bring a few decorations they’re no longer using, then trade pieces with each other. That wreath you’ve had for years might be exactly what someone else is looking for, and you could discover a “new-to-you” favourite without adding anything new to the shopping cart.

This also comes in handy if you or a friend have recently moved. Someone who has recently downsized may not have the same spaces to decorate, whereas someone looking to buy a house for their growing family may have room for a few more decorations.

Look around your home (and outside it) for simple, seasonal elements you can use.

Waterloo Region has a lot of beautiful nature to offer. Pine branches, evergreen clippings, pinecones, branches and dried flowers can all add texture and a wintery feel to your space. Even a simple arrangement in a vase can make an entryway, dining table or mantel feel festive.

If you have a backyard, garden or nearby green space where gathering natural materials is permitted, you may already have the makings of a beautiful seasonal display.

Sometimes making your home feel festive has less to do with what you put out and more to do with how the space feels.

Turn on the warm lamps instead of overhead lights. Light a candle. Put on your favourite holiday playlist. Bring out the mugs you only use this time of year. Make a batch of your favourite holiday recipe.

These small rituals can completely change the feeling of a room without changing the room itself.

Holiday decor doesn’t have to come from a store.

Display your kids’ handmade ornaments. Bring out old family photos. Use handwritten recipe cards as part of your kitchen decor. Put a collection of well-loved holiday books somewhere everyone can reach them.

The things that have a story behind them often make the best decorations.

And if something has been part of your family’s holiday celebrations for years, that’s a pretty good reason to keep bringing it back out.

There can be a lot of pressure to make your home look perfectly festive during the holidays. But your home doesn’t need to look like a catalogue to feel special.

Maybe the tree has mismatched ornaments. Maybe your decorations have been collected over 15 years. Maybe the same garland comes out every December.

That’s okay.

Before buying something new, take a look around your home and ask: What do I already have that could make this space feel festive?

You might find that you have everything you need.

Because the best holiday traditions aren’t always about what we add. Sometimes, they’re about what we bring back year after year.

Happy decorating!

Check out:

Preparing your home for holiday guests and gatherings
Money-saving tips for the holiday season
Decorate your Christmas tree like a pro

We’re pleased to share the recording of the Ontario Water Consortium’s (OWC) Innovation Showcase Fall 2026 webinar, Forecasting a Changing Climate: AI, Flood Resilience and the Future of Ontario’s Watersheds. This panel discussion, featuring Dr. Andre R. Erler alongside experts from Conservation Ontario, Maitland Valley Conservation Authority, and Western University, explores how artificial intelligence, advanced forecasting technologies, and operational expertise can strengthen flood preparedness and watershed resilience across Ontario.

The webinar highlights HydroSphereAI and its ongoing pilot with Conservation Ontario across 10 Ontario watersheds. By integrating machine learning models, weather forecasts, and real-time monitoring data, HydroSphereAI generates daily streamflow forecasts to support water management decisions. The discussion also examines the opportunities and challenges of implementing AI-driven forecasting in operational workflows, emphasizing the importance of combining emerging technologies with physical models and local expertise.

Key Highlights:

• Learn how AI-driven hydrological forecasting can improve flood preparedness and watershed resilience.

• Discover how HydroSphereAI is being piloted across 10 Ontario watersheds in collaboration with Conservation Ontario.

• Understand the challenges of forecasting extreme events, managing weather uncertainty, and adapting to changing climate conditions.

• Explore how AI, physics-based models, and operational expertise can support more informed water management decisions.

This session is especially valuable for conservation authorities, watershed managers, hydrologists, researchers, and water resource professionals interested in applying emerging forecasting technologies to improve flood risk management and climate resilience.

Watch the recording now to learn how HydroSphereAI and collaborative innovation are advancing flood forecasting and supporting more resilient watershed management across Ontario.

Watch The Recording

There is an old joke about a young boy advising his father that when he grows up he wants a career in organized crime. His father then asks him whether he means Private or Government Organized Crime. Oh my but I suspect many of our citizens, especially the younger ones, would not get it. Or would not believe it.

Our governments at all levels are subject to laws just as we individual citizens are. Unfortunately most of the laws governing their actions and behaviours, one appear to have very few personal consequences unlike ours and two seem to be greatly underused. Yes we hear about the odd case of government overreach making it's way through the courts all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Examples would be whether or not the Federal Liberal government invoked the War Measures Act inappropriately or not during the truckers' occupation and strike  in Ottawa a few years back. Another is the upcoming Supreme Court of Canada case to decide the legality and constitutionality of the so called gun Buyback Program in Canada. From a few rifles with some characteristics, but not all, of military assault rifles the (shi#) list of naughty rifles has expanded to about 2,500 makes and models. Again some of these share visual characteristics with real military weapons although many do not.

As a general rule it might be either likely or wishful thinking that some or many of the illegalities that our various levels of government have indulged in are less due to malfeasance or misfeasance versus what organized crime may be involved in. Now of course illegalities such as Watergate, toppling of foreign governments, possible hits on members of foreign governments; all are extremely serious and can and should not be excused. 

Other illegal behaviour however can also be chalked up to politics. Gerrymandering or altering of electoral boundaries in order to artificially change the voting electorate in a particular riding happens at all levels. Failure to properly or honestly fill out election Financial Statements is another one. This has occurred here locally in Woolwich Township and was an embarrassment  to both the individuals involved as well as to the whole Township. Lobbying rules and norms are often under attack along with rules and laws around Party donations, campaign donations etc. 

Political corruption is a more obvious and bigger deal in some third world countries and non democratic locales. If the levers of government are applied unevenly or contrary to law then action may be required. That said there is no reason for smugness either in Canada or the United States as just about every possible form of political and governmental corruption has been undertaken both successfully or otherwise over the history of both countries.

♦

I have had some excellent calamari fritti at various restaurants over many years, as I’m sure you have. When done properly — which is actually quite rarely — the resulting morsel can be exquisite if the light breading is very crisp and the squid rings perfectly cooked with the slightest “toothsomeness” inside. You might also enjoy a mildly spicy aioli and some greens with Asian spicing to accompany.

But when not fried and crispy, a mouthful of squid in a seafood salad is quite unsatisfactory. It got me thinking about the technique to prepare the ingredient and dish and the hoary old myth that I’ve heard, and which literally bobs around, about plopping a wine cork into the pot of boiling water in which the squid is being cooked. Have you heard it?

It has seemed to hold some truth among a number of different kitchens of the world that as they prepare calamari dishes a cork in the water prevents the squid from becoming “rubbery,” the term usually applied to squid that has been overcooked. There is little rationale for the myth other than someone proclaiming, “My Nonna did it in her cucina.”

But just so you know, I have done an experiment to test the myth. Using real and man-made corks, and trying to keep it as “scientific” as possible, I boiled off a few batches of squid.

I then sampled each batch of squid—including one that was cooked sans cork—and found no difference in the tenderness of the calamari at all.

So, here’s what I simply suggest: drink the wine while you’re cooking your squid — toss the cork to recycling. It is, however, a fun so-called kitchen hack and culinary myth to think about. But remember: always, always toss a bit of salt over your left shoulder if you knock over the salt shaker.

Check out my latest post The “cork-in-the-squid-water” myth from AndrewCoppolino.com.

Well I'm wrong. Just like I mentioned here on Thursday that I'm apparently not Presidential material it also seems that I'm neither polluter material nor fit to work for the Ontario Ministry of Environment. Decades ago shortly after I lost my job with that pillar of the community and self-professed protector of the environment, Severin Argenton, owner of Varnicolor Chemical, I thought that I would like to work with the Min. of Environment (M.O.E.) preferably in their enforcement section. I had visions of myself stepping in either undercover or in uniform and enforcing pollution laws prohibiting illegal dumping, discharges and so forth. Instead I slowly realized that the job of their inspectors was to coach, whine, beg and plead recalcitrant, dirty pigs into seeing the light. If that failed then they were to make friends with them such that they would only have good things to say about our impoverished, impotent and incompetent M.O.E..

So what do I mean by expecting to see a "push" from Lanxess and the now named MECP? They've been bragging and touting their pump & treat system for decades now so silly me I expected that they'd up significantly both their off-site pumping and as we've been often told over the decades also their on-site pumping to ensure hydraulic containment of their gross contamination was maintained on their site. Not a chance. Yes their total off-site pumping here in Elmira has the last several years risen from around 53 litres per second to closer to 60 or 63 litres per second. At the same time however they've reduced their on-site pumping both in the Municipal drinking water aquifers as well as in their shallow Upper Aquifer that is supposed to stop contaminated discharge to the Canagagigue Creek. What the hell are they doing?

It appears to me that they've either thrown in the towel or they've gotten permission from our corrupt MECP to go ahead and increase the slow leakage from their site into the rest of Elmira. Can it be as blatant as it appears? Are Lanxess trying to speed up the cleanup of their property via letting their crap accelerate its' off-site mobilization? Meanwhile I never hear a word from TRAC at the public meetings four or five times a year asking any of these questions. Not a peep from them about reduced pumping in the Municipal Upper Aquifer (MU) on-site from pumping wells PW4 and now PW6 compared to the past pumping by PW4 and PW5. Similarly the number of wells allegedly containing the Upper Aquifer (UA) discharge to the "Gig" has been reduced and more importantly the volumes of water.   

Sandy's intervention in public consultation in 2015 has done exactly what was expected of it and  Lanxess and the corrupt MECP thank her for it. Expect laurels and awards down the line rewarding her for her corporate homage and obedience although it will be worded grandly as "Environmental warrior of the decade" or some such drivel. 

The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC), the largest conference for women in tech, was cancelled last week just two weeks before it was scheduled to take place. Individual ticket registrations and corporate sponsorships fell significantly below expectations, to the point that the event was no longer financially viable.

I was surprised and saddened by the news. Since 1994, GHC has been the premier event for women in tech, giving many women the opportunity to deliver technical talks, build connections, and meet recruiters looking for talented engineers.

My first GHC in 2006 changed my life. Seriously. As a senior engineering leader at Adobe, I returned determined to better support women. I founded Adobe’s women’s employee resource group, mentored more women, and advocated for greater gender representation in engineering.

That passion eventually led me to leave tech, become a leadership coach, and write Better Allies.

Now, I hope you’ll be inspired to do something in the wake of this cancellation. Whether you work in tech or another field, give often-underestimated coworkers a platform to share their expertise. Here are a few ideas:

• Share the spotlight. Invite colleagues who are less visible in your organization to deliver project updates at team meetings.
• Create opportunities. Start a lunch-and-learn series and invite them to present.
• Make introductions. Connect them with conference organizers seeking speakers or panelists.
• Pass the mic. When you’re invited to speak at an event, consider recommending a qualified colleague who gets fewer such opportunities.
• Support them as they prepare. Offer to attend a practice run. Ask whether they’d like feedback and what kind would be most useful.

And here’s one more idea specifically about GHC: If a team member was scheduled to speak at this year’s conference, offer to host an event so they can still share their work. Or encourage them to post a video clip or carousel of some key points from their talk online and to tag Reshma Saujani on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Threads. Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code, wants to amplify the expertise of the would-be GHC speakers to her hundreds of thousands of followers.

Share this action on Instagram or LinkedIn.

Sponsor 5 Ally Actions and put your brand or business in front of 40,000 caring individuals in business, healthcare, education, and non-profits.

Or, say thanks to Karen and buy her a coffee ☕.

The cancellation of GHC amid a lack of corporate support is a reminder that events promoting greater representation in a field need sponsors willing to invest in them.

Take a look at what your organization is doing to sponsor such events. If support has been scaled back in the last year or two, ask why. And let decision-makers know you’ve noticed and how it affects you and your coworkers.

If the explanation is that events focused on representation constitute “unlawful DEI” under President Trump’s executive orders, consider pointing to a recent example that raises a question about consistency: Melania Trump’s Imperia. It’s an invite-only network and forum for female CEOs, executives, and founders.

After all, if initiatives supporting women in leadership are worth celebrating in one context, why should supporting women in other professional fields be off the table?

Should educators encourage or discourage students to use AI?

Someone asked this question last week during a talk by Paula Goldman about her new book Manage the Machine: How to Harness Human-AI Collaboration at Work.

Goldman made a compelling point: Future employers will be looking for people skilled at working with AI, so educators need to prepare students for that demand. I found myself nodding in agreement.

On my drive home, though, I started thinking about a potential downside. Could celebrating the skills of AI natives inadvertently reinforce ageism at work?

I revisited a 2022 Harvard Business Review article, I Was a Manager in an Ageist Workplace, in which Nicole D. Smith described ageist behaviors that had become normalized in her organization. Older workers resisted collaborating with younger colleagues, while younger employees disparaged older colleagues’ skills and willingness to learn.

These assumptions hurt everyone. As Smith explained, ageism can limit contributions, devalue employees, and undermine job satisfaction and engagement.

One recommendation she offered for disrupting ageism: Equally laud the skills of digital natives and the knowledge of older workers.

For 2026, I’d update that advice to include AI skills. Recognize colleagues who are adept at using AI, regardless of their age. And recognize the experience, judgment, and institutional knowledge that colleagues of all ages bring to their work.

Consider who you endorse publicly. Review the recommendations you make for promotions and awards. Think about the kudos you give casually.

If you haven’t been valuing and praising the skills of both younger and older colleagues, you’ve got some work to do.

After reading last week’s newsletter, Cindy Poore-Pariseau wished I’d included a caveat acknowledging that some people are not ready to disclose their pronouns, are gender-fluid, or may be in the “questioning” category.

I agree. We don’t want to pressure anyone to share their pronouns if they don’t want to.

I bet we’ve all filled out forms that require us to share our pronouns. And participated in icebreakers where the meeting leader says, “Now everyone, introduce yourself and tell us your pronouns.”

As I learned from Jeannie Gainsburg, author of The Savvy Ally, the best way to gather pronouns is to create systems or practices that allow everyone to share them if they want to. This avoids singling anyone out whose pronouns are unknown, while signaling that your workplace or conference is an LGBTQ+ welcoming and inclusive place.

When gathering pronouns on forms, providing pronoun stickers at conferences, creating name tags, or asking about pronouns in any other setting, make sure people know that sharing is optional.

And as Poore-Pariseau pointed out to me, if we don’t know someone’s pronouns, we can simply use their name.

This week’s action from the Better Allies community comes from Melissa Segal.

A few years after moving into her neighborhood, Segal discovered that it had originally been named “__ Plantation.” Although the name had been changed to “__ Manor” before her phase was built, the original name remained attached to some properties and appeared in electronic records and real estate listings.

Segal was appalled. So she got to work.

She gathered information from a neighbor who was a real estate attorney, repeatedly contacted city and county officials, tracked down owners of outdated websites, and worked with local real estate agents to get the old name removed from listings and digital records. She then encouraged neighbors to make sure the updated name would appear on future property deeds, too.

As Segal told me,

“While it was a lot of work, it was worth it to finally have the old name fully gone and ensure that the neighborhood feels inclusive throughout!”

Thank you for your persistence and for reminding us that making a community more inclusive sometimes means tackling the outdated systems and records that keep a harmful legacy alive. ❤️

If you’ve taken a step towards being a better ally, please reply to this email and tell me about it. And mention if I can quote you by name or credit you anonymously in an upcoming newsletter.

That’s all for this week. I’m glad you’re on this journey with me,

Karen Catlin (she/her), Author of the Better Allies® book series

100% written by me. I use AI for researching a personal archive of my books and past newsletters, and for light editing.

Copyright © 2026 Karen Catlin. All rights reserved.

Together, we can make a difference with the Better Allies® approach.

• Say thanks to Karen and buy her a coffee ☕ (Need a receipt for educational reimbursement? Reply to this email, and we’ll take care of it.)
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Give Someone A Platform To Share Their Expertise, and Other Actions for Allies was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Chemtura several years back as part of the untruthful claim that they were going to triple off-site pumping via adding more wells added wells W8, W9, W6A & W6B. They also shut down pumping well W4 beside the Howard St. Water Tower, likely prematurely, as diffused chlorobenzene from the DNAPL pool at the bottom of OW57-32R is still back diffusing into the aquifer there beside the Water Tower. Well W3 on Industrial Dr. was replaced by pumping well W3R beside it. W5A/B remained just off-site at the south end of the former Uniroyal Chemical and pumping well E7 way down at the south end of town has continued pumping although on an odd schedule in what they call "pulse" pumping. The new wells W6A & W6B along with W8 are pumping at extremely low rates for the purpose of containing and slowly removing off-site sources of chlorobenzene along with accompanying tinier amounts of NDMA. W6A and W6B are located at the south end of the former Borg Textile property along Oriole Parkway. Pumping wells W8 and W9 are both screened in the Municipal Lower Aquifer to the west off-site of Uniroyal/Lanxess where they intercept the known DNAPL that flowed over to the Nutrite/Yara site decades ago. W9 also pumps some NDMA whether from the former textile factory beside it or from Uniroyal Chemical.

So what is the big deal above and beyond Chemtura lying about tripling the volume of off-site pumping back in November 2012? Well it's about the Ontario MECP (Environment, Conservation & Parks) and Lanxess still lying about other sources of NDMA, chlorobenzene and more to the Elmira Aquifers. O.K. we get it! Uniroyal are bad! They took a sweetheart deal from the Ministry of Environment back in 1991 to accept full blame for all contamination in exchange for a lighter sentence (i.e. less cleanup particularly DNAPL $$$$$$$$$). 

Lanxess went so far as to finger some anonymous "other" sources of chlorobenzene along First St. a couple of years ago at a TRAC meeting in order to quell speculation about the "excess" 1,900 kg. of chlorobenzene discovered by Dr. Neil Thompson (U. of Waterloo) around 2018. Lanxess and the MECP were looking stupid after that denying my claims of other sources including Varnicolor Chemical, Borg Textile and westward gravity flowing chlorobenzene DNAPL from Uniroyal Chemical without providing an alternative for the "excess" 1,900 kg.. 

Apparently the last thing they ever want to do is give credit to a citizen scientist who has exposed the many lies that their inadequate and ineffective pump & treat remediation is based upon. They don't want to admit that I, Rich Clausi and Esther Thur were right in 1994 and since about DNAPLS. They don't want to admit  that the Ontario Ministry of Environment makes sweetheart deals with polluters, not in the public interest, but to avoid being exposed as incompetent or worse.  

When I was a kid, I had an old black-and-white CRT TV, with three channels and knobs you had to turn to change channels or adjust the volume. It was already an antique by 1980s standards, but it was the “kids’ TV,” and I was perfectly happy with it. We had a newer one in the living room, with both a remote control and little buttons hidden behind a flap.

But according to my father, “remote controls are for lazy people,” so for a while he kept getting up to turn the volume up or down, which, from the perspective of my five-year-old self, seemed like a rather absurd way to defend the value of effort.

We used to call the remote “la zapette” in France back then (a slightly outdated word that I still quite like). It had already eliminated one particularly painful task: getting off the sofa. My kids grew up with voice assistants, and I’m not sure whether I should be proud or embarrassed about this, but both of them counted “Hey Google, play Netflix” among their first official sentences.

Today, I think back to my button-operated TV with a bit of nostalgia. Not because I reject technology, but because there was something to do. That feeling of fiddling with it, going a little too far, then turning back until the picture was stable and you finally found the right channel. That whole “tinkering” phase was part of the TV time my parents allowed me, and it was a ritual I loved.

Sure, it was less efficient than a voice command. But between wanting to watch TV and finally getting a clear picture, there was a whole little journey. And maybe it’s that little bit of the journey that I miss today.

With AI, I feel like we’re doing the exact opposite: trying to make that journey as short as possible.

I’ve been working in data and AI for about fifteen years. Automating things is literally part of my job. Yesterday with data processing pipelines, today with AI agents. So let’s just say I’m not exactly an enemy of technology.

But for a while now, there’s been a question nagging at me. I feel like we spend a lot of time asking what we can automate, and much less time asking what we should automate.

And the method is more or less always the same. We start with an existing process, look at what could be automated, then estimate what we could gain in time, efficiency or cost. If an agent can write meeting minutes, produce code or carry out several steps for us, why keep doing it manually?

In corporate talk, we systematically hear the same reassuring disclaimer: “Of course, our AI is human-centric. We keep humans in the loop.”

OK, but what exactly are they doing in that loop?

If I exaggerate a little, we often end up with a pretty simple model:

The AI does the work.
The human reads it, checks it, approves it.

Of course, that supervision is essential in many situations. But I still struggle to see how putting a human somewhere in the loop is enough to make a system human-centric, especially if their role is essentially to check what the machine has produced.

AI is supposed to be our tool. We should probably avoid optimizing everything so much that we end up becoming a tool in the chain.

Because if we really want to keep a place for humans in work, I hope we have something more to offer them than quality control.

And more importantly, what happens if checking, correcting and approving eventually becomes the main part of our jobs?

I used to love coding.

Not just having code that worked. Coding.

I loved the hands-on side of it: starting with an idea, writing a few slightly shaky lines of code, running them, seeing that of course they didn’t work on the first try, debugging, and trying again until finally the expected result appeared in the terminal.

There’s a little bit of magic in that. I’ve always loved it.

I also loved learning. Every time I changed jobs, I discovered new languages, new libraries, new frameworks. I dug around forums, tried things out, struggled with completely incomprehensible errors.

Basically, I spent an absurd amount of time searching, trying things and getting things wrong. A beautiful waste of time, by the usual standards of a process optimisation consultant.

When coding assistants arrived, I loved them. I would code, something would break, and I’d copy the error message into the assistant to understand what was wrong.

It was a bit like having a senior colleague looking over my shoulder, always available, but without the sighing, the “did you read the docs?” and the fear of asking a stupid question.

AI removed some of the frustration without removing the pleasure of doing the work.

But the tools kept improving. Today, I can ask them to produce a large part of the code for me. I explain exactly what I want, go and get myself a coffee, and by the time I come back, the code is already there.

All that’s left is to review it. Hard to complain.

At first, you happily delegate the parts you enjoy least (let’s be honest, nobody likes writing unit tests). And then, little by little, automation starts eating into the fun part too.

Congratulations, I’m more productive now. I’ve also become the reviewer of the activity I loved most.

And I have to admit, that leaves me with a strange question: if my work becomes more efficient but I enjoy doing it less, can we really say it has become “better”?

Don’t worry, I’m not planning to start an association for the defence of hand-written code. Not everyone shares my passion for debugging.

But the whole thing did make me realise something: when we decide to automate a task, we spend a lot of time looking at what we’re going to gain. Much less at what we might lose.

Coding literally means “producing code,” sure. But it’s also experimenting, searching, testing, understanding, trying something improbable just to see what happens, learning and sometimes even having fun (Please tell me I’m not the only one ! ).

So yes, if an AI assistant can do in a few minutes what would have taken me a whole day, it seems silly not to use it. But are we sure we haven’t left something interesting behind along the way?

And what if my story about being a nostalgic developer were just one example among many?

OK, by this point, you can probably see where I’m going with this. My brain, raised on a steady diet of science fiction, was never going to stop at a nice little story about code and productivity. If I’m going to think about a problem, I might as well immediately imagine how badly it could go. People who know me know that I can go on about these topics for quite a while.

Dystopias are unbeatable when it comes to existential questions: they take an idea, push it to its most extreme consequences and force us to ask where the line is.

Imagine we just keep happily optimizing, automating and delegating to machines everything they can do for us. Not three months from now. Not next year. Let’s push the slider much further, just to see. What might the worst-case scenario look like?

Fortunately, screenwriters have already imagined quite a few ways for humanity to mess things up. And two of them immediately came to mind.

The first is WALL-E.

You know the humans in their floating chairs? They no longer need to walk, wait, search or even really look around. Everything comes to them, immediately. Their entire daily life is designed to make things easier for them.

From an OKR perspective, “remove all friction from the user experience” can officially be marked green. Mission accomplished. The problem is that apparently nobody thought to add “still want to do anything” to the KPI list.

Let’s just say that if this was supposed to be the ultimate goal of human progress, perhaps we should have defined the success criteria a little better. Because by gradually removing every constraint, they also let a whole bunch of things disappear that are much harder to fit into a dashboard: curiosity, movement, encounters, discovery, wonder.

The most unsettling part is that nobody wakes up one morning and decides to give all of that up. Every small step backwards seems perfectly logical. Why walk when you can be carried? Why search when a machine can search for you? Why do something yourself when you can delegate it?

OK, don’t worry, I don’t think subscribing to ChatGPT Plus is the first step towards the floating chairs in WALL-E. But I like what the film forces us to look at: if we remove all friction, what else do we remove without really noticing?

And then there’s Severance.

And strangely enough, that one speaks to me even more when I think about work. In the show, without spoiling anything, the employees don’t spend their days doing nothing. Quite the opposite. They work. A lot, actually. They process data, follow procedures, check that everything is compliant. They know exactly what they have to do.

The small problem is that their work is so compartmentalised that they have no idea what they are really contributing to, or what happens before or after their part. It’s hard to get more literally “disconnected from your work” than that.

Of course, this is a dystopia, so nobody is suggesting that your next copilot is going to turn the open-plan office into Lumon Industries.

In the show, the distance between the characters and their own work is pushed to the extreme. And maybe that’s what bothers me most. If tomorrow AI produces, builds, searches and experiments while we spend more and more of our time reviewing, controlling and approving what it has done, we are still working.

We are even still “in the loop.” That famous loop.

It’s just that our place in it has changed. By constantly optimizing, we risk eventually reducing the human role to a very specialised one: supervising, checking, approving. Ok, it’s efficient. But how do you keep feeling truly involved in an outcome when you took part in none of the experiments, none of the mistakes, none of the choices that got you there?

Because all those little, not-very-optimized detours have a purpose too: understanding what we’re doing, knowing what we brought to it, sometimes feeling proud of it and, ultimately, putting a little bit of ourselves into it.

And unlike the characters in Severance, we don’t have one part of our brains dedicated to work and another one for the rest of our lives. How we feel at work, how interesting we find it, how much we want to invest ourselves in it, inevitably spills over a little.

In the end, my two dystopias offer two fairly unappealing versions of the future: having almost nothing left to do, or carrying on working without really understanding what we’re contributing to. So naturally, whenever I hear people talking about the “future of work,” I’d quite like us to avoid having to choose between the two.

Now mix them together, add a few AI agents and there you go: my dystopian brain is delighted. Personally, I find it pretty terrifying.

Recently, I was talking with my manager about the future of the Data Scientist profession. His view, in short: “The more senior people will manage agents.”

That sentence bothered me a little.

Not really because I think that future is impossible. Quite the opposite. What surprised me was that it was presented as the natural, even desirable evolution of the profession: you start by doing the work, you become an expert, then one day you gradually stop doing it and start supervising agents that do it for you.

And apparently, that’s supposed to be good news. Maybe I’m just a bit old-fashioned. But I chose this profession because I also enjoy doing it.

So the idea that the ultimate achievement of my career would be to sit back back and watch agents have all the fun instead of me leaves me, let’s say, moderately enthusiastic. I have to admit, I’d quite like to still be doing a little Data Science when I grow up. And finally become that senior colleague who sighs over a junior’s shoulder and asks: “Did you read the docs?” It would be a shame if AI took that away from us too.

I think I want to defend a small form of resistance.

Not against AI. That would be fairly ironic given my job. Not against agents or automation either. But against the idea that just because we can automate something, we necessarily should.

Some tasks are tedious, repetitive and honestly not very interesting. If a machine can take them off our hands, great. But other tasks give us something too: autonomy, mastery, interaction, creativity, sometimes simply the pleasure of doing them. Just because these things are difficult to measure doesn’t mean they don’t matter.

So maybe, alongside the usual questions like “how much time will we save?” or “what’s the ROI?”, we should ask another one: Do we actually want to stop doing this?

And, more importantly, ask the people who actually do the work.

For those of us who work in AI, I think that is also a responsibility. Automation doesn’t just remove a task. It also reshapes the work that remains. We don’t get to decide how work is organised on our own, obviously, but we do have a role to play in bringing something other than productivity into the equation.

Maybe that’s what truly human-centric AI is, in the end. Not simply keeping a human somewhere in the loop to click “Approve,” but asking what place we actually want to leave for them.

I don’t want to go back to three channels and the knobs on my old TV.

I’m not against the remote control.

I just want to make sure that, in our obsession with building the perfect remote, we don’t end up forgetting that sometimes there was something interesting about turning the knob.

What if we stopped automating the things we enjoy? was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Short answer: to find a fractional CMO, start by defining what's actually missing (direction, leadership or execution), then look for someone with experience at your stage and in your business model. Shortlist two or three people through referrals, LinkedIn and specialist networks, and choose the one who asks the sharpest questions about your business, not the one with the slickest deck.

Hiring a fractional CMO is a big decision made with very little information. Titles are loose, everyone has a framework, and it's hard to tell from a website who will actually move your numbers. Here's how I'd approach it if I were in your seat.

Before you talk to anyone, write down the problem in one or two sentences. Most companies fall into one of three situations:

• No clear strategy. Lots of activity, unclear results. You need someone to set priorities and connect marketing to revenue.

• A team without a leader. You have marketers, freelancers or an agency, but nobody owns the plan.

• A moment that matters. A launch, a raise, a new market or a rebrand that needs senior thinking for a defined period.

If what you really need is someone to run ads or post on social every day, you need an execution hire or an agency, not a fractional CMO. I wrote more about the warning signs in red flags that you need strategic marketing leadership.

1. Referrals. Ask founders, investors, advisors and your accountant who they've seen do this well. Warm introductions are still the most reliable source.

2. LinkedIn. Search "fractional CMO" plus your industry, and look at what people actually post. Do they share real thinking, or just announcements?

3. Specialist networks and marketplaces. Fractional executive networks and talent platforms can give you a shortlist quickly.

4. Their own content. Blogs, podcasts and talks show you how someone thinks before you ever get on a call.

• Experience at your stage. Leading marketing at a 20-person company is very different from managing a 200-person department. Ask about companies like yours.

• Experience in your model. SaaS, eCommerce and service businesses grow in different ways. Your fractional CMO should already speak your language.

• Both strategy and execution. The best fractional CMOs can build the plan and stay close enough to execution to make sure it happens.

• A clear way of working. Ask how the first 90 days go, how often you'll meet, and what you'll receive. Here's what the first 90 days look like when I work with a company.

• Focus on revenue, not vanity metrics. Listen for pipeline, customer acquisition cost, retention and margin, not just followers and impressions.

1. What would you want to understand about our business in the first two weeks?

2. Tell me about a company like ours you worked with. What changed, and what didn't work?

3. How do you work with an existing team or agency?

4. How much time will you spend with us each week or month, and how is that structured?

5. Which metrics would you report on, and how often?

6. When would you tell us we don't need you anymore?

Pay attention to the questions they ask you. A good fractional CMO will be curious about your customers, your numbers and your team before they recommend anything.

You don't have to commit to a year on day one. Many engagements start with an audit or a 90-day plan: a clear deliverable that lets you test the fit and the way of working. If it goes well, it rolls into an ongoing retainer.

Agree up front on two or three metrics you'll review every month. Here are the metrics I actually care about.

• A long strategy deck before they understand your business

• Guaranteed results or vague promises of "growth"

• No examples of work at companies like yours

• No interest in your numbers, customers or sales process

• Unclear scope, time commitment or reporting

How long does it take to hire a fractional CMO? Usually a few weeks, compared with several months to recruit a full-time executive.

Should a fractional CMO be local? Not necessarily. Most work is remote, but someone who knows your market and time zone helps, especially for Canadian companies.

Can a fractional CMO work with our agency? Yes. Leading and evaluating agencies is one of the most common parts of the role.

I work with growth-stage SaaS, eCommerce and service-based businesses. If you're weighing whether a fractional CMO makes sense right now, book a strategy call and I'll give you a straight answer.

We’re pleased to share the recording of our recent webinar, The Hidden Role of Geomorphological Change in Watershed-Scale Redistributions of Groundwater and Surface Water. This session, presented by Marcia Achiaa Frempong, PhD candidate at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, explores how changes in watershed geomorphology can influence groundwater–surface water interactions and redistribute water across landscapes over time.

Using HydroGeoSphere, the webinar examines how changes in river morphology can alter groundwater and surface water dynamics at the watershed scale. By simulating different land surface configurations and river morphologies, the study demonstrates how localized geomorphic changes, such as river cutoffs, can influence groundwater levels well beyond the river corridor, with important implications for water availability and natural hazard mitigation.

Key Highlights:

• Learn how geomorphological change can influence groundwater–surface water interactions at the watershed scale.

• Explore how HydroGeoSphere can be used to simulate the hydrologic impacts of changing river morphology.

• Understand how localized changes, such as river cutoffs, can create areas of groundwater enrichment and depletion.

• Discover the broader implications of geomorphic change for water resource management and natural hazard mitigation.

This session is especially valuable for hydrologists, hydrogeologists, researchers, and water resource professionals interested in understanding how evolving landscapes influence coupled surface water and groundwater systems.

Watch the recording now to discover how integrated hydrologic modelling can reveal the often-hidden influence of geomorphological change on water movement and distribution across watersheds.

Watch The Recording

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Coolish fall weather demands simple but comforting pasta dishes. And the Roman cacio e pepe is basically pasta with cheese and black pepper. It’s delicious and relatively simple to make as long as you take care of your technique.

Likely a dialect word for cheese, cacio is the primary ingredient and usually takes the form of a hard cheese that can be grated, something like a Pecorino (which accounts for nearly one-seventh of the cheese made in Italy, incidentally). For example, there’s a style called caciatto di Pecorino, from Lazio, which is eaten with broad beans.

Cacio e pepe had its origins as dish for shepherds (it is especially good with the sheep’s milk cheese) and relatively simple to whip up at home on a cool fall evening: pasta, fresh cracked black pepper, grated cheese (and sometimes butter) and the critical pasta water. Make sure not to strain the pasta: transfer it directly into your pan. Grate the cheese very finely, and toast the black pepper a bit before combining with the other ingredients.

Buon appetito!

Check out my latest post Cacio e pepe: cheese and pepper pasta from AndrewCoppolino.com.

Two incidents landed in the same week, and they rhyme. In systems engineering, we spend our careers scrutinising application business logic, configuring access control lists, and reviewing pull requests. We operate on the implicit assumption that the ground beneath our feet is solid granite. But every so often, the bedrock fractures.

One incident involves a pair of critical flaws in the core PHP runtime, latent in the codebase since 2012, that permit an unauthenticated HTTP request to execute arbitrary code before your application even boots. The other involves eMudhra, a globally trusted Certificate Authority, which generated eight intermediate signing keys with such pitiful entropy that researchers recovered the private keys from public certificates in less than a second. One private key was literally the single-digit integer 4.

Both failures expose a recurring blind spot in modern infrastructure: we expend enormous effort securing the code we write, while blindly trusting the foundations we inherit.

When security advisories dropped for the PHP vulnerabilities dubbed PHP2Shell, the public conversation immediately drifted toward web servers: WordPress installations, Laravel applications, Drupal portals, and Apache or PHP-FPM daemons running in cloud environments. The official remediation guidance was predictable: upgrade immediately to PHP 8.2.35, 8.3.36, 8.4.27, or 8.5.12.

If your entire estate consists of modern containerised workloads deployed through continuous integration pipelines, patching is straightforward. But having spent decades building network appliances, industrial equipment interfaces, and high-performance routers, I look at these advisories through a very different lens. I know where PHP actually lives.

PHP is not just on web hosts. It powers the embedded web administration console on your branch office router, the configuration interface on a network video recorder, the local diagnostic panel on a building automation controller, and the embedded web server inside plant equipment. These devices run on low-cost flash storage, often using ancient kernels and stripped-down userlands.

The PHP flaws date back to version 5.4, released in 2012. How many embedded devices installed in commercial facilities over the past decade still run PHP 5.6 or 7.0? Nearly all of them. These devices do not possess automated package managers. Many do not even have an active vendor left to issue a firmware update. As Cisco Talos noted in its analysis, roughly half of all observed PHP instances in the wild sit on abandoned, end-of-life releases that will never see an official security patch. The question for your organisation is not whether you run PHP, but whether you have any physical mechanism to update the devices that do.

The technical elegance, and terror, of PHP2Shell lies in its timing. The two flaws, CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, execute long before your application code receives control.

The first flaw, CVE-2026-109618, exploits out-of-memory error handling. When an unauthenticated multipart form submission exhausts memory limits during parsing, the runtime invokes longjmp() to abandon the request. However, internal request structures remain only partially built. Subsequent cleanup routines mistakenly treat this corrupted, half-initialised memory as valid, creating an exploitable heap corruption condition. Triggering this condition requires an oversized POST request, often several megabytes in size.

The second flaw, CVE-2026-109619, is far more dangerous. It leverages PHP’s session upload progress mechanism, a legacy feature enabled by default that tracks file uploads via session variables. When fatal error handling executes, it frees memory regions while leaving global pointers intact. The very next HTTP request processed by that identical worker thread inherits the dangling pointer, resulting in a classic use-after-free scenario. This payload requires no massive transmission: a crafted request of roughly 450 bytes is sufficient to hijack control flow.

Consider the architectural implication: because the attack executes during initial request ingestion, none of your application-level defences matter. Your authentication middleware never runs. Your routing handlers never execute. Your audit logging framework never records the caller. From the perspective of your monitoring systems, the worker process simply crashes, restarts, or returns a routine HTTP 200 or 500 error, while the attacker gains an interactive shell.

While the industry scrambled to inventory PHP runtimes, a second, arguably more alarming failure was unravelling across global trust stores. Mozilla Bugzilla thread 2083449 published details of a catastrophic key-generation failure by eMudhra, a commercial Certificate Authority trusted by every major operating system and browser vendor.

During an audited key ceremony conducted on April 30, 2025, eMudhra engineers were provisioning 24 subordinate Certificate Authorities using hardware security modules. A scripting error during a wrap and unwrap test routine produced a secondary batch of test keys. Because the object labels and filenames mirrored the intended production keys, operators inadvertently selected the test keys to generate official Certificate Signing Requests, which were duly signed by their root authority and cross-signed by Sectigo.

These intermediate certificates were configured to use the P-384 elliptic curve. In standard cryptography, a P-384 private key is a randomly selected 384-bit integer, a number spanning roughly 116 decimal digits, representing a search space larger than the total number of atoms in the observable universe. In eMudhra’s blunder, the entropy collapsed completely. The generated private keys were small integers under 256: values such as 56, 66, 230, and in one case, the literal number 4.

Using elementary baby-step giant-step algorithms, independent researchers and Mozilla engineers calculated the private keys directly from the public certificates in less than a second. For roughly 18 months, eight intermediate Certificate Authorities with publicly recoverable private keys sat in active production, trusted implicitly by devices worldwide. Following the disclosure, Reuters reported that eMudhra has exited the global digital certificate business entirely.

The standard consumer reaction to a Certificate Authority compromise is to assume browsers will fix it. Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge pushed rapid updates, leveraging mechanisms like OneCRL and CRLSets to revoke the intermediate certificates almost instantaneously. If web browsing were the sole consumer of public key infrastructure, the crisis would be resolved within 48 hours.

It is not. Of the eight compromised certificates, two were designated for code signing, and six were general-purpose Transport Layer Security issuers. Both categories inflict severe architectural damage far beyond the browser.

A code-signing certificate does not prove software is benign; it asserts that a specific cryptographic identity signed a binary. Windows operating systems translate that signature into administrative trust: SmartScreen reputation, Application Control policies, and AppLocker rules. An attacker holding these intermediate keys could mint arbitrary code-signing certificates for any corporate identity, sign malware, and slip seamlessly past enterprise application allow-lists. Because commercial code signatures employ cryptographic timestamping, those signed payloads remain valid indefinitely, even after the underlying signing certificate expires.

Even more insidious is the role of Transport Layer Security in machine-to-machine authentication. Modern zero trust architectures frequently deploy mutual Transport Layer Security across application programming interface gateways, microservice service meshes, and industrial networks. A client certificate is not merely an encryption mechanism; it is an authorisation passport. If your industrial supervisory control and data acquisition system, Internet of Things ingestion hub, or virtual private network terminates connections using a trust store containing the compromised root or intermediate certificates, an attacker possessing the private key can forge a valid client certificate for any identity they choose. They do not need to intercept your traffic; they authenticate directly as an authorised entity.

When you update your desktop browser, you update exactly one trust store. In an enterprise operational technology or cloud environment, dozens of unmanaged trust stores operate silently in the background:

• The certifi Python package pinned inside hundreds of isolated virtual environments and automated machine learning pipelines.
• The embedded root certificates compiled statically into Go, Rust, and Node.js binaries running in container clusters.
• The Java keystores managing enterprise middleware and message queues.
• The firmware images on operational technology gateways, network switches, and environmental sensors that never contact an Online Certificate Status Protocol responder or download a Certificate Revocation List.

Unlike modern web browsers, non-browser clients rarely check revocation status or enforce Certificate Transparency. As Cloudflare highlighted in its incident guidance, well-meaning engineers attempting to resolve connection failures often make matters worse by disabling certificate verification entirely.

Both the PHP2Shell exploit and the eMudhra collapse demonstrate why conventional perimeter defences inevitably fail. Traditional network architecture relies on two flawed premises: first, that an internal network segment is secure enough to leave legacy HTTP interfaces directly reachable; second, that possessing a cryptographic certificate implies verified authorisation.

When we designed the Agilicus AnyX platform, we explicitly rejected both assumptions. Our philosophy treats identity and authorisation as the primary security boundary, entirely decoupling user access from network topology.

Against flaws like PHP2Shell, network-level firewalls and web application firewalls struggle because they inspect traffic only after a connection is established, and they frequently fail to parse binary or multipart payloads cleanly. AnyX approaches the problem from the outside in: unauthenticated traffic never touches the upstream application runtime. Every inbound request must authenticate against your corporate identity provider and satisfy multi-factor authentication policies before AnyX routes a single byte to the destination service.

Furthermore, AnyX enforces granular path-level and method-level authorisation rules. An external user cannot issue an arbitrary POST request to an undocumented upload endpoint because AnyX restricts actions strictly to authorised roles and explicit HTTP paths. If an unauthenticated attacker cannot deliver their 450-byte payload to the PHP parser, the vulnerability cannot be triggered.

Similarly, against public key infrastructure collapses like eMudhra, AnyX eliminates blind trust in transport certificates. Instead of allowing client certificates to grant blanket network access across a traditional virtual private network, AnyX validates the human identity behind the request, continuously inspecting context, device posture, and role assignments.

To protect your operations against the fallout from these two foundation failures, take the following concrete steps:

• Isolate legacy web consoles: Inventory every operational technology device, router, print server, and network camera. Place them behind authenticated access boundaries so unauthenticated network traffic cannot reach their embedded web runtimes. Review our tactical guide on reducing exposure to the PHP2Shell vulnerability family.
• Audit non-browser trust bundles: Inspect your container base images, Python virtual environments (certifi), and Java runtimes to ensure the eight compromised eMudhra intermediate keys and associated roots are explicitly purged.
• Enforce granular path authorisation: Restrict HTTP POST, PUT, and DELETE methods across all web services to authenticated roles, and eliminate wildcards in your reverse proxy configurations. See our documentation on authorisation rules and web application security.
• Re-evaluate application allow-lists: Audit your Windows Defender Application Control and AppLocker policies to ensure binary execution trust is grounded in cryptographic hashes rather than publisher certificates alone.

We are accustomed to securing the applications we write while taking the foundation for granted. But when the runtime executes attacks before your code runs, and when a global certificate authority signs keys with single-digit entropy, the foundation has failed. The organisations that survive these shifts are not the ones with the fastest patching cycles, but the ones whose architecture never trusted the foundation in the first place.

I think you know where I'm going with this one. Any comparison with that old, senile and brain addled man to the south of us isn't going to be a happy comparison. Just in case you think I'm sexist or ageist let me reassure you that I am both male and old. O.K. I think Trump is 80 so he's got a few years on me but not much. Also to date I haven't been quoted as saying that I've grabbed random or strange members of either gender by their personal parts. Similarly I've never been known to brag about walking into ladies locker rooms or changing areas in order to check them out. Sadly I guess I'm just not Presidential material.

Then we have former Kitchener alderman Jim Ziegler. Now there might be a case to be made that he's actually an example of a Canadian man in his mid 70s or so but that he's actually got the libido and stamina of a man decades younger. Afterall he not only tried to woo a lady justice of the peace in her office but to prove his endurance and tenacity he stayed on his feet and kept sweet talking her after she said no for another 35 or 40 minutes. Talk about persistence and commitment to the goal at hand. Now that's a real politician still pretty much in the prime of his life.

Then we have Carl Zehr. Oh no you say. It can't be true. Isn't Carl Zehr Square in front of Kitchener City Hall named after him? Doesn't that prove that he's a real good fella? Just like the Kennedy-Trump Centre in the U.S. Just like Lake America and the Gulf of America and the Trump Airport doesn't the right to name stuff in your own image basically mean that you can almost walk on water? Finally as the ultimate proof we have Seiling Drive here in Woolwich Township, the birthplace of our almost revered former Regional Chair. Seiling Dr. is just north of Elmira (Arthur St./#21 ?)  You do know what's on the right side at the end of that road don't you? It's the Woolwich Landfill aka "Dump". 

Hmm that all gives pause for thought. Can I actually find fault with Carl? Well in my opinion and the opinions of others not named Shantz (Sandy), Hahn (Scott) or Bauman (Mark) the answer is yes. Carl came north here to Dogpatch (Woolwich Twn.) and inflicted his good name on the citizenry regarding MECAC which is the Municipal Election Compliance  Audit Committee. Carl similar to his colleagues could find little fault with Sandy's peculiar and amateurish bookeeping regarding her municipal election Financial Statements. I suspect that possibly calling her incompetent was the lesser of two evils in that the alternative was that she knowingly and intentionally lied about her election finances. Touchingly that may have been done out of embarrassment that she had spent triple on her mayoral campaign than her three opponents combined.

So where am I going with all this? Basically at my advanced age I've never been elected to any public post although I tried twice in 1996 and 1999 to be a trustee on the essentially disgusting and corrupt Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB). That description just used is held by many since the WRDSB's exposure to public condemnation over both the Caroline Burjowski  affair/defeat and the bullying of trustee Mike Ramsay. I guess I'm suggesting that a far too large a percentage of our politicians are lying swindlers and scum bags. This is not a news flash to the well informed.  

WATERLOO (ONTARIO) CANADA, October 21, 2026 — The Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery is proud to present Neon Canada: The Art of Electrified Glass, a landmark exhibition featuring major installations of contemporary Canadian neon artwork. Recognized as arguably the largest exhibition of neon art ever mounted in Canada, Neon Canada illuminates the medium’s historical significance, cultural impact, and contemporary artistic evolution.

Bringing together visionary neon sculptors, glass artists, and master tube benders, Neon Canada transforms the gallery into an immersive landscape of light, color, and form. The exhibition challenges traditional perceptions of neon as strictly commercial signage, elevating it into a fine art form that spans sculpture, conceptual installation, and light-based narrative. Featured artists include Kelly Mark, Roda Medhat, Orest Tataryn, Thrush Holmes, Coley, Robin Clason, Dick Averns, and Will Munro.

“Neon occupies a unique intersection between industrial craft, commercial culture, and fine art,” said Peter Flannery, Senior Curator & Collections Manager at the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery. “With Neon Canada, we are thrilled to host an unprecedented selection of hand-bent neon works that celebrate the technical brilliance and artistic depth of this vibrant medium.”

• Unprecedented Scale: Featuring major light-based artworks and installations, making it the most expansive exhibition of neon art in Canadian history.
• Master Craftsmanship: Showcasing rare craftsmanship from pioneering tube benders alongside innovative modern works from contemporary visual artists.
• Interactive & Immersive Spaces: An immersive gallery environment to engage visitors through light, reflection, and architectural space.

• Exhibition Dates: September 18, 2026, to January 11, 2027
• Location: Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery, 25 Caroline St N, Waterloo, ON N2L 2Y5
• Admission: Free

Admission to the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery is always free. For more information about exhibitions and programs, please visit www.theclayandglass.ca.

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ABOUT THE CANADIAN CLAY & GLASS GALLERY
The Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery is an award-winning, national institution based in Waterloo Region celebrating the art and craft of clay, glass, and enamel. As a dynamic cultural organization, they continue to amplify diverse stories — opening dialogue and inspiring social change. Through exhibitions that address issues relevant to our times, an impressive selection of works in our Gallery Shop, and public programs that engage, educate, and excite — the Gallery is accessible to all. For more information, visit: www.theclayandglass.ca

CONTACT
To schedule a media interview or for more information, contact Peter Flannery, Senior Curator & Collections Manager, at 519-746-1882 ext. 235 or peter@theclayandglass.ca

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