Hosting an Event: Doors Open Ontario

From April to October each year, communities open the doors to some of their most intriguing and charming heritage sites. Admission to those events is free. And everyone is invited to experience these hidden heritage treasures first-hand. Communities boast of their commercial buildings, courthouses, places of worship, gardens, and natural heritage sites.

In early spring 2006 we were asked to participate in the Doors Open Event in our County.

Doors Open started in France in 1984 and soon spread to neighboring countries, including the Netherlands, Sweden, the Republic of Ireland, Belgium and Scotland. In 1991, these events were united as European Heritage Days

In 2000, the City of Toronto started the first Doors Open event in North America and in 2002, the Ontario Heritage Trust launched the province wide Doors Open Ontario. It is now held across North America with events now being held in Newfoundland, Alberta, Massachusetts, Western New York State, New York City and Denver.

We own a modern Equestrian facility, home to a breeding farm of Warmblood horses and a riding school. We’ve organized many tours over the years and we were quite willing to participate. We were asked to send a good photo of our facility and this photo, along with a short description of our site, was published in the official Doors Open magazine. This magazine is available at all tourists’ information booths.

Several information sessions were held where we were given information about what to do. We were given Doors Open T shirts for our volunteers, tracking sheets, survey sheets, and many flyers.

Having about 40 horses, mares, stallions, young stock and schooling horses, we had some very busy days before hand.

The riding school students had been practicing a musical show, called a quadrille, where they preformed to music on horseback. It is always a very nice opportunity for the students to show off to the public what they can do. The day before the Event they all came to wash their horses, braid them and fancy them up. White ponies all of a sudden had a pink tail and main thanks to Cool Aid juice.

Riders and horses were color coordinated, with orange or yellow ribbons and beads in their mane, and the same color polos and saddle pads.

On the days of the event people started coming in at 10 am and a steady stream of visitors came in till we took the signs away on the road at 5 pm. We had a program for our days, and although we did send it to the organizing committee and the radio, most people did not know about the program, missing out on some of the parts they would have liked to see.

Besides the musical performance by the students on horse back, we also had one of our stallions jump on an artificial mare while we collected his semen. We then had the people look at the semen under the microscope so that they could see how that looked. This was definitely one of the most popular events as not many people get a chance to see it.

We closed the day off with a demonstration free-jumping, a training aid for young horses. Free-jumping is when horses jump over a series of jumps without a rider on their back. This is so we can judge their natural ability as jumpers.

We also took the people around through the barns explaining the equipment we have, like a computerized exercise machine and other features of the facility.

The purpose of a Doors Open Event is so that people can discover what heritage is in their area and see facilities they normally would not have a chance to see.

Several hundreds of people passed through our facility those two days and many commented on how wonderful the Doors Open program is. If there is a Doors Open Event in your area, attend it, it is definitely worthwhile.

Francine Gielis immigrated to Canada in 1971. She has been an employer, an employee, an importer, exporter, entrepreneur and long time volunteer. She considers herself a happy, successful and fully integrated and passionate Canadian citizen. You can subscribe to Francine's monthly newsletter, Stay in Touch, about life in Canada from her website http://www.the-happy-immigrant.com/newsletter.html