The clubhouse of the Russell Flying Club was absolutely packed with kids and their parents this past Saturday. In just a few hours, seven members of the Russell Flying Club worked together to have 82 kids taken up for flights around the area.

As they have (almost) every year for more than a couple of decades, the members of the Russell Flying Club took kids up in their personal planes, donating their gas and their time.

Bruce Christopher, a long time member of the club explained that every year, the grade six students of Major Pratt take a Theory of Flight unit in school. “We go in and have a chat with the kids who are taking the class,” he said. “The idea is to get kids interested in flying and these flights give them a practical application to the theory they’ve learned in school which is why we have an age limit on the kids we take up.” Whenever possible, the kids who have taken the flight training at school are put up in the front seat, next to the pilot, giving them a hands on take at what they’ve learned. This year, the addition of another pilot, Bruce said added a special element. “We had a young lady from Roblin flying this year,” he said. “Which was really nice to have the young girls seeing a female pilot.”

There’s chanting and cheering and lots of smiles. Skills are learned on and off the ice.

And friendships are made by the players, the parents and the volunteers who are so integral in making Fierce Female Hockey work.

Fierce Female Hockey is the brainchild of former U of M Bison player Amy Doerksen.

The camps were launched last year in Brandon. In only a year, the word about the all-female hockey camp is out and spreading faster than the water off a Zamboni on ice.

So much so that their two day camp this June in Brandon was a close to an immediate sell-out with a growing wait list.

Read the full story in this week's Russell Banner!

The gym at Roblin Elementary School was packed Sunday afternoon as the Roblin Dance Club held its first live spring recital since 2019.

The recital featured performances by the club’s seven different Ukrainian dance groups – including the adult group; Senior Ballet; Movin’ n Groovin’; Senior Jazz; Junior Hip Hop; Junior Tap; Kinder Dance; Buko Boys; Junior Jazz; and Junior Ballet.

Check out the picture page in this week's Review.

You would think that with all the dangers and perils children are subject to online – the Benadryl challenge and sextortion to name a couple – the Goose Lake High gym would have been filled to the rafters for Val Caldwell’s session on tech and internet safety. But you’d be wrong.

Just a handful of people turned out at the school back in March for Caldwell’s second visit to Roblin.

Caldwell has been providing presentations on the topic of safety around the use of technology for 17 years – addressing the various forms of hidden sexual exploitation that exists in the “virtual world”.

Read the first part of a three part series about in this week’s Review.

With the raving success of The Passover presented during Holy Week at the Evangelical Mission Church, another play is in the works to hit the stage in Roblin.

Locals Bethany Brade and Jenni Johnson are co-directing another production featuring some familiar faces in the community.

For the rest of the story, pick up this week’s paper.

RCMP members in Russell and Roblin were called to Roblin April 5 to deal with a man walking around breaking into residential garages and screaming.

In total, police received six reports.

Find out more in this week’s Review.

Members from town council along with the CAO, travelled to Winnipeg to attend the AMM Spring Conference on April 4 to 5. Mayor Andre Murphy and CAO Jennifer Early attended a roundtable meeting of Manitoba mayors and CAOs the day before.
“We talked about what were the four pillars that were impacted every municipality right now,” said Murphy. “There was some discussion around the funding increase and what the impact of that was. There were questions asked if there were any significant demands for increased dollars for wastewater projects and if AMM would continue to oppose Bill 37 around the planning changes to allow municipalities to pass a resolution to change something in their community and not have the planning district override it. Municipalities felt this was counterproductive, especially since councils are voted in and asked by ratepayers to fix something. When a municipality does, they shouldn’t have to work against an opposing body.
“There was talk about healthcare, safety priorities, municipal service and RCMP costs and talk about what municipalities would like to see in terms of support from the next provincial government. The interesting thing from this meeting with all the municipalities across Manitoba was that all of our issues are very similar to each other’s.

There’s a Canadian charity that helps those who need assistance for medical care travel called Hope Air. Hope Air recognized that many Canadians are requiring medial treatment that is often far from their home, which can be costly and leave many people going with out medical care or treatment. Hope Air believes that all Canadians should have access to the healthcare they need, regardless of where they live or if they can’t afford to travel.
“Hope Air provides travel support through flights, accommodations, meal vouchers and ground transportation through Uber vouchers to Canadians in financial need who must travel to access vital medical care,” said Hope Air Senior Digital Marketing Coordinator Christine Stolte. “Hope Air is able to fulfill travel requests because of the support of donors, from airline partners, corporations, foundations, government supporters and individuals.”

Thanks to a partnership with the Manitoba Arts Council, The Pas Arts Council and the Rotary Club of The Pas, residents in the tri-community will get the opportunity see ballet performed by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet (RWB) next week. On the Edge Tour featuring the RWB Anna McCowan-Johnson Aspirant Program’s Aspirants will be sole performers on this tour.
“The RWB Anna McCowan-Johnson Aspirant Program is a two year post-graduate program for students who have graduated from a professional dance program,” said RWB Anna McCowan-Johnson Aspirant Program Director Vanessa Léonard. “They enter this program as a transition from being a ballet student into a professional dance life. We have a strong focus on preparing the dancers for the stage and repertoire. We also focus on creating audition materials that they can send out to companies around the world. There are 16 aspirants in the program this year and range from 18 to 21 years old.

Big Fish.... It’s always about who can catch the biggest fish. But changes in fishing regulations in this province will mean you’ll see some operational changes to the Russell Lions Prairie Walleye Classic.

The main change is that anglers are no longer allowed to possess a fish over 45 cm. This, says Kevan McCarthy who co chairs the Russell Lions Prairie Walleye Classic alongside Ritchie Davidson, means that the traditional weigh in on shore will not happen for any fish over 45cms.

So what about the much sought after Big Fish prize? The money that was traditionally allocated to the Big Fish Prize, McCarthy said, will be redistributed over the top ten tournament prizes which, based upon a full slate of 120 boats are: $25,000 and trophies for first place, $8,000 and two Hummingbird Helix 7 MSI G4 locators and trophies for second prize, $4,500 and $1,000 in Russell Video Pro Fishing Gear and trophies for third place.

From there on down, 4th place is $4000, $3,250 for 5th place on down to $1,250 for the 10th place finisher. As the release stated, the committee members are not a big fan of the catch and photo release method, saying that the traditional “in person” adjudication of the fish is much preferred.

“Catch photo release, in our opinion, has too many variables that we simply don’t understand at this time” McCarthy and Davidson said in the release on their Prairie Walleye website.

Check the full story in this week's Russell Banner!