And here are the winners:

Credit Union Day Winners

A pile of entries went into the Magic Hat and the winners of the prizes donated by York Credit Union in Fredericton and Oromocto are:

Essieb - Men's Sweatshirt

keeperof4 - Women's Sweatshirt

jennifer - Golf shirt

forsale, nbrchas, barrymore - Folios

PLEASE GO TO YORK CREDIT UNION - QUEEN STREET BRANCH - TO THE 'INFORMATION / NEW ACCOUNTS' DESK TO PICK UP YOUR PRIZE.

THEY HAVE THE LIST OF NAMES / PRIZES.

Thanks to York Credit Union for participating.

---------------------------------------------------------

October 18th is International Credit Union Day and to help celebrate, the folks at York Credit Union in Fredericton and Oromocto provided prizes to give away to justFRED.ca members.

So how do you enter? Simple. Give us the first name of any of the people who appear in the York Credit Union video in the justFRED.ca business directory.

You can login in and submit your entry http://justfred.ca/contests.php">here.

Cheers,
George
justFRED.ca

Last week, a fellow I know approached me on the street, handed me a brochure and asked if we were planning to cover Art Trek 2007 - Open Your Eyes. In hindsight, I should have run away. Instead, I reluctantly agreed...my mistake.

Earlier in the week, after months of trying, we finally succeeded in adding ecom to our entire photo gallery. Unfortunately, it's an all-or-nothing solution: all images are for sale, or none are for sale, and all at the same price. (We're working on that - because it's simply not finely tuned enough for our purposes - but it's still better than nothing. And we have begun selling some of our 30,000+ photos online.)

Two of our photogs visited the Art Trek galleries - spoke with and photographed artists and some of their work. But before they went out, we had our usual discussion about asking permission and handing out our little green justFRED.ca cards. If we've taken your picture, you know how it works.

And then late yesterday morning, the sky fell in: four of the artists involved wrote and called accusing us of trying to rip them off by offering photos of their work for sale without permission. That wasn't our intention. It was a simple oversight on our part - thanks to that funky software problem.

During a telephone call to the president of the Fredericton Arts Alliance, we offered to remove all evidence of Art Trek 2007 from the site: no galleries, no artists, no art work. FAA said that would be the preferred method of dealing with the issue. So it's gone. All of it.

We covered 12 Hours for the Homeless - and noted on that gallery that the proceeds from any photos sold from our coverage of the event would be donated to Chrysallis House. We have a similar notice - these photos are not for sale online - in the Ingrid Mueller Gallery photo collection. And we should done the same thing for Art Trek 2007. Our mistake. But an honest one.

But the assumption was that we were purposely trying to steal - $4.95 per photo - from local artists and were accused, in fairly pointed terms, of criminal behaviour.

Fortunately, nobody who visited the site placed an order for any of those photos. If they had, we would have caught our mistake and refused the order.

During several calls with the FAA members yesterday, I was told that having local artists and their work on justFRED is really of no value to the local arts community, that people know where the galleries are, etc. I've spoken with several other people in the arts community who completely disagree and have invited us to produce photo essays of their work and collections. We'll go through those open doors, but that won't include FAA events.

But in general, it's safer to stick to sports.

Cheers,
George
justFRED.ca

PS - In all the hullabaloo, we forgot to mention another important event: We turned 11 months old today. Yay, us.

Silenceaside is the winner for this entry (Warning: Contains stomach churning content.)

"I would like to see a pizza with sardines and mustard, topped with a sprinkle of donair sauce inlaid with cheese and crackers, but the crust will be filled with old molded cheese, thus bringing out a flavor like none other, if you like that and you want more then please add a quarter cup of icing sugar and a third cup of mayonnase mixed with ketchup, and if you think you have the best pizza ever, haha no way dude add some sprinkles, tim horton Donuts (Boston Creme) and last but not least BEEF JERKEY. Hope like the pizza guys and I hope I win it."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

If you received today's justFRED-O-GRAM, you know what to do.

Cheers,
George
justFRED.ca

That one - for a free pizza from Pizza Shack - took place in our Facebook group.

Cheers,
George
justFRED.ca

You'd better improve your time management skills if you park in downtown city lots or garages. Under the new rules, you pay for your parking beforehand. How do you know how long you'll need? See? Better time management. But if your meeting - or your shopping - goes into overtime, you can top up at any of the new meters being installed as part of the new system. They're borged together - so you could park and pre-pay to keep your car at King's Place, say, and top up your parking pass behind City Hall. Someday soon: pay by phone, and get a text message saying you're time is about to run out.

The Woodstock newspaper saga continues. That's where former publisher Ken Langdon's house, car and office were searched by Irving employees thanks to an usual search warrant issued by a Saint John court. Seems the media giant doesn't take kindly to competition. Even if it means having to search through his wife's lingerie drawer, that being the usual place to keep business secrets.

The story made the CBC national news. Wonder if it will get any coverage in the local papers.

Our video of the foul turned penalty kick turned game winning goal in Monday's gold medal match between Ontario and Manitoba is getting lots of attention - especially from fans 'Toba who aren't happy about the call. It's clear from both angles that the foul was committed outside the 18-yard box - and Ontario should have been given a direct free kick, not a penalty shot.

Cheers,
George
justFRED.ca

The Ontario girls needed a lone penalty kick to snatch the gold medal from Manitoba, while Alberta's boys scored a pair of second-half goals to defeat Quebec in their medal round.

We've started processing today's stills and videos, and continuing the clean-up from the web server crash on Sunday evening. We have a full debrief planned for Tuesday, at which point we'll have a clearer idea how many top shots we have for a generic tournament DVD. We'll list pricing and availability of photo DVD's and game tapes following the meeting.

All in all, a very well-organized event - and while there were tears of joy and anguish - most of the people we met sounded very pleased with the event, the UNB venue, the quality of play and the local hospitality.

We'd like to thank the FDSA and the organizing committee - in particular Nick Guitard, Dom Blakely, John Waite and Paula Tomlinson - for inviting justFRED.ca to take part in the championship tournament.

And a special thank you to everyone who agreed to Say Cheese! for our photographers and video camera operators.

Cheers,
George
justFRED.ca

With the tournament about to enter its final day of round-robin competition, the gruelling pace of 5 games in 6 days is clearly taking its toll on many of the players and, as a result, on their teams.

The wounded aren't always walking away from the games...witness the ambulance trip for a player stretchered off the field at UNB today.

On the other hand, we've watched these game weary youngsters dig deep - deeper than some of the likely knew they could dig - and come up with some truly wonderful performances on the field.

And while the rant about the quality of the new artificial pitch at UNB may sound repetitive - take a look at some of the photos from the Raceway fields: they haven't been used all summer and after just five days of play, they're starting to demonstrate the lack of quality that comes from season after season of severe overuse and lack of care. A little water might have helped, but I've only seen a city field watered once in 20 years and that was at high noon in mid July with the thermometer in the 30's...you could literally see it evaporate nearly as quickly as it hit the ground.

So to everyone who helped turn Chapman Field into a real soccer pitch...thank you. If you worked so hard, there would be a lot more young players lying around in pain.

Cheers,
George
justFRED.ca

http://justfred.ca/cmine/albums/catherineuploads/2007/oct%2006/u18/g%20nb%20vs%20pei/normal_IMG_6479.JPG">http://justfred.ca/cmine/albums/catherineuploads/2007/oct%2006/u18/g%20nb%20vs%20pei/normal_IMG_6479.JPG" alt="justFRED.ca coverage of the 2007 Sony Cup National Soccer Championships" height="200" width="300" />

Another tough day for NB's entries with the girls going down 1-0 to Manitoba in a heartbreaker, and the boys losing 5-0 to a bigger, faster, stronger side from Ontario. Being on a winning side is easy. Losing - and losing at home under the national spotlights - isn't fun, but as Mark Twain said: There are things you can learn holding a cat by the tail that you can learn in no other way.

The good news? Great weather, some wonderful soccer, and much of it played on Chapman Field's new artificial surface, a legacy that is going to become a gem for the local soccer community long after the wounds of Thursday's matches are healed and forgotten.

Cheers,
George
justFRED.ca

http://justfred.ca/cmine/albums/catherineuploads/2007/oct%2006/u18/g%20ont%20vs%20ns/normal_IMG_6693.JPG" rel="lightbox[soccer]">
http://justfred.ca/cmine/albums/catherineuploads/2007/oct%2006/u18/g%20ont%20vs%20ns/normal_IMG_6693.JPG" alt="justFRED.ca - Sony Cup 2007 - U18 National Soccer Championships - Fredericton" height="200" width="300" />

Win, lose or draw - and there was some of all three - it was a remarkable Friday in Freddy Beach: 26C, clear and sunny with the trees doing their best to impress our visitors from across the country.

Another 30,000 lbs of rubber pellets were added to Chapman Field overnight - further improving the new artificial turf field. The Raceway - unusual to see it with grass at this time of year - was playable but still hard.

New Brunswick's two teams are back on the pitch today (Saturday) with games at 10:00 at the Raceway against PEI (girls) and against Manitoba at 3 pm at UNB (boys).

And with sunny weather expected, the weekend turnouts should be large.

See you on the pitch...and don't forget to Say Cheese!

Cheers,
George
justFRED.ca

A wildly successful day overall to start the Sony Cup - the Under 18 National Soccer Championships in Fredericton - despite the loss by both of New Brunswick's entries, the girls club from Chaleur and the boys side from the host city.

As you know, NB's girls team lost 11-2. So what's the good news? Their positive spirit, especially from their goalkeeper. And I can tell you from personal experience that picking 11 balls out of the net can take all the fun out of even the best day and the temptation to start complaining or dishing out negative comments to the players in front of you can be overwhelming. What I saw and heard can only be described as a class act.

Kudos to everyone who worked so hard to bring this event to Fredericton. And walking on the new turf at Chapman was as close to heaven as I'm likely to get.

It was a bit strange seeing the fields at the Raceway with grass - they're usually dust tracks by this time in the season.

Some terrific soccer so far - and there's bound to be more. Check the official web site for details of game times and locations, and the scores as they come in.

Cheers,
George
justFRED.ca

http://justfred.ca/cmine/albums/catherineuploads/2007/oct%2003/u18%20opening/normal_IMG_4129.JPG">http://justfred.ca/cmine/albums/catherineuploads/2007/oct%2003/u18%20opening/normal_IMG_4129.JPG" alt="Sony Cup U18 Soccer Nationals on justFRED.ca" height="200" width="300" />