The Water Haller – January 2021

The Toques are coming! The Toques are coming!

The CWWA toque has become an iconic tradition of its own. We introduced the first toques as a simple piece of swag to support our ‘apres ski’ theme for the national conference in Whistler.  The toques were so well-received and they seemed to alter the tone of the whole social event.  So we tried it again the next year in Toronto, then in St. John’s, and the next thing you know…it’s a tradition.  I actually considered swapping out the toque for a bandana for our conference in Banff, but that thought was overwhelming vetoed by all involved.

The Haller Family stuffing toques for the mail out.  Rascal, Frankie, Maggie, Robert and Colleen (taking the photo)

In fact, as I was contemplating the phasing out of the toque, others on the CWWA Board were developing a new membership award to recognize outstanding volunteers – the award would be a golden toque pin of course.  We’ve had to put all that on ice for now as we really want to introduce this new award live and in-person.   

As most of you know, we have a completely different toque each year. There are five versions out there so far.  The funniest part of the toque tradition has been for members to send us pictures of themselves wearing their CWWA toques in fun places. We love to post these pictures in this e-Bulletin when we get them.

Oh how I wish we could have handed you your 2020 CWWA toque in person at the National Conference last November.  But if you can’t come to get your toque, I guess we can have it delivered to you…. at least this once. 

It’s member renewal time.  So although we usually just send you the renewal invoice electronically, we decided to send it to you by mail, along with your 2020 toque.  We hope it reminds you of friends and colleagues from across the country.  We hope it triggers a sense of pride in being a member of Canada’s national association for water professionals. We hope it gives you a good smile…at least long enough to sign the renewal cheque ☺  

I’m not sure I can promise we’ll ever mail these out again.  It was a MUCH bigger job than I imagined.  Given Covid-19 distancing rules, I couldn’t just bring all the staff in to help.  Instead, I had to recruit my own family for hours to correlate invoices with labels and stuff the envelopes with a toque.  And then seal them (without saliva) using a LOT of tape.  If you received your toque and your wondering, “who the heck packed this thing?” …well it was me.  I think I’m pretty good at a lot of things, but taping toques into friggin’ mini half-envelopes is clearly not one of my talents.

Enjoy your toques!  Wear them to the webinars, and we’ll see you all live in Niagara Falls in November …when you’ll get the new 2021 toque of course!