{"id":6449,"date":"2014-04-30T13:40:08","date_gmt":"2014-04-30T17:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=6449"},"modified":"2014-06-11T17:16:50","modified_gmt":"2014-06-11T21:16:50","slug":"prince-andrew-to-experience-auroras-pride-next-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/prince-andrew-to-experience-auroras-pride-next-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Prince Andrew to experience “Aurora’s pride” next month"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Queen\u2019s York Rangers have been part of Aurora\u2019s fabric for over 125 years. <\/p>\n

Aurora residents might see them at community events, see their distinctive army vehicles cruising around the Industrial Parkway neighbourhood, but after so many years as fixtures in Aurora life, sometimes people don\u2019t take particular notice of them. That was certainly the case for Brian North and Kimberly Kerr. The Aurora residents saw members of the Regiment all the time, but didn\u2019t have a true appreciation for the value each individual in the Regiment brought to the community until they became involved in a series of events designed to allow the community to show their appreciation last year. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about the people,\u201d says Mr. North. \u201cWe have got to know a lot about them and the members who have actually served in other countries. They are regular people just like you and I. We always look at veterans as 90 year old people, but we now have 25-year-old veterans here in the Town of Aurora.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their three-event \u201cYear in the Life of the Soldier\u201d series, which ran last March through November, was so successful, when a very special visitor appeared to be dropping in, organizers knew exactly who to call to help arrange next month\u2019s Royal Visit to Aurora. <\/p>\n

Prince Andrew, Duke of York, has now been confirmed to visit Aurora on Thursday, June 5. As The Auroran reported last week, the Queen\u2019s son was due to take part in a series of community celebrations in Aurora and Toronto to commemorate the Regiment as their Colonel in Chief.
\nThe main purpose of the visit is to commemorate new battle honours received by the Regiment. <\/p>\n

The Aurora leg of the Royal Visit will take place in Aurora (at a yet-to-be-announced venue) at 9 a.m. on June 5 with a special fundraising breakfast in the presence of the Duke of York. <\/p>\n

Components of the morning in Aurora will also likely incorporate elements of Aurora\u2019s recently re-named Queen\u2019s Diamond Jubilee Park, formerly known as Civic Square Park on John West Way. <\/p>\n

Celebrations will then continue to Toronto for a reception at Queen\u2019s Park and further events at Old Fort York, which will include a parade of The Guidon, the \u201ccolours\u201d, or \u201cflag\u201d, held sacred by the Regiment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main part of the day is the actual trooping of The Guidon,\u201d says Ms. Kerr. \u201cThat is why he is coming and that is why we are all doing this. When we went to Fort York last Wednesday, we actually got to see The Guidon and how sacred and respected it is, and how special it is to the Queen\u2019s York Rangers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their planning for the Aurora portion of the visit, however, is focused on giving Prince Andrew a true flavour of Aurora. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted him to come to Aurora because Aurora is where the Armoury is and we wanted him to experience Aurora\u2019s Pride in having the Queen\u2019s York Rangers in the community,\u201d says Mr. North. \u201cUnlike the rest of the day, which will have more pomp and circumstance, we wanted him to get the feel for Aurora.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur event, the way we have planned it, will hopefully come across with the Queen\u2019s York Rangers soldiers on site, commemorations of the day, and the legacy of him coming. We hope the entire event will be small town and really feel a connection towards Aurora.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last member of the Royal Family to visit Aurora was King Edward VIII, then Prince of Wales, who took part in a fox hunt in 1927. The last Duke of York to come to Town were the future King George V and Queen Mary, Prince Andrew\u2019s great-grandparents, who had a whistle stop visit in 1901 as part of their tour of the Empire.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou certainly don\u2019t get this opportunity very often and it is something that is another opportunity to bring the Town together,\u201d said Mayor Geoffrey Dawe about the upcoming visit.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Queen\u2019s York Rangers have been part of Aurora\u2019s fabric for over 125 years. <\/p>\n

Aurora residents might see them at community events, see their distinctive army vehicles cruising around the Industrial Parkway neighbourhood, but after so many years as fixtures in Aurora life, sometimes people don\u2019t take…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-1G1","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-01 14:02:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}