Putting your Heart into it......

June 22, 2011 

Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada’s Board of Directors is holding their annual board meeting at Murray Premises Hotel.  We are pleased to welcome such a dynamic group to the hotel and our city. 

More than 50 years ago, a visionary group of Canadians, including physicians and researchers, founded the National Heart Foundation of Canada with big hopes for the future.

For Newfoundland and Labrador, The Foundation was founded in 1964 when a group of twelve highly motivated volunteers recruited canvassers to complete a residential campaign that raised $15,000. Over the years the organization continued to grow and develop into the strong entity it is today.

The Heart and Stroke Foundation raises funds to support research and health promotion programs.  We believe we can help more people by investing in research and education to prevent heart disease and stroke and to develop better treatments for the diseases.

This group is doing amazing work and we're so pleased to be able to help.

Talk about "Magnetic Personalities"!!!

June 15, 2011

Murray Premises was pleased to host the Magnetic North II 2011 workshop this week, welcoming guests from around the world.  Did you know......

Magnetic North is an organization of magnetism researchers in Canada and their international collaborators.  It is a forum for information exchange on individual group research activities.  Magnetic North also serves as the basis for the organization of regular magnetism sessions within the annual congress of the CAP as well as stand-along Magnetic North workshops.  There are a broad range of magnetic researchers in Canada, spanning various academic departments and government laboratories using a variety of experimental, theoretical and computational techniques.  Research interests encompass geometrically constrained systems (thin films and wires), molecular magnets, dipolar systems, frustration, quantum effects, phase transitions, magneto-electrical materials, etc.  A goal of Magnetic North is to facilitate the exchange of ideas between researchers and to reveal overlapping interests that can foster useful collaborations, serving also to strengthen the magnetism research community as a whole.

We get the best guests here.  Stay tuned.  We've got another great group coming through our doors.

The Mother Lode

June 9, 2011

I'm always on the lookout for anything historical that has to do with the property. I've spent hours at the St. John's City Archives sifting through the numerous pictures and maps (which, by the way, is a pretty great way to spend a rainy afternoon if you're into that kind of thing) and I've spent lots of time wandering through the pictures and artifacts that we have here on site.  So imagine my surprise the other day when Mr. Mahoney hands me a file folder and says, "Take a look at this.  Might be something interesting in here."

Interesting!  Interesting?  It's the Mother Lode!  The file was included in the documents from his original purchase.  There's documents from the original renovation in the 1970's.  There's negatives and slides......lots and lots of them.  All sorts of documents containing the building history and the history of the original renovation too.  Quotes from the craftsmen who were here on site turning this relatively derelict building into what we know today.  I'll save these photos for another day....first I want to tell you about something else that I found.

Everyday, I walk down the first floor hallway and I look up at "her".  The Lady from the Ship.  I don't know who she is.  I don't know where she came from.  Or at least, I didn't.  Now, I have papers saying that she's from a ship called "The Thetis".  How she got here, proudly keeping watch over us is still a mystery but at least I have a starting point.  As always, I reached for my old friend, Mr. Google and here's what I found. 

 

 

So, what do you think?  Is it her?  I know, I know.  It's kind of hard to tell but I want to believe it's her because then, I can let my imagination run wild about where's she's been.

I'm going to keep digging..I'll keep you posted. 

Stay tuned.  More and I mean MUCH more to follow. 

911 - You have an Emergency? You picked a perfect time to call......

June 6, 2011

It's a busy week at Murray Premises Hotel, if an emergency arose this week, we wouldn't need to call 911, we could just call upon one of our guests. This week Murray Premises Hotel is pleased to welcome the EMS Chief of Canada's Board of Directors.  Leading into their national conference, which is taking place in the city (with hundreds of delegates from across the country), Emergency Medical Systems (EMS) systems operate in a variety of forms ranging from volunteer first responders to paid Critical Care Transport Paramedics.  These EMS services may be operated by volunteer groups, private-for-profit providers, Fire Departments, hospitals, local or provincial/territorial government. With services provided and coordinated from such a broad base of sources, the challenges has been one of finding common ground for coordinated activities.  EMS provider groups have been challenged to work together without viewing one a another as the "competition", and to provide a credible national voice for EMS which will be heard across country at all levels of government.

With the guidance of the current 20 member EMSCC Board, that represent each province and the territories, it is obvious that the EMSCC collective approach to fostering high quality EMS in Canada has already met with considerable success.  A national forum for EMS has been created, along with the highly credible national "voice of EMS" which is beginning to influence all levels of government in ways that, merely a decade ago, would have been regarded as "daydreaming", and all of the Canadian EMS benefits, either directly or indirectly as a result of these activities.

We thank them for their service and the work they do, we are proud to have them stay with us this week and wish them a successful national conference.

Introducing Me!

June 2, 2011

Yesterday, I rolled out our weekly newsletter and was mulling over what to write in the blog this week.  To refresh my memory I was reading back through the previous editions - checking out where I'd gone in the past twelve weeks.  It was then that I realized something.  I'd never properly introduced myself.  I'm just some nameless blogger, typing away about something that is near and dear to my heart.

So, firstly, my name is Hilary and I'm the Director of Operations for Murray Premises Hotel, St. John's Executive Suites and Regal Realty.  Pleased to meet you.  I've been associated in one way or another with this group of company for (holy cow) two and a half years.  The association was, well, a little complicated at the beginning so I won't explain it.  It's also a dreadfully boring tale.

.....and now confession time.  I have a secret and I hope that you won't think less of me when I share it.  Here we go.  I'm a mainlander, a CFA!  Shocking isn't it.  One of those people born and raised in a little town just north of Toronto.  When I was there, it was a farm town.  Lots of fields and cows right in our back yard.  Now, it's suburbia - right dead centre of the commuter belt, but hey, that's their problem.  I recognized the signs and got out while the getting was good.

I didn't end up here immediately.  When I was younger, I tried the west.  Northern Alberta for a couple of years (not bad).  Norther coastal British Columbia for a couple (beautiful but WAY TOO MUCH RAIN).  Back to Ontario to make sure that I really didn't want to live there and then (sigh) Newfoundland.  I flitted around with a few other hotels in town, had a great time and then, hit the mother lode at Murray Premises.  I love my job.  I love the people.  I love the hotel and I adore this building.

A few years ago, I was asked by the company that I was working for to help out a hotel in Ottawa for a few weeks.  I like Ottawa.  Great city.  Lots to do.  Really pretty  It wasn't until I finished though, that I realized just how much this province had gotten into my blood.  On the flight back, we banked as we were coming into the airport and there they were - the cliffs of Signal Hill and the ocean.  It was at this point that my whole body went ahhhhhhhh.  Yep, I was home.

So for those of you out there reading this:
If you're a Newfoundlander, I hope that you'll read what I'm writing, think it's okay and allow me to stay.
If you're not a Newfoundlander - please don't be too jealous and keep reading.  You can live your life vicariously through me if it helps.