Five meeting rooms for new town hall named

By Sean Feagan, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

With the new Strathmore municipal building nearing completion, a decision has been made on the naming of five of its meeting rooms.

Town council voted on Oct. 7 to approve the naming of five of the rooms, following public consultation.

To start this process, the municipal building signage committee selected five themes to base the names on: historical Strathmore, CPR/CPR Demonstration Farm, Western Irrigation District (WID), agricultural farming and Indigenous culture. Then, 12 proposed names were provided to the public on which to vote, with three names provided per theme.

The six most common names were Golden Fields Room (honouring the area’s canola production), Strathmore Standard Room (honouring the town’s first newspaper), Canal Room (honouring WID’s canals through town), Watershed Room (honouring the town’s relationship with water), Origins Room and Champions Room (a nod to the champion livestock of the CPR Demonstration Farm). The first four of these were adopted as room names by council.

However, some survey respondents said that Origins Room could appear as an advertisement for Strathmore’s Origin Malting and Brewing Company, so this name was disregarded, and Champions Room was selected instead as the name for the fifth meeting room.

Staff were also directed to return to council with a name that honours veterans for one of the building’s rooms, possibly its atrium.

The building’s largest meeting room will be named in relation to Indigenous culture, but this name will be determined later, following consultation with Siksika Nation chief, council and elders.