City marks important contributions by its volunteers

The City of Laval is going all out this year to thanks its volunteers, with several events and other ways of showing gratitude planned.

On Oct. 25, the city kicked off a month-long celebration of homage to the volunteers, with a show held at the Salle André-Mathieu. More than 700 volunteers turned up to enjoy the entertainment and merriment.

The city plans to keep up the pace with an ongoing publicity campaign that will include ad spots in local newspapers as well as online social media. In addition, an exhibition of photos of volunteers will be making the rounds at City of Laval public library branches over the coming months.

During the same timeframe, the city will be holding special volunteer training days in conjunction with community organizations in Laval that are working closely with the municipality.

Volunteers will have the opportunity to learn about aspects of volunteer work involving financial and administrative responsibilities.

Festival NUM 2023: the place to be this month in Laval

The City of Laval’s public library branches are inviting families to come on out and have fun with art and digital technology at the fifth annual Festival NUM.

Until Nov. 12, it’s a chance to learn about the practical artistic applications of digital technology at nine library branches. A grand finale event will be held Nov. 11 and 12 and the Multicultural Library branch.

Virtual reality, creative music, coding, digital projections and robots are just some of the activities to be enjoyed by children six years old and up, as well as by teens and their parents.

“The universe of technologies and digital may seem rather complex and technical, but it is more important than ever to know how to use them, since more than ever they are part of our lives,” says Laval city councillor for Sainte-Rose Flavia Alexandra Novac, who is responsible for cultural dossiers on city council.

In all, more than 50 activities are planned. They include: virtual reality (using VR headsets) for 12-year-olds and older; electronically-lit sweater creation using electrical circuits; and techno-tinkering, where you can handmake all types of interesting devices, including mini-robots, magic bracelets, bike lights, etc.

The library has invited special guest presenters. They include franco-Montrealer Téo Leroux who will be unveiling his original digital work, La forêt fantastique. Presented in conjunction with MAPP MTL, this event will be a collaboration between Leroux and children from daycamps in Laval.

During the presentation, members of the public will be able to make their own contributions to the work from iPads, including animations projected in real-time on the outer façade of the Multicultural Library building.

Finally, during the entire month of November at the Gabrielle-Roy branch of the library network, artist Louis Bouvier will be presenting his exhibition, “La conjugaison des pensées complexes.”

The exhibit is made up of two sculpture-instruments producing sounds whenever they are approached by people. Children and parents may be interested in trying this concept out.