Photo courtesy Metro Winnipeg.

A student from Red River College’s Creative Communications program has written a book exploring the fatal blaze that claimed the lives of two veteran Winnipeg fire captains in 2007.

This weekend, second-year student Lindsey Enns will launch Black Fire, an exploration of the deaths of Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service (WFPS) captains Tom Nichols and Harold Lessard, who were killed after they became trapped on the second floor of a burning home in St. Boniface.

Enns has been working on the book since June, and completed it as part of a year-long project required for graduation. The subject is one with which she’s intimately familiar: Enns’ father is a fellow WFPS captain, who was originally scheduled to work the same shift as his fallen comrades. Read More →

A team of Red River College students picked up a pair of awards this month at the Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race in Calgary.

The annual celebration of innovation and engineering spirit draws teams of post-secondary students from all over Canada. Entrants must design and construct a five-person toboggan with a roll bar (capable of withstanding an upset at 75-km/hour), and a running surface composed entirely of concrete, while maintaining a total weight of less than 300 pounds.

All toboggans are subject to a safety inspection before being raced, and are judged on the basis of their concrete, frame, steering and brake design, as well as race-day results, team spirit, and a host of other criteria.

This year’s event was held Feb. 8-11, 2012, in Calgary. The eight-member RRC squad — comprised of students from Construction Management, Municipal Engineering Technology, Business Administration, and Industrial Arts — won the Green Team Award for most sustainable design, and was also named Most Improved Team. Read More →

Red River College is hosting a speaker’s event today at the Exchange District Campus entitled “Standing Tall: A day dedicated to our stolen sisters.”

Across Canada every Valentine’s Day, memorial marches are held to honor the lives of missing and murdered women and their families.  As part of this day we would like to invite you to learn about some of the work that is being done in this area, to participate in a safety presentation delivered by Winnipeg Police Services and to listen to teachings from Chickadee Richard on the sacredness of women.

The event is from 8:30 am – 3:30 pm In Room P107 (CGA Manitoba Room) at RRC’s Exchange District Campus, located at 160 Princess Street. Room P409 will be reserved as a “smudge room” for the day. All are welcome.

For further info, contact:
Cheyenne Chartrand
Aboriginal Student Support & Community Relations
Red River College Exchange District Campus
P210-J  160 Princess Street  Winnipeg, MB  R3B 1K9
T: (204) 949-8506 F: (204) 949-9186
E: chchartrand@rrc.mb.ca

Find out more about Aboriginal education at Red River College, as well as related programming and events at http://blogs.rrc.ca/aboriginal/

Four Red River College students will be flying to Montreal to test out their marketing chops against some of the best business students in the country.

Leah Rewucki, Robyn Grant, Marc Babaluk, and Thulise Mhlanga (shown above, from left to right) have all been selected to participate in the Vanier College National Marketing Case Competition, which will be held Feb. 10-12 at the Aeroport de Montreal Courtyard Marriott Hotel in Montreal.

Read More →

RRC business students will have a valuable opportunity to rub elbows with leaders from Manitoba’s business community at Red River College’s 2012 Directions Business Conference.

Approximately 600 people, including past RRC alumni, are expected to attend this year’s event, which will be held on February 1 at Canad Inns Polo Park.

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Visit the Forks Market on the last weekend of January and you could come away with a piece of original art, created on site by Red River College graphic design students.

The tenth annual Student Art Show & Auction is being held at the Forks Market centre court on Saturday, January 28 and Sunday, January 29. Attendees can watch approximately 50 RRC students create original works of art using a variety of drawing and painting techniques.

A live auction, hosted by Jon Ljungberg, will take place from 2-5pm on the 29th. Proceeds from the event will benefit Winnipeg Harvest and the Red River College Graphic Design Student’s Graduation Fund.

10th Annual Student Art Show
• Saturday, January 28, 2012
9:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
• Sunday, January 29, 2012
9:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. (live auction)

(From left): Don Boitson, Vice-President and GM of Magellan Aerospace; Murray Edwards, Magellan Aerospace Chairman of the Board; Ken Webb, Vice-President, Academic and Research at RRC; David Leis, Vice-President, Business Development at RRC; Stephanie Forsyth, President of RRC; Hon. Peter Bjornson, Manitoba Minister of Entrepreneurship, Training and Trade; Hon. Julian Fantino, Associate Minister of National Defence; and Jim Butyniec, President and CEO of Magellan Aerospace.

Representatives from Red River College took part in the official opening of Magellan Aerospace’s new Advanced Composites Manufacturing Centre last week, marking the College’s ongoing role as one of the Centre’s key educational partners.

The new 138,000-square foot facility, located at 1855 Ellice Ave., is in the final stages of being equipped with state-of-the-art technology required to manufacture complex composite fabrication and assemblies — among them, the horizontal tail components of the F-35 Lightning II fighter jets, which are being built to replace Canada’s fleet of aging CF-18s. Once fully commissioned, the new facility will be one of the most advanced composite manufacturing and assembly centres in North America.

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Red River College paid tribute to the academic potential of its Portage-area students, while celebrating the diversity of their cultural backgrounds, at the official opening of the College’s new Portage Campus yesterday.

The ceremony marked the campus’s move from Southport (just outside Portage la Prairie) to the old Victoria School site off the city’s main thoroughfare. It also marked the College’s continued commitment to providing increased access to education for rural residents and Aboriginal learners.

“Today is a bit of a historic event for Red River College — we have never opened a campus in the traditional way of the First Nations people,” said RRC President Stephanie Forsyth, herself a member of the Tsimshian First Nation in B.C., before kicking off a ceremony that featured greetings from provincial, civic and First Nations leaders, as well as a traditional pipe ceremony, dancing and drumming.

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Canada’s Ambassador to the United States, Gary Doer, visited the Exchange District Campus on November 1st to speak with students in the College’s Creative Communications program.

Doer spoke about differences between the Canadian and U.S. systems of government, and drew on examples from his time as Premier of Manitoba to illustrate how having a well-conceived communications strategy is essential to the success of of any public policy initiative.

“If you don’t get the communications right in the front end, then you’re in the rapids with no way out,” he explained.

Doer also took several questions from students, addressing topics such as the environmental impact of the Alberta oil sands, the global economic situation, cross border shopping and the sovereignty of the Northwest Passage.

This might the first time a sitting Ambassador has ever visited the College, although Creative Communications instructors did have an inside edge in arranging this event: Doer’s daughter Emily is a first-year student in the program, with plans to study journalism.

– Read more about Ambassador Doer’s visit in the Winnipeg Free Press –

The 2011 Alumni Dinner is right around the corner. The annual gala event, which provides an excellent opportunity for Red River College grads to reconnect with old friends and their alma mater, is taking place on Friday, November 18 at the Fairmont Winnipeg (One Lombard Place). Read More →