The Mississauga Branch, from 1984

No history of the Mississauga Branch was written while it ran. What follows is assembled from the newsletters that announced, reported and hosted it; every claim below names the issue and page it comes from.

Welcomed as the seventh branch, 1984

The 34th Annual Meeting, held at the Ethel Finkle Auditorium, Woodstock General Hospital, on 14 April 1984, closed its business with a new guild: “Mississauga Society for Creative Leathercraft was welcomed by Jack Meharg, with the following founding executive listed: President- Harold Brister, Vice-President - Paul Kitchener, Secretary- Joyce Scruton, Treasurer- Lea Love. Good luck from all to this new Branch, making our Society now 7 Branches strong.” (Summer 1984, page 1.) The founding notice itself misprints the President's name as “Harold Brewster” — his own byline, on page 14 of the same issue, and every later appearance of the name give Brister.

• Welcomed as the Society's seventh branch at the 34th Annual Meeting, Woodstock, 14 April 1984 — founding executive Harold Brister (President), Paul Kitchener (Vice-President), Joyce Scruton (Secretary), Lea Love (Treasurer)
• Hosted the Society's 37th Annual General Meeting, its own first, at the Novotel Hotel, Mississauga, 24–26 April 1987 — welcomed by branch president Lois MacPherson
• Won the Weston Trophy in 1990 on the branch's first year of entry, edging out Hamilton, Toronto and Woodstock
• Won the Weston Trophy again in 2012, at the Annual the branch itself hosted in Burlington — edging out Hamilton, the branch averages 80.4% against 72.8%
• Harold Brister, Joyce Scruton and Lea Love all still active in the branch a decade later, on the Society's own 1990s Executive
• Don MacLeod, the branch's own member, rose to the Society's 1st Vice-President in 1989 and President from 1990 to 1995
• Still one of the Society's branches in 1991, under Bill Whittingham
• Jim Wilkes's own branch reports continue in the Society's AGM booklets through 2022; the branch won the Weston Trophy four years running, 2015–2018

A branch president's own article

The new branch's first contribution to the newsletter came the same issue: “SHARPENING TOOLS by Harold Brister, President, Mississauga Branch,” a step-by-step account of stropping and touching up leatherworking tools with emery paper, jeweller's rouge and a matchbook's striking strip, written up after Brister gave the demonstration in person to the Toronto Branch. The editor's own note calls it “a contribution from the newest part of our organization” — the branch's introduction to the wider Society was practical, not ceremonial. (Summer 1984, page 14.)

Hosting its first Annual, 1987

Three years after its founding, Mississauga hosted the Society outright. The 37th Annual General Meeting ran from Friday 24 to Sunday 26 April 1987 at the Novotel Hotel, Mississauga, and the report names the branch members who ran it: “Special thanks goes to Lea Love for looking after all the hotel arrangements… Don MacLeod for being treasurer and along with Lea Love looking after the registration desk. Ev Chadwick for cutting out all the badges and to Joyce Scruton for her presentation of ‘Leather Now and Then’ on Sunday morning.” Madeleine Mitchell, President of the Society, opened the meeting on the Saturday; “Lois MacPherson, President of the Mississauga Guild then proceeded to welcome all C.S.C.L. members to their first annual.” Karla Van Horne was made a Fellow at the same meeting, and the Weston Trophy went to Hamilton (82.66%), Toronto second (80.03%) and Woodstock third (77.97%). (Winter 1986 newsletter, page 2, printing the report of the meeting held the following April.)

The Weston Trophy, first year of entry

At the 40th Annual Meeting, 28 April 1990, Mississauga entered the Society's branch competition for the first time and won it outright, “edging out Hamilton, Toronto, and Woodstock” — its president, Don MacLeod, opening the envelope himself. The winning team was Don MacLeod, Bill Whittingham, Cliff McTavish, Lois MacPherson and Kevin Armstrong. The same meeting made Cliff McTavish an Associate and gave him the Zalitis pin for the year's highest Associate marks. (Spring 1990, pages 1–2 and 4.)

One of its own, President of the Society

Don MacLeod's own rise traces the branch's growing weight in the Society at large: the Spring 1989 executive list gives him as the Society's 1st Vice-President while the same issue's branch directory still names him Mississauga's own president, and by the Fall 1991 masthead he is the Society's President, a office the register carries through to 1995. The branch's presidency itself passed from Harold Brister (1984) to Lois MacPherson (1986–87, printed McPherson at the time) to Don MacLeod (1989) to Bill Whittingham, named branch president from Spring 1990 and still in the role at the end of 1991. Other members published in these years: John Phaff's Shirt Pocket Saver pattern, printed in Winter 1990; Frances Hogue's Plate Hanger, printed in Spring 1991; and Cliff McTavish's own account of his Associate work, printed in Spring 1990.

The branch's own annual reports to the Society name a fuller executive either side of that: Francis Hogue was Vice-President and Eve Chadwick Membership Chairman in 1988–89, with Bill Whittington — Whittingham elsewhere in the record — as Projects Coordinator; Chadwick continued in the Membership post in 1989–90, and John Phaff became Vice-President for 1990–91. (The 38th and 39th Annual Meeting programmes, and the 40th, 1990.)

Mary Anne Crawford, a Mississauga member, served the Society as a Director in 1986–87, and again in 2001 and 2003, sourced to the printed 1986-87 and 2003-2004 executive rosters — the 1986 masthead and a fresh 1989 membership list each spell her name slightly differently ("Mary Anne", "Mary-Anne"), both kept as printed. (1986-fall p8; 2003-fall p8.)

Still meeting

The Summer and Fall 1991 newsletters still list “Mississauga — Bill Whittingham” among the Society's branch presidents. The Society's later rosters carry Whittingham as Mississauga Branch President through the later 1990s, and Harold Brister, Joyce Scruton and Lea Love all still serving the Society as Directors in the same years: the branch that arrived last of the Society's seven kept its founding executive active in the Society for a decade after it was formed.

Still meeting, into the 2020s

The account above ends in 1991, with the last of the Society's quarterly newsletters of that generation. The branch's own story continues in the Society's own website documents — the Annual General Meeting report booklets it began posting from 2016 — and what follows is assembled from those in the same way: every claim names the booklet and the officer who signed the report.

Three more branch Presidents fall in the gap: Gary Anthony Cook by 2000, Barry Boyd by 2008, and Ken Boroski from 2010, re-elected for the 2012–14 term. (2000-spring-summer, page 12; the Society's newsletters of Spring 2008 and Spring 2010 and 2012.)

Silva Fox, a Mississauga branch member, was welcomed as the Society's newest Associate Member at the same 50th Annual Meeting, April 2000 — a leather artist already carrying the 1997 Al Stohlman Award for Achievement in Leathercraft, who went on to take Craftsman and Salon ribbons for the branch at that meeting and at several Annuals through 2002. (2000-spring-summer, pages 6 and 8.)

Mississauga won the Weston Trophy again in 2012, at the 62nd Annual General Meeting it hosted itself at the Burlington Arts Centre. The branch “edged out Hamilton and was presented with the Trophy by President of the Council of Fellows, David McPherson”. Its five pieces were a Brown and Copper Purse by Verginiya Kecheliev, a Black and Red Purse by Karen Weber, Coasters by Rob Phister, a Whip by Gary Cook and a Saddle by Ken Boroski. The Fellows’ own comments on the year’s entries close with the two branch averages that decided it: “Mississauga average 80.4%, Hamilton average 72.8%”. (Spring 2012, page 4; the Fellows’ comments on the 2012 Weston Trophy entries.) (See the Weston Trophy roll.)

Jim Wilkes's report to the 66th Annual General Meeting, covering 2014–15, runs the branch's meetings month by month: Karen Weber on a purse's drop-in pocket in September, Carey Barnett on computer-drafted patterns in October, Wilkes's own account of the IFOLG show in Oklahoma City and a workshop in Jim Linnell's shop in Venus, Texas, alongside Gary Cook on tool sharpening in November, a pot-luck and gift exchange in December, planning for the branch's own turn hosting the Annual in January, Weber's Magic Braid demonstration in February, and a review of Weston Trophy and Associate and Fellow project work in April. (66th Annual General Meeting reports, 2016, page 6.)

By the 68th Annual General Meeting, reporting 2017–18, the branch had moved to Paul Kitchener's own workshop: a bracelet project with Weber ran September into October, Bob Pfister taught Christmas gift tags in November, Kim Winchester showed a stitch-free leather pot holder in January, Weber a three-zipper coin purse in February, and Eugene Pik taught round and Mexican braiding on a belt strip in March, before the branch turned, as every spring, to reviewing pieces for the Weston Trophy. (68th Annual General Meeting reports, 2018.)

The branch's Weston Trophy record over these same years is told in full on its own page: Mississauga won four years running, 2015 to 2018, the 2016 team Jim Wilkes, Bob Pfister, Kim Winchester and Eugene Pik — the same members whose branch meetings are named above. (See the Weston Trophy roll.)

The pandemic reached Mississauga harder than Norland: Wilkes's report for 2021–22, printed in the minutes of the 72nd Annual General Meeting, records plainly that “due to the Covid-19 pandemic there were no meetings held,” with the branch hoping to start up again in September 2022. (Minutes of the 72nd Annual General Meeting, 2022.)

Three more Mississauga members are on the Society's own record in these years: Richard Borrow served as the Society's Secretary from 2018, alone through 2020 and then jointly with Lauren Malec into 2022, and was made an Associate in 2019 (MSCL minutes, May 2019); Karen Gunna, already a Fellow by 2018, taught a Workshops session on machine-sewn handbags that February, registration handled through Lauchlan Harrison; and Doug Schavo sat on the Continuation Committee struck at the 74th and 75th Annual Meetings, 2024–25, alongside a Member-at-Large appointment in the same two years. (Workshop flyer, "CSCL Workshops presents Machine Sewn Hand Bags with Karen Gunna FCSCL", 11 February 2018; Minutes, 74th Annual Meeting, 4 May 2024; Agenda, 75th Annual General Meeting, 10 May 2025.)

2024–25: the last report

The branch reports printed with the minutes of the 75th Annual General Meeting give Mississauga a single line for 2024–25: it “has not had a meeting”, and made no report. (The report spells the branch “Mississagua”.) The Society voted to dissolve at that meeting. (Minutes of the 75th Annual General Meeting, 2025.)

Assembled from Summer 1984 pp1 and 14, Winter 1984 p15, Fall 1986 p8, Winter 1986 p2, Spring 1989 p8, Spring 1990 pp1, 2 and 4, and Fall 1991 p1. Officer notes from the 38th, 39th and 40th Annual Meeting programmes and Spring/Summer 2000 pp6, 8 and 12, and the Society's newsletters of Spring 2008, 2010 and 2012. Modern account from the Society's own 66th and 68th Annual General Meeting report booklets and the minutes of the 72nd.