The Western community will pause Friday for ceremonies in honour of Remembrance Day.
The University Students’ Council will host ceremonies that will feature student musical performances, poems and other tributes dedicated to Canadian veterans and armed forces still serving. The ceremony begins at 11 a.m. in the Mustang Lounge in the University Community Centre.
King’s University College invites all to gather at the flagpoles in front of Monsignor Wemple Building at 10:45 a.m. The Office of Campus Ministry at King’s will lead a Remembrance Day ceremony that will conclude shortly after 11 a.m. The ceremony will include prayers, wreath-laying, playing of the Last Post, moment of silence and will feature a bagpiper, bugler and the King’s University College Chamber Choir.
Huron University College invites all to an Act of Remembrance and wreath-laying ceremony at 10:50 a.m. in the Memorial Tower, followed immediately by a prayer service in the Huron University College Chapel.
If you are unable to attend either ceremony, you are encouraged to observe two minutes of silence at 11 a.m. in your work area.
In a tradition that started two years ago, Western will lower the flag on University College from sun-up to sun-down each Remembrance Day. Western traditionally lowers its flag to mourn the loss of members of Western’s community, and also to mark significant occasions of national loss and remembrance.
Observed in Commonwealth countries, Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day or Armistice Day) was established at the end of the First World War to remember members of the armed forces who have died in the line of duty. In Canada, the Armistice Day Act provided that Thanksgiving would be observed on Armistice Day, which was fixed by statute on the Monday of the week in which Nov. 11 fell, from 1921-30. In 1931, the act was amended to establish Nov. 11 as Remembrance Day.
