The New Brunswick Branch of the United Empire Loyalist Association conducted its fall general meeting on October 12, 2006 at Stone Church.

Featured speaker was Branch Member Mr. Donald Flewelling.

Mr. Donald Flewelling UE with Miss Frances Morrisey UE.

Don spoke about Loyalist studies as taught to elementary school children in the Saint John area. He was a grade 4 and sometimes 5 teacher until 2 years ago and had a very enthusiastic curriculum, which the children greatly enjoyed and which gave them a great background into their own unique heritage, many of them being descendants of Loyalists. He often had foreign students in his class, which also gave them a better understanding of the
origins of this city and its culture - their adopted home. He also touched on the very recent change in emphasis toward standardized testing results, with emphasis on math and creative writing, which greatly limit the time to spend on other curriculum areas. This makes it difficult to teach the importance of the Loyalists to Saint John and indeed Canada. Don concluded with several suggestions aimed at correcting the current situation

1. Lobby the provincial social studies curriculum group in Fredericton for more concrete inclusion of Loyalist Studies in the elementary classroom (John Hildebrand).
2. Keep a vigilant eye on the curriculum objectives, as issued by the provincial social studies curriculum group, to ensure that Loyalist Studies is more fully included.
3. Ask for reprinting of William and Carol Spray's textbook "New Brunswick, Its History and Its People" (1984) Gage Publishing Co., Toronto ON, ISBN 0-7715-8342-7 and that class sets of 30, or 1 per every 2 students, be placed in NB elementary school classrooms.
4. UELAC should donate suitable material directly to known area teachers, who will use such, as opposed to making general donations to school libraries through visiting the school principals and school secretaries.
5. Don noted that there are still pockets of good work being done in some of our district school in Loyalist Studies. We should continue to work with these target schools, whose work will generate interest in other elementary schools in our district.