Chris: The book came out last year and can be found here --
http://www.photoscape.ca/book.htmThere's talk of a do-over for the Stanley Thompso symposium that was held at Highlands Links in the fall. At that one there was only one representative of the Thompson Society speaking -- its founder -- while the others included Lorne Rubenstein, Ian Andrew, Jeff Mingay, Ken Donovan and myself. The thought is to do it again next year in Toronto, perhaps in conjunction with the RCGA. The hope is there would be interest given the number of Thompson courses in the province.
I think the series of seminars by the RCGA could be interesting -- but I wonder what John Porter, a golf pro, brings to the table in terms of restoration, since Rosedale, where he worked for a long period of time, only started bringing out its Ross elements after he retired from the club.
I also wouldn't consider anything Ted Baker has done as restorative, at least not that I've seen, though there has been restorative work out of the Carrick office.
The panel on restoring a course will be interesting as well, since none of them are architects, and only John Smith has led a restoration at his club. The researcher involved is using a list of courses and material supplied by Ian Andrew and myself. Though I'm hopeful she's come up with some new insights into courses that were designed by Thompson, I'm not sure what she can offer in terms of restoration. Perhaps she'll present ideas on where to find the appropriate infomation for clubs?
In my own self-serving way, I think people would learn more about these things from joining our Toronto GCA gathering in the Beaches on Nov. 29