Weird year, 2002. People's interest came and went with surges followed by extremely quiet times. Happily, we're still doing good and have loads of work to do and answer lot's of e-mails.

It's been theorized, by myself, that the reason for the 2002 drop-off experienced not only by us but by many ghost sites is that this is the first year in a few that didn't really have a big, mainstream movie about a haunted house that was either a fan or critical success. Out of site, out of mind, perhaps... Let's face it, "Ghost Ship" was no "Sixth Sense".

Because of early-in-the-year upheavals, many of our events early on kind of fizzled out but things picked up in the Summer and Richard's help with his walking tours that supported our efforts led directly to one VERY important thing...

This year's Anniversary Gathering at Todmorden Mills only came in at a WONDERFUL $39.00 shortfall! This is MUCH better than the $1,000 from last year and the $2,500 of the year before!

This year saw some problems that we hadn't bargained on... not the least of which was the "On Again/Off Again" situations with more than a few things... It was the "Yup! We're good to go!" followed in succession by the words "Nope. It ain't happenin'!" that caused problems (almost) at our Anniversary "do" and at Fort George for two.

Investigations this year were centred around Fort Erie, Fort George, Fort York (whew! Fort-Central, eh?) as well as a couple of restaurants and pubs and about three other places. We didn't yield too much information and data but it all helps and the one really 'odd' occurrence happened at Fort George (on tape!) and we weren't even there as specific investigators! (See the ParaResearcher's site for the information on this at http://www.pararesearchers.org/Ghosts/ftgeorge/ftgeorge.html)

Speaking of our sister site, I am helping out with their remote viewing online experiment and ANYONE can jump in and see what happens! This can be seen/tried by clicking here.

I was quite pleased to be invited to (and had a great time at) a couple of Haunted Hamilton's events especially the meeting I was guest speaker at (although I have to admit, their Halloween costume "do" was excellent... but then again, any reason to don my officer's uniform (circa 1812 repro) is a great moment for me!)

This year was one for the books... LITERALLY! I know myself and Jennifer probably spent more time reading and researching facts, history and science then any other year! It's not that there's a glut of new ghost books out there but we were ALL really boning up on the subject from past and present tomes. Hopefully in 2003, we can put much of our "new" knowledge into affect!

Even though it's a year and more off at the writing of this, I am also VERY proud that we will be allowed to volunteer our services at the 2004 Battle of Georgian Bay as (hopefully) helping with the candle-light "dark tour". Needless to say, more on this event will be available as it comes in...

What does 2003 hold??? I ain't tellin'! (yet...)

Let's just say, big plans and big ideas and loads of fun!

Have a safe and happy holiday and a great new year and I hope to see some of you at our winter season get-together in either December or January!

Matthew Didier