Inspiration and celebration
Women of Excellence Awards to recognize Annapolis Valley accomplishments
The pandemic derailed efforts last year, but organizers of the Women of Excellence Awards are preparing to celebrate inspiration in 2021.
Women of Excellence Awards founder and organizing committee chairwoman Catherine Metzger-Silver said she considers organizing the awards for the community a personal bucket list item.
She first came up with the idea about eight years ago, but it wasn’t until she took the concept to the Annapolis Valley Chamber of Commerce (AVCC) in 2018 that an organizing committee was formed and planning for the inaugural awards began.
Metzger-Silver said she initially experienced a certain degree of pushback to the idea, which she said isn’t about “girl power” and isn’t a popularity contest.
“My intention is to say, let’s celebrate the qualities of entrepreneurship, leadership, community development, the pursuit of doing your best every single day and let’s use those examples to inspire others, men and women,” Metzger-Silver said.
She said nominees have to provide evidence of their accomplishments and answer a series of thought-provoking interview questions. A diverse panel of judges, made up of men and women, evaluates the nominees and decides on the winners.
The first awards were held in 2019 and Metzger-Silver said the event exceeded their expectations with more than 100 nominations coming forward. They outgrew the venue they had originally booked before tickets even went on sale and ended up moving the event to the Old Orchard Inn.
Metzger-Silver said they wanted to hold a unique celebration, something the area hadn’t seen before, so they added special attractions such as living statues, fire eaters and stilt walkers from Atlantic Cirque.
CATEGORIES ADDED
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the awards didn’t go ahead in 2020 but the nomination process did. The inaugural awards included five categories but this has grown to eight for 20202021.
The categories include Community Leader for Betterment; Pioneer of Excellence, Home-Based Business Excellence, Business Woman of Excellence, Mentor of Excellence, Excellence in Collaboration, Young Woman of Excellence and Honorary Woman of Excellence (which unlike the other categories is to be judged by the organizing committee).
Metzger-Silver said it was seeing her now-17-year-old daughter Olivia’s grit and no-quit attitude back when she was trying to master a Biellmann spin in figure skating that served as an initial source of inspiration for developing the awards program.
Metzger-Silver said Olivia also helped inspire the creation of the new Young Woman of Excellence
Award, which recognizes 16 to 21-year-olds.
She said the organizers are planning two events simultaneously for the 202021 celebration, including a virtual event in case there is another lockdown. However, if it is possible to get together to celebrate in person, that is what they’d rather do.
Other members of the 2020-2021 organizing committee include Lindsay MacDonald, Laura Churchill Duke, Robin Hill, Olivia Silver, Nyla Frank Rodgers and Jessica Clahane.