CELEBRATING THE 13TH MAN
UBC Thunderbirds toasted for exploits during last November’s Vanier Cup
CUP CAPPED: Some 600 folk supported UBC’s Thunderbirds football team at a fundraising banquet this week. Staged by the 13th Man Foundation, the Hyatt Regency event recognized the team outplaying the U of Montreal Carabins for the Vanier Cup Nov. 28. Fronting the event with T-birds head coach Blake Nill was foundation director David Sidoo, the former B.C. Lion and Saskatchewan Roughrider who led UBC to its first Cup win in 1982. Five-time Grey Cup-winning quarterback Warren Moon was guest speaker. Premier Christy Clark and UBC president protem Martha Piper sent congratulations. Lt.- Gov. Judith Guichon attended, although confessedly a supporter of her native Montreal’s Alouettes and possibly Carabins squads. As T-Bird players marched in, B.C. Lions’ GM-head coach Wally Buono likely knew the potential of each better than they did themselves.
STRING ATTACKED: Ida Yang dreamed of the Children’s Wish Foundation providing something rather bigger than herself. It was a harp to replace a borrowed one she’d played since age seven. Last year she got it. Meanwhile, the degenerative bone disease patient won three Kiwanis Music Festival awards and topped the junior division in Mexico City’s International Harp Competition. Now 11, Yang played Deborah Henson-Conant’s Nataliana at the foundation’s recent fundraising banquet. Check YouTube to see her TEDxLangleyED performance of that same composer’s The Nightingale.
THE BRIDE WORE: Seemingly every colour but white when South-Asian designers contributed to Bollywood-themed Bridal Fashion Week. The three-day event will wrap up Sunday at the Vancouver Convention Centre West, a complex that occupies the old Immigration Building’s site. That’s where, 102 years ago next month, 376 South Asian men put on their best clothes in expectation of disembarking in Canada. Instead, racial prejudice, spurious legalities and a warship chased them away, some to violent deaths in India. Had they landed, though, their great-greatgranddaughters would be among those wearing multi-hued wedding finery and enhancing our multicultural society today.
HOOKED: Following a hiatus, the downtown-based Redfish Kids clothing and accessories store re-established its West Vancouver satellite operation recently. Despite the Dundarave pier being handy, principal partner Kristy Brinkley’s son Sam petitioned for a fishing trip to Kona, where the eight-year-old hooked a 275-pound billfish — silver, not red.
ENCORE: This column missed noting that the Wall Centre spring concert also benefited the Vancouver Opera Guild that, since 1979, has funded scholarships and bursaries, sponsored opera productions, assisted artists, produced major auditions and conducted international tours.
DREAMING BIG: Artists and social entrepreneurs attended culture-and-fashion organizer Liza Lee’s east side-themed Art Party in the Waldorf hotel. Among them, Arazas Solutions Inc.’s Shine Kelly and William Oliver — coprincipal Steve Maxwell was absent — hope to develop their 2015-founded Dream Talks (dreamtalks.ca) program into a Dream Day equivalent of Marc and Craig Kielburgers’ WE Day. The second Inspirational- networking Dream Talks will fill the Vancouver Playhouse’s 668 seats May 2, and other cities have signed on, Kelly said. A Dream-Journeys show will run at the Vancouver Planetarium May 19.
HELPING HAND: Sukhi Kular and Amber Noakes, who are marital as well as First Canadian Barter Exchange business partners, have assembled $23,500-worth of in-kind benefits for other entrepreneurs. That’s via the second Small Biz Win Big contest (smallbizwinbig.com) that previous winner Julie Beyer said enabled her to trademark her For The Love of Food firm. Other prize services provided “a great boost for my business.”
PARRYNOIA: Who would cross the mountains in privately piloted aircraft booked via an outfit named Flyber?
PUBLIC-TV SAVER: President Louise Clark premiered the second season of Lark Productions’ Emergency Room: Life and Death at VGH series at Vancity Theatre this week. It will air on the Knowledge Network, where president Rudy Buttignol needs no ER care. Having seen KN’s 22,000 subscribers increase to 38,000 and annual fundraising from $38,000 to $1.7 million, and had the BBCKIDS service help pay for a high-definition channel, he said: “It was the public that save public television.” That apparently entails expanding into Alberta to again “show the government that there is a market for commercial-free television.”
SHINE ON: There were conflicts this week over the Brilliant! fundraising pageant. Here’s how the event was reported: “No homegrown billionaires, media notables, pop stars or sevenfigure-salaried athletes fuelled the Brilliant! gala hairstylist Dean Thullner founded and Bill and Jana Maclagan co-chaired. Instead … some 300 hair-salon staffers, models, makeup artists and dancers worked for months creating and rehearsing performances and tableaus that entranced a Commodore Ballroom audience. The event reportedly raised $1.45 million to support St. Paul’s Hospital’s treatment of some 5,000 mental-health and addiction patients annually … Looking like a million itself, the show could easily go on the road.”
DOWN PARRYSCOPE: Word From Wisconsin: Let’s Not Make America Grate Again.