88th Annual WCR Conference (Virtual), Day 2 - Sunday, May 16, 2021

Sunday’s agenda was one of reflection and celebration.

Governor Suzanne called the business of the day to order and advised that participants would be hearing from the Region Board Members and Committee Chairs. At past conferences two sets of reports were presented by Committee Chairs, however this year both the SIA and Region reports would be combined.

Region Board Member Reports: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7dKmF477iM

Region Pillar Chair Reports: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JMHVPvIIUI

Following the report from Dream It Be It (DIBI) Chair Janneke Lewis, (SI North and West Vancouver), a motion was passed that will see WCR become responsible for the Virtual Career Library website. The Region DIBI Chair will ensure that there is a committee in place to oversee operations.

NOTE: In addition to links provided, the entire day’s proceedings have been recorded.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lRGBkMRB3GsiW4JjWZ_I6vANQVJVW2xu/view?usp=sharing

Announcement of New Region Chairs

Governor Suzanne announced that the Region Board has created two new positions, inspired by Soroptimist International (SI) and comments from President Sharon Fisher. One of the main roles of SI is Advocacy on the world stage and President Sharon has commented on the sometime lack of connection between what is happening on the global level and what is happening at the local level. To address this, a Regional Advocacy Chair has been created to engage clubs at a Region level and Janneke Lewis has agreed to take on this role.

The second position will be the Region Friendship Chair who will provide WCR members with a link to the wider SI community around the world, to broaden our horizons and realize the possibilities of friendship and service with other clubs and members. Darlene Jamieson (SI Surrey Delta) will be Region Friendship Chair.

With Chari Grant moving into the role of Governor Elect, Governor Suzanne announced the Past-Governor Heather Rollins (SI Chilliwack) will assume the position of Fundraising Chair for the remainder of the biennium.

Colleen Penrowly (SI Tri-Cities) will assume the role as DIBI Chair for the remainder of the biennium as Janneke Lewis takes on her new role.

Soroptimist Foundation of Canada (SFC) Report

Colleen Penrowly (SI Tri-Cities) provided an update on the activities of SFC which included:

  • Last year six (6) grants of $8,000 were presented to women in graduate studies, this year’s applications are with the judges

  • Seven (7) clubs received $1,000 grants last year for education programs for women and girls - this year’s deadline is June 30th

  • In order to ensure women who don’t live in areas serviced by a club the opportunity to benefit from the Live Your Dream Awards, SFC is presenting seven (7) women with LYD awards in the amount of $2,000 each.

The Soroptimist Foundation of Canada Annual General Meeting will be October 23, 2021 via Zoom.

Award Presentations

Live Your Dream Award (LYD)

Chair Lynda Easler (SI of the Langleys) announced that due to the fact that all clubs in our Region participated in the LYD Awards program, WCR was able to present two financial awards this year. In fact, our clubs presented 45 awards throughout the Region amounting to approximately $116,000!

The second place recipient of the Region’s Awards is Reeham, who was SI North and West Vancouver’s first place recipient. She receives $3,000USD in addition to the financial support of the club. This year’s first place recipient is Andrea, who was the first place recipient of SI Abbotsford Mission’s LYD winners. She receives $5,000USD and will have her name forwarded for Federation judging.

You can hear the responses from these amazing young women and get to know a bit more about them.

Celebrating Success Awards

Celebrating Success Awards recognize outstanding club projects that improve the lives of women and girls through programs leading to social and economic empowerment and/or promote Soroptimist as an organization that improves the lives of women and girls.

These awards recognize the best practices of clubs in each of the four pillar areas: fundraising, membership, program and public awareness.

This year’s recipients are:

  • SI Courtenay - Excellence in Fundraising for “Trivia 2019” project

  • SI Chilliwack - Excellence in Membership for “Night at the Museum” project

  • SI Tri-Cities - Excellence in Programs for “Dress the Docs” project

  • SI Courtenay - Excellence in Public Awareness for “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” project

Isobel Gilhespy Memorial Award

Treasurer Donnal had the privilege of presenting the Isobel Gilhespy Memorial Award to the club that demonstrates the greatest net increase in membership from March 16 to March 15 of the next year. This year’s award was presented to SI White Rock!

Francis Wagner Award

Governor-Elect Chari was honoured to present this year’s Francis Wagner Award to Julie Kinsley (SI Tri-Cities). This award recognizes a Soroptimist who has dedicated her life to giving. Please view the recording to meet Julie and understand why she was chosen as this year’s recipient!

Keynote Speaker: Janneke Lewis

Janneke Lewis was born and raised in Durban, South Africa. She has a BA and LLB degree form the University of Natal, Pietrmaritzburg. During her prosecuting years, she specialized in child abuse cases having been told by her superiors that women couldn’t do fraud cases (the work she was interested in). They told her she should do sexual cases because she “could relate to them”. For 14 months she prosecuted rape cases – sometimes 3 in a day. It is here that she prosecuted the first sex ring case – it wasn’t called trafficking in the 1980’s.

When their daughter was three, Janneke and her husband arrived in Vancouver in November 1991 and she attended her first Soroptimist meeting within 2 weeks of arriving.

She has been President of North and West Vancouver club, a Region board member and Governor of Western Canada Region from 2000 - 2002. During her term, she attended International conferences in Australia and Osaka Japan.

 In April 2005,she presented a paper on “Prosecuting Child Traffickers” at the 11th UN congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice on behalf of SI. In November 2005, she was invited to attend a conference put on by ISPAC in Courmayeur Italy to examine the question of “measuring Human Trafficking: the Complexities and Pitfalls.” ISPAC (International Scientific and Professional Advisory Committee) is a“think tank” of the UN.

In 2007, she was invited to represent Soroptimist International in Vienna at the NGO consultative meeting to plan the UN Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking and then attended the conference in February 2008. She is on the SI list of experts in the area of trafficking and violence against women and is sometimes called upon to comment on position papers of the UN on these areas on behalf of SI.

Janneke focuses primarily on the areas of family law including abuse issues, child abduction, and parenting and financial issues including division of assets and support. She is an accredited Family Law mediator and Parenting Co-ordinator.

In 2010 she was honoured with the Canadian Bar Association, BC branch Community Service Award for her work in the area of human trafficking. She is also a member of the Trial Lawyers Association and the BC Parenting Coordinator Roster Society

Janneke Lewis’ Human Trafficking & Sexual Exploitation Presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQGZM6zzifY

Following Janneke’s presentation a motion was made and passed which will see the Western Canada Region join with Eastern Canada Region in a joint Canadian Soroptimist project to ascertain whether or not police agencies in Canada implement the Nordic Model or PCEPA (Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act).

Clubs will collect this information through Freedom of Information requests to the police agencies in their area. The information will then be reported to the Regions.

The purpose of collecting this information is to lobby the Canadian Government to implement PCEPA and the Nordic Model.

Closing Remarks

Prior to Governor Suzanne declaring the 88th Annual Western Canada Region Conference closed, planning Co-Chairs Diane Summers, Shelley DellaMattia and Shirley Stewart thanked everyone for coming and for assisting in the organizing of the conference. Each shared their take away moments of the weekend and handed off the conference torch to SI Victoria WestShore for next year.

Tribute to Past Governor Roseanne Ham

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1LalFm52JIjWRLXDFBLNEsekgL0GmPJak

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88th Annual WCR Conference (Virtual), Day 1 - Saturday, May 15, 2021