• Annegret's                   
• Bergamot Wellness Centre           
• Boomtown Clothing Company               
• Buckerfield's                    
• Cotton Massage               
• Curves                       
• Doggytopia                   
• Funktional                   
• Island Wholesaler               
• Ko Lu Clothing                   
• Lululemon                   
• Modern Country Interiors   
• Moores Clothing For Men   
• Mosaic Books   
• New Image Salon & Day Spa     
• Paws N Pals   
• Something Old Something New   
• Stamper's Magic   
• Starbuck's Coffee   
• Tigerlily Fashions Inc.   
• Walmart   
• Z Décor   

In my role at the Women’s Centre, I have been afforded the incredible privilege of be in the presence of greatness over the years.  In my lifetime, the most amazing people that I have met, I have met because of the Women’s Centre. Whenever I feel a sense of hopelessness as often these days I am wont to do, I am consistently inspired by the many individuals that I have the privilege to work with in this community.  The many women who come through the doors of the women’s centre who have the strength and courage to overcome the many barriers that they are faced with, our volunteers, board, our practicum students,  the many individuals in this community who are working toward a better future for us all.  Over the years, there have been so many women who inspire me and continue to do so everyday.

Our role in the community is diverse, and broad. One of our roles as an equality seeking organization is to create education and awareness on women’s issues, to mobilize women in the community to take action.  We are always trying to think of new and creative ways to get our message out while at the same time trying to respond to the individual situations that come through our doors.  We are a collaborative organization working with a number of community committees, again, in an effort to improve the situation for women in Kelowna.

We live in times where everyone is looking for a quick fix, looking for quick sound bite, where more attention is paid to how to brand a product than actual production, where we are so busy trying to put a positive spin on everything that we are losing sight of the truth,  where feminism is the new dirty f word, where  our governments have decided that women have equality while at the same time women are wondering how they figured that as we are not feeling it.

We have come a long way but the journey must continue. 

So, to the point, we need to mobilize into action, we need to re-energize for the battle and we need to be real about equality and we need to brand our feminist product and put a positive spin on it.  For those of you who are fearful of using the term, let me share with you that feminism is the friendliest label I have encountered in my life time.  To me feminism is about substance, it is about humanity, it is about creating a world whereby we are all free to be who we are, whereby we are all safe in our communities, where we are all included and none of us are left behind.

So, this award tonight is not just about honouring the memory of Gert Beadle, it is not just about the nominees for this award, or the reciepient of this award.  The Gert Beadle Award is about all of us and by recognizing the contribution of one woman to the bigger picture we honour us all.  The women of the past, the women of today and the world of tomorrow.   So, essentially, in plain truth, shoot from the hip kind of truth, we are using the memory of Gert Beadle to promote women’s equality and further our agenda.  My guess is that Gert is fine with that, she did see herself as a motivator. That is what this award is about, it is also about integrity, wisdom, passion, and commitment

So on with the nominees for this award

In our process of trying to figure out a way to honour the memory of Gert and to encourage women to become involved, and enhance the awareness of the need to continue the journey to equality. We were specifically wanting to encourage young women to become involved. 

One of the exciting things about the nominees tonight is that most of the nominators are young women and some of the nominees are young women.  So, first let me apologize to all the young women in this room tonight for assuming that you were all more interested in becoming Pussycat Dolls than in creating positive social change.

Now, for this first annual award, we received 5 nominations, It is interesting how often the number 5 comes up, 5 women on the petition to the courts to legally define women as persons, 5 women initiating the establishment of the Women’s Centre, 5 women arrested in 2004 for standing up for women in BC, there are more examples but that is just from the top of my head.

So, the nominees are:  Patricia Tomic, Eileen Robinson, Stella Malczynski, Starleigh Grass, and the Executive of the UBCO Women’s Centre who are: Jenica Frisque, Ashley Kowbel, Laura Mandelbaum, Michelle McRae, Stephanie Overend, and Lindsay Wojtula.   

In the programmes, we have highlighted some of the contributions these women have made towards promoting positive social change and in our newsletter we have included the complete submission by their nominators.

Patricia Tomic’s name has come up many times in conversations with students of whom she has inspired.  I also have it on good authority that Paty was instrumental in getting the administration to act last year when a student who was assumed to be gay was being harassed and threatened on campus.  Stella has been described as someone who knows who the hungry students are and always has food available to ensure that the students who can’t afford to eat get at least one meal a day.  It was also shared with me that for new students who are looking scared and overwhelmed, they are sent to Stella who will take them under her wing. Starleigh Grass’s name brings to my mind, her mother, Nita Grass, who is one of the many women who inspires me. However, Starleigh is a person in own right and has proven herself to be an articulate, intelligent individual who is courageous in her quest to highlight the issues affecting the right of First Nations peoples, women, students and workers.  Eileen’s grandmother was an activist with the suffrage movement struggling to win the right to vote. Several years back, I interviewed Eileen for a profile on women and politics for an International Women’s Day Event, She was working in a London Department store when she first rose up against the injustices toward the working class.  She related the following story to me.  The lunch counter where everyone ate their lunch had a roped-off area where the supervisors would eat.  On a consistent basis this area would be virtually unused. There would be, perhaps, eight people eating there at a time.  The rest of the room was, of course, always full with dirty tables.  Now, Eileen decided one day that she would not spend her lunch hour clearing a space so she could eat.  She opted instead to sit at a clean table in the supervisor's area.  She was severely reprimanded but was able to get her point across.  The end result was that a dining room was created for the supervisors which had a lock on it.  She has been active in some capacity ever since.  The UBCO Women’s Centre is of particular interest as the women’s Centre played a pretty significant invisible role in the establishment of the Campus Women’s Centre.  Rosamund Graham who was a key individual in ensuring the successful establishment of the Centre on campus was a summer student at the KWRC.  We incorporated the work she needed to do to successfully open on campus in September into her job description so that she would have the ability to do that work.  As a Women’s Centre in the community we believed it to be extremely important for there to be a vibrant active centre on campus and will continue to support the UBCO women’s centre in whatever capacity we can.