Town Talk: Gift of Time gala raises $1.1 million for Canuck Place

WORDS TO LOVE BY: Emily Lazare and Shanni Eckford saw the Gift of Time gala they co-chaired raise a reported $1.1 million for Canuck Place Children’s Hospice. That was a welcome gain on the $8 million generated by 11 previous events. Meanwhile, Canuck Place deals with immense losses. Michaela Evanow, who attended the event with husband Jason, made that clear with words regarding the death of daughter Florence: “When you lose your child, you discover the art of remembering. Every detail, every smell, every image becomes encapsulated in your memory vault. The Canuck Place family help us open our vault of treasures and in turn, we are reminded of how eternal and limitless our love really is.”

STILL TICKING: Entering the Bayshore hotel ballroom, Gift of Time gala-goers saw period-clad Charleston dancers performing to Prohibition-era music. Some likely recognized choreographer Jocelyn Peden who was associated with another experiment that, like Prohibition, began optimistically then faded. That was the Vancouver Grizzlies basketball team, whose Extreme Dance unit former L.A. Lakers dancer Peden led. At the Grizzlies’ first home game, Nov. 5, 1995, some fans received gifts of time — bear-faced wristwatches that were still running when the hibernation-prone team relocated to Memphis five years later.

GOT HIS KICKS: When the 25th-annual Doormen’s Dinner benefited the CH.I.L.D. Foundation recently, Rick Antonson was named Honorary Doorman of the Year. Not that he and his predecessors might relish standing in rain, wind and snow to welcome hotel guests. Still, as Tourism Vancouver’s 21-year president-CEO, Antonson likely lured millions to stay at those hotels. Quitting in 2014 to be a full-time author, he’s published books about travelling to Timbuktu and seeking the landing site of Noah’s Ark. Another entailed driving a Mustang convertible on every remaining stretch of Route 66, accompanied by Rocky Mountaineer luxury-train founder and former honorary doorman Peter Armstrong. No frog-coated doormen greeted them at motels along that fabled Chicago-to-L.A. highway.

OOH CANADA: Our national anthem’s words “We stand on guard for thee” were being sung at the Doormen Dinner when one affectionate attendee grasped the man beside her in a manner that, were their genders reversed, might be called the Donald Trump gambit.

DRESS REHEARSAL: Former North Vancouver MP Andrew Saxton Jr. has thrown his hat into the ring for the federal Conservative party’s leadership. Gowns, suits, jackets, dresses, skirts, pants and blouses may follow. Companion Grandy Chu is the fashion designer whose locally made Atelier Grandi garments opened the recent Vancouver Fashion Week’s runway parades.

Saxton’s political career began shakily in 1993, when he missed Vancouver Quadra’s Tory nomination for an election that Liberal Edward McWhinney won. He got lucky in North Vancouver in 2008 and 2001. Ditto in 1997 when, one day before leaving to be the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp.’s senior marketing VP in Singapore, he shot a hole-in-one on the Hong Kong Golf Club’s par-three seventh hole.

ONE FOR 007: Still relishing his own first hole-in-one, at Nassau’s Lyford Cay course, 86-year-old Sean Connery phoned pal and B.C. Sports Hall of Famer Ted Hunt with whom he’s played several rounds and may again. During one at Furry Creek, the otherwise unflappable James Bond actor reportedly said: “Ted, this isn’t a golf course, it’s a bloody obstacle course.”

TUNED IN: In the Main-off-Hastings Imperial theatre recently, Liesa Norman chaired a street-art-themed concert to benefit Instruments of Change. That organization’s arts-education programs aim to create “transformative change” for “at-risk youth, incarcerated women, immigrants, preschoolers, seniors and Downtown Eastside community members.” The show’s eight acts included Norman, seemingly as slender as her flute, Leisure Principle partner Dave Thompson and other musicians backing a reading by part-indigenous author Joseph Boyden. Sangito Bigelow played a set with Street Beats percussion band partners Chris Couto and Martin Fisk after painting his-and-her skateboards that fetched $750 and $1,250 at auction.

TIME’S UP: Terms surely past their best-before dates: Amazing, iconic, jaw-dropping, savvy, world-class.

BUY THE BOOKS: Hitting the now-common charity-event target, a Terminal City Club event reportedly raised $1 million to support Room to Read’s international literacy and gender-equality programs. Visiting from Hong Kong, Room to Read co-founder John Wood said the 15-year-old, 50-chapter organization helps the “too many kids who lose the lottery of life.” Pennsylvania-raised Wood holds a winning ticket. As an international executive with Microsoft, he heeded a Nepal primary school’s request for age-appropriate books by rustling up 3,000. Room to Read has since launched close to 20,000 libraries with 16 million books, including the more than 1,000 titles it publishes. Wood said he simply heeds former boss and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s GSD motto: “Get shit done.”

DOWN PARRYSCOPE: While respecting the recent death of Thailand king Bhumibol Adulyadej after 70 years on the throne, the Thai House Restaurant Group that Patrick and Polly Chen founded marked its 30th anniversary with drinks and traditional dance at the Alberni Street Pink Elephant outlet.

malcolmparry@shaw.ca
604-929-8456