Women at their best helping other women achieve their best!
Soroptimist member, Shirley Eden, has helped organize a toy drive with Curves and City Kidz in Hamilton. They need unwrapped toys or a donation of $10. View the flyer »
Drop off locations are at Curves between Dec 1-17.
Visit Curves today (click on the location to view a map):
1070 Stonechurch Rd in Hamilton
505 Rymal Rd in Hamilton
369 Highway 8 in Stoney Creek
115 Hamilton St in Waterdown
November 30 2008 under SI-DAF Members
Rosie the Riveter
TECH2008 took place at the new Mohawk STARRT Centre at the former Stoney Creek Campus on Wednesday November 26. Over 200 young women attend the event each year and there was a lot of excitement amongst the organizers since this was the 9th year!
This annual event is a one day interactive career information conference for young women who are 15-30 years of age. The activities focused on where the occupational shortages are: the skilled trades and technology occupations.
Their icon, Rosie the Riveter, is from the United States, representing the six million women who entered the workforce for the first time during World War II, many of whom worked in the manufacturing plants. Rosie and her slogan “We Can Do It!” is now considered a feminist icon and a herald of women’s economic power to come. This was clearly evidenced by some of the attendees hoodies and purses that donned the character.
Our Soroptimist member, Brooke Gordon, volunteered as a team leader for the day. The agenda included Marissa McTasney, Founder and President of Moxie Trades, as the keynote speaker for the morning. This was followed by “speed networking” as team leaders had 6 minute intervals to interact with each table of girls to share their education and work history as well as answer questions (mostly about salary). Then with eye protection securely fashioned, the girls headed off on a tour of the wood working workshops (true workshops, not the meeting kind, with state of the art equipment) on their way to the exhibition hall. There were Canadian Forces Women, horticultural specialists, and chefs in training with smoothies, appetizers and pasta primavera being demonstrated with tastings. Amazingly, one of the welders apparently can make over $600/hour because of his underwater skills!
Some of the hands-on demonstrations included repairing bath-tub faucets, assembling a y-joint with plumbing materials, hammering nails (hilarious to watch) and using a dry-wall gun.
After a box-lunch, the afternoon was taken over by Union Gas for a junk-yard wars style competition to build an air-powered car! A fan was started up and first place was given to the furthest distance. Second place went to the best team spirit. The materials included:
The only requirement was that the nut had to be on the car and there was only 20 min to design and build it.
Brooke’s team came in second for distance (over 40′) and stayed straight the whole way. One of the girls, a grade 12 student from Hamilton, who claimed “I don’t know what I want to do” during the networking session, thought “making cars all day and testing to see how they work” would be the coolest job ever!
It was an excellent day!
November 27 2008 under SI-DAF Members
When they said deck the halls, Drummond House took is seriously! The hallways, eight rooms and third floor losft of Drummond House will be decorated for their open house, while four Christmas trees will twinkle throughout the house. Read the full story at the Flamborough Review.
The Drummond House Christmas Open House and Bake Sale will be held on Saturday, November 22 from 1p.m.-6 p. m. The facility is located at 67 5th Concession East in Waterdown.
Sales of bakery items were provided by SI-DAF and members of the Waterdown community. Sandy Gray conincided the club board meeting and collecting baked goods with her annual bake exchange last night. There were literaly dozens of treats covering her dinningroom table: fudge, meringues filled with chocolate chips, cookies, date squares, chocolate covered pretzels and more …
November 21 2008 under Programs of Service, SI-DAF Members
Sandra Gray has been a Soroptimsit since January 2004, currently sits on the Board of Directors as Treasurer of the club and is proud to call herself a DAF’er!
Sandy & husband Steve will be celebrating their 30th Anniversary in April 2009. They have 2 grown children, daughter Erin (25) who is just completing studies in interior decorating as well as planning her own wedding for next fall & son Brandon (23) who is co-owner of a busy Active Green & Ross store in Burlington.
Steve & Sandy have been co-owners of Weeks Home Hardware in Waterdown since 1987. The business itself dates back to 1823 as one of the original general mercantile stores in the area and amazingly in 185 years the business has only been in the hands of 4 different families! Having been known as ‘Weeks’ since 1925 it became part of the Home Hardware buying group in the late 1960′s. The Gray’s moved the business from its original location on Mill Street when they built the ‘new’ location in 1989 on Hamilton Street, a 25,000 sq ft store that employs over 65 people.
Sandy has sat on the Board of Directors of the Flamborough Chamber of Commerce for 5 years & was the president of that organization in 2006/07. SI DAF also happens to be an active member of the Flamborough Chamber of Commerce. She has been nominated for many awards recognizing community contributions including an Athena Award nomination & many Chamber of Commerce awards. Having won and been nominated for the FCC Community Service by an Individual Award so many times, that organization has since renamed that award in her honour.
Some of Sandy’s many past times include sharing the love motorcycles and old cars with husband Steve. They both ride their own Harley Davidson Motorcycles, she currently rides a 2008 FLHX. Sandy earned her motorcycle license way back in 1981 when seeing a women riding a motorcycle was a rare thing indeed! They also share the passion of restoring old cars having quite a collection of vehicles that they rebuilt together. Sandy is also one of the lone golfers in the SI DAF club, along with Blanca Pena. Incidentally Sandy accompanied Blanca to Cali Colombia in November of 2007 in efforts to start a Soroptimist club there!
So why did she choose Soroptimist International? Sandy is very passionate about helping others and has assisted many community organizations through her business, but she wanted to find something of her choosing that she could apply her energy to. Having always felt fortunate to never feel there were any barriers to achieving anything she wanted, she realizes that not all women have those same opportunities. To Sandy, Soroptimist International is ‘Women at their best, helping other women achieve their best’ and there is nothing better than realizing that you have truly made a positive difference in someone else’s life.
November 10 2008 under Member Bios
Brooke Gordon is the Commercialization Officer at the Centre for Probe Development & Commercialization (CPDC), Hamilton ON.
Brooke on her wedding day
Brooke’s background is in engineering physics (BEng) and semiconductor fabrication (MASc), for which she holds a patent. Brooke chose to study engineering after her first job as a teenager assembling circuit boards by hand at her Uncle’s company. She worked there on/off for over 13 years!
The .com bubble burst just as she finished school so Brooke started a career in grant administration at McMaster University. She managed the budgets, reporting and submission of large scale grants that involved many researchers and/or other universities. After so many years of being immersed in technical details, this wasn’t just different but also a challenging learning curve in customer service – researcher’s really don’t like filling out paper work 
As well, Brooke holds a Master’s degree in business innovation (MEEi). Her thesis project was to develop a company in Hamilton that engaged researchers and clinicians in the field on Molecular Imaging and act as liaison with industry. The idea came to fruition thanks to the efforts of Brooke’s supervisor and a grant from the federal government for almost $15 million. Upon graduation, Brooke was co-owner of Liquidesign Inc., a web development and marketing firm in Hamilton (who generously donate hosting for this website). She is was also a member of the Golden Horseshoe Venture Forum and Women in Nuclear, and has written forIn Burlington magazine.
She currently works for the School of Graduate Studies at McMaster University as Executive Director of Strategic Planning and Administration. Prior to settling into her new career, she was on a contract with the CPDC in business development, where her role was to identify and capitalize on new markets and commercialization opportunities in the field of Molecular Imaging.
Brooke has travelled to many countries in Europe and lived in England, USA and Japan. She was recently married and now a resident of Waterdown. Brooke currently serves on the SI-DAF Board of Directors as Secretary, is the Committee Chair for Public Relations and is part of the Programs of Service Committee.
Why Soroptimist?
Brooke attended the annual Christmas Auction in 2006 and had such a great time that when Kerry (the president that year and a good friend) asked her to join, she accepted with excited anticipation. Although Brooke truly enjoys the fun at meetings, what she loves the most is the ability to see the fruits of her labour in real, tangible ways.
October 15 2008 under Member Bios
Barb McCoy, Psychogeriatric Consultant, Alzheimer Society of Hamilton & Halton.
Barb is a Registered Nurse with her B.A. in Sociology and Gerontology and a Gerontological Nursing Certification from the Canadian Nurses Association. She has worked in the nursing field in both hospital and the community for over 30 years. Her interest in Soroptimist started with joining the club in 1991, and has served terms as Secretary, Vice President, Chair of Service, Awards and Recruitment committees and now as President (2008- 2010).
What Barb likes best about Soroptimist: the Vision of helping women & girls in local communities and throughout the world, reflects her values.
September 1 2008 under Member Bios
Monday August 25th was the 2nd Annual Cruzin’ Night ~ Car Show at Alexander Place long term care facility on Parkside Drive in Waterdown. Claire Collison, the Activation Co-Coordinator for Alexander Place, rounded up all the volunteers & BBQ facilities (& food) for the event.
I handled inviting all of the car owners for the show, we both scrounged for door prizes, Claire primarily for the residents & myself for the car folks. I designed the ‘dash plaques’ (2.25″ x 3.25″, printed on aluminum plates), which were given to all of the car owners as well as the residents (they could stick them on their wheelchair, walkers or in a memory book as they desired).
Coincidentally, I received a humorous set of lyrics that same day done by Julie Andrews, which she sang to the tune of ‘My Favourite Things’ (my_favourite_things). I printed copies & rounded up those who could sing to entertain the crowd by singing this a cappella!
August 26 2008 under SI-DAF Members
Wow! What a day! Steve & I were sleeping in a bit, we are still on holidays. It was after 8 am we were still in bed; but awake & the driveway dinger went off, shortly followed by the door bell. As Steve got up to answer the door the phone rang too which I answered. (it was Frank, PS: Liz, the following is why I didnt’t stop by to see you in the morning as I had suggested to Frank that I would).
Steve came back to the room to say that the REMAX hot air ballon team wanted to launch their balloon off of our front lawn; of course he said ‘sure, go ahead’. I grabbed my camera and went outside to take some up close pictures of the set-up procedure. I started chatting with the guys & told them they could use our lawn anytime they wanted & if they ever needed some ‘ballast’ I would be happy to go along too someday. After a bit more chatting, the pilot Hal asked me if I could be ready in 15 minutes or so…..can you say ‘fastest shower ever’! They were only planning on a short flight, about 1/2 hr or so.
So the rest is history, I took a ton of pictures, Hal took the one of me with our home below, Steve took the ones from the ground perspective. Stop by sometime & I will bore you with my pictures! (we flew over towards south Cambridge, south of the 401 before touching down in a farmers field off of Gore Rd, nearly 1 hour later)
HOW COOL IS THAT! (& how lucky am I, a hot air balloon flight courtsey of the REMAX crew! I have always dreamed of doing this but never acted upon it)
The touch down was interesting, on ‘paid for tourist’ flights there is always a ground crew there to make sure all goes smoothly. This was just the two of us with no crew to help control us; Hal know what he is doing but we are still somewhat at the mercy of the wind gusts. The basket had set down on its bottom but wanted to either tip or skip along as the winds had gotten gusty. It kept trying to pushing us over so Hal dumped the air out of the balloon rather quickly & the envelope laid down real nice. The basket was now on its side I was hanging on to two of the struts on the high side with my foot pressed into the opposite side of the basket between Hal’s legs otherwise I would have been on top of him. Just like Hal’s said ‘no elegant way to get in and no elegant way to get out!’
Suffice to say, I am ready for my next flight! Who else is game? Liz was looking into this recently, looks like it is about $500.00 each in a larger rig that takes up to 6! (I got my flight courtesy of Hal but trust me, it is worth it!) Can you say “ooohhh, look at those fall colours!”
Did you also know that I am now officially an aeronaut? Look it up in the dictionary; it is good to learn something new every day!
Sandy ~:)
PS: Turns out Hal has been chosen to represent Canada in next years ‘World’s Hot Air Balloon Competition” in Austria! Appears I was in good hands!
August 24 2008 under SI-DAF Members
Congratulations to our two newly weds this year: Brooke and Nancy.
June 1 2008 under SI-DAF Members
About three years ago, Blanca was telling me that in Colombia there are no emergency shelters for abused women (places like Interval House in Hamilton) and how she wanted to try and do something about that. Realizing that you ‘can’t put the cart before the horse,’ we knew that you must have people living in Colombia lobbying for those changes. That is where organizations like Soroptimist International can be truly instrumental in helping to bring about those changes.
Blanca and I decided that is how we could work towards making changes in Colombia and we devised a plan to go there to establish a Soroptimist Club. Our first meeting of the future Soroptimist International Club of Cali was attended by 13 enthusiastic prospects.
Read Sandy & Blanca’s full story >>
Sandy Gray and Blanca Peñaon journeyed on an unforgettable trip to Colombia, South America last November. Photos are coming!
December 1 2007 under SI-DAF Events, SI-DAF Members
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