Town Talk: Luncheon generates $700,000 for pancreatic cancer clinic
Credit to Author: Malcolm Parry| Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2019 18:00:20 +0000
HOPE SURPASSED: Susan Chow and Lisa Dalton co-chaired the recent sixth-annual Hope Couture luncheon that reportedly raised more than $700,000 from 415 mostly female guests. Those donations will help the B.C. Cancer Foundation fund a pancreatic cancer rapid-access clinic. At the event, medical oncologist and Pancreatic Centre B.C. co-director Daniel Renouf said a recent wide-scale study of the role of genetics in pancreatic cancer will further B.C.’s pioneering role in screening for the dangerous ailment. He said the clinic will bring together “oncologists, surgeons, geneticists and the scientists. That’s the innovative part.” Along with a fashion show by the Bacci’s and Boboli stores, the Serengeti-themed luncheon had body-painter Christina Rapacz present fitness instructors Levi James and Chelsea Brennan as a lion and gazelle. Fully dressed attendees tucked into an entrée of chermoula crusted B.C. ling cod and vegetables.
Perhaps heartened by a giraffe’s stuck-out neck, Lisa Dalton and Susan Chow co-chaired the Hope Couture luncheon to benefit the B.C. Cancer Foundation.
WALL FLOWER: Hope Couture participants Charlotte Wall and daughter Sonya Wall paid $18,000 to name a new bloom donated by Langley breeder Brad Jalbert’s Select Roses concern. The rose will commemorate Sonya’s corgi Joe, who recovered from cancer to die of old age. Joe’s recessive fluffiness makes similar Corgis ineligible for showing and thus not favoured by breeders, or possibly the Queen. Happily, cash raised in his name may help humans survive cancer as the much-loved furry outcast did himself.
At the Hope Couture luncheon, Sonya Wall and mother Charlotte bid $18,000 to name a newly developed rose that commemorates Sonya’s pet Corgi.
Sonya Wall’s photo shows Fluffy Corgi Joe, who survived cancer, died of old age and left his name to a bloom from Langley rose breeder Brad Jalbert.
SECOND BOUQUET: Inspired by the Walls’ bid, Gloria Au paid $17,500 to do the same for a Select Roses hybrid she has still to name.
LEMON’S ZEST: Ontario-raised architect Robert Lemon recently celebrated his 40th year in Vancouver by hosting a garden party at Shannon, the Granville-at-55th mansion he’s helped restore for two decades. Sugar tycoon B.T. Rogers built the 30,000-square-foot edifice but died before its 1925 completion. Finance and mining tycoon Austin Taylor acquired it in 1935. Developers Peter Wall and Peter Redekop paid a now-pocket-change $750,000 for the mansion and its four-hectare property in 1967. Wall has since built many condos there.
Photos from the Gudewill family’s collection helped Lemon recreate century-past wallpaper, millwork, chandeliers and suchlike. Those features were appraised and appreciated when a deluge squeezed Lemon’s garden party guests indoors for drinks and a recital by University of B.C. School of Music students Jonathan Lopez, Markus Masaites and Nina Weber. Rather than the 1937 hit September In The Rain, the Genesis Trio members performed works by Beethoven, Bruch and Rachmaninoff that likely pleased other Shannon audiences 94 years ago.
The Genesis Trio’s Nina Weber, Markus Masaites and Jonathan Lopez played during Robert Lemon’s reception at the Shannon mansion he’s restoring.
CUTTING A RUG: Lemon’s guest Larry Killam pointed to a 1930 photo of Shannon’s great-hall carpet and said: “That’s in my living room.” Killam bought it at auction in the late 1960s when he and three co-developers were reviving a downtown district they named Gastown. Far older than the rug or even pioneer-era Vancouver, Killam and wife Sherry’s Southlands home is built around the framework of a 17th century British barn they bought and erected here, albeit without its straw floor covering.
Late-1960s Gastown co-developer, Larry Killam bought a 1920s Shannon mansion rug for his house with a 17th century British-barn framework.
TIME TO LIVE: The recent 15th-annual Gift of Time gala needed very little time to reportedly raise a record $1,530,000 gift for Canuck Place Children’s Hospice. Second-time co-chair, realtor Karley Rice, had Aritzia executive VP Pippa Morgan and Primex Investments VP Lee Rennison join her to help raise that sum and bring the all-time haul to a reported $13.5 million. Founded in 1995, Canuck Place has nine patient beds and four family suites at its original Shaughnessy location, and nine beds and five suites at the recently commissioned Dave Lede House satellite in Abbotsford.
Karley Rice, Pippa Morgan and Lee Rennison co-chaired the Gift of Time gala that reportedly raised $1,530,000 for Canuck Place Children’s Hospice.
PARRYNOIA: Unlike the long-ago Russians who sought him as tsar, today’s Britons may not find Boris Godunov.
DON’T BE DUMB: Lake Cowichan-raised Stephanie Nielson didn’t spare potential readers’ sensitivities when titling her dating guidebook Don’t Be A Dumbass: The Every Guy’s Guide To Getting The Girl. Along with stern advice about personal hygiene and being a know-it-all, it ends with the assertion that those who settle for less than they desire end up with exactly what they deserve. Now a divorced mother of two, Nielson expects a Tinder-introduced fellow to end her own “100 dating disasters” by producing a ring this fall. Asked if that might entail living together, Nielsen gave the best — or worst — advice of all: “Not until we’re married.”
Following ‘100 dating disasters,’ divorced mother of two Stephanie Nielson released her Don’t Be A Dumbass guide for men seeking relationships.
THE GANJA GANG: New-era dope dealers congregated in Elevator communications firm owner Bob Stamnes’ Mount Pleasant building recently. Association of Canadian Cannabis Retailers (ACCRES) president Jeremy Jacobs welcomed them. He and Stamnes also launched a Vancouver-based cannabis consultancy named Counsel 45 that Stamnes, alluding to a multinational professional-services network, called “the Deloitte of cannabis.” As youngish retailers made merry, it was ironic to recall that some of their same-age forebears were jailed for selling, or even possessing, joints on similar city streets.
Elevator principal Bob Stamnes and Association of Cannabis Retailers of Canada president Jeremy Jacob launched cannabis consultancy Counsel 45.
DOWN PARRYSCOPE: As well as having greenhorns and greybeards spout purple prose, ever-colourful Ottawa gave us a blue blood in blackface and caught another red-handed.
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