Awards & Bouquets

Awards

There were some nice acknowledgements along the way from mental health organizations, the Giraffe Project, (for sticking my neck out), Clinical Counsellors of BC, and several from Monday Magazine our arts weekly for favourite screening series, a Courage to Come Back nomination twice, and latterly a Sovereign’s Medal for Volunteers, and Victoria’s Honorary Citizen Award.

The one that really stood out for me was my older son doing a “value shield” (1994) in school included, among all the other things he aspired to do, showing his interest in SciFi and computers.

For what would he would do if he won a million dollars, he drew a cheque for that amount going to the Eric Martin Institute as it was known then (EMI), the psych hospital where our events were held. After volunteering with Movie Monday for while he was announcing his empathy and concern for the people, including his dad, who use the services there. It took some stuff to announce this value to his peers at school.

I consider this more an award than just a bouquet.

Bouquets

Over the years a lot of positive responses have come in–many written ones I dropped in the “Bouquets” file. Many were from visiting filmmakers and guests (we used those particularly to bolster our Canada Council applications), some from mental health and other agencies, but the ones I valued most were from attendees – like K’s letter and a flood of them that came in as Movie Monday closed its doors in 2020.

Here are just a smattering of them: