Today marks the 42nd anniversary of the Neil Squire Society, and I wanted to share a story from our early days (and a couple photos).
Our first Neil Squire office was in Deep Cove, BC on Gallant Avenue. For those of you who don’t know the area, Gallant is a bit of a hill that leads down to a viewpoint overlooking a pier and an inlet. We were running an early version of our Creative Employment Options program out of the Deep Cove office. Our proposals always required us to make several hard copies, so a photocopy machine was a must. Our founder, Bill Cameron, worked hard on securing a donation of a Xerox machine for our office, and it was our first significant donation, so we were all very excited. Someone suggested taking a staff photo with the new machine, and the viewpoint at the bottom of the hill felt like the perfect spot.
A few staff started to roll the heavy photocopier down the hill, but it began to gain some momentum, and it almost got away from them. Somehow, they managed to stop it just in time and prevented it from crashing into the inlet below.
The picture turned out great.
If you look closely, you’ll see some familiar faces in the photo. Occupational Therapist, Katrina Tilley, is on the top row, 5th from the left, and our Manager of Research and Development, Harry Lew, is also on the top row, 8th from the right. Kneeling at the front on the right-hand side, in the red jacket, is our founder Bill.
This year, to mark our anniversary, we decided to re-create the photo at our previous head office on Boundary Road, a short walk away. Before moving to our current head office at 3999 Henning Drive 10 years ago, we had spent 20 years at the Boundary Road location. (After we had left Deep Cove). To signify the advances in technology and our programs, we thought it’d be fun to do the photo with a 3D printer instead — it was certainly a lot easier to bring over than the Xerox machine.
It’s been amazing to see the Neil Squire Society grow over the last 42 years and serve over 114,000 persons with disabilities, and I look forward to many more anniversaries to come. Thank you to all of our staff, volunteers, supporters, and participants who make our work possible.
Sincerely,
Gary Birch, O.C., O.B.C., Ph.D., P.Eng.,
Executive Director, Neil Squire Society