RIP – Kim Coddett


With great sadness, we announce the death of our beloved mother, grandmother, family member, and friend.
Kim Ann Coddett passed away on Friday, December 30, 2022, after a valiant two-year battle with cancer.

We thank you all for your prayers, kind words, phone calls, love gifts, and visits during Kim’s illness.
She will be sadly missed by all who knew her. Funeral details will be forthcoming.

2022 GCCABC AGM – Sun Oct 9th @ 2pm ZOOM

Announcing the Annual General Meeting of the Guyanese Canadian Cultural Association of BC.

It will be held on:
Sunday, October 9th , 2022 starting at 2pm
Location: via ZOOM

DUE TO COVID-19, there will be no in-person meetings at this time.

This meeting will be held online via Zoom. The Zoom meeting will be accessible on computer, mobile devices with online connection (tablets), or by dial-in (telephone or cell). We encourage all recipients of this message to participate and support your local association.

Membership dues are $20 per year. Click HERE to complete membership and pay securely. Invitations and instructions for joining the AGM will be sent to members closer to the event.

Please note that at this AGM we will be accepting nominations for all Board Positions. The board positions will come into effect at the AGM and remain for the duration of 2022 and all of 2023; next AGM expected late 2023 or early 2024.

More information on our facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/events/1546230129123901

We hope you will be able to join us.  Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.

 Vancouver Writers Fest – Events with Caribbean and Black authors

Caribbean Masterpieces With Myriam Chancy and Cherie Jones
(in-person)
October 21 2021, 7:30PM
Performance Works, Granville Island

Description: Cherie Jones and Myriam Chancy have both written powerful, dynamic, disturbing novels about upheaval and injustice in the Caribbean. Jones, a Barbadian writer, took the world by storm this year with the publication of her debut novel How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House: an ambitious, layered novel in which her young Barbadian protagonist fights for her life. Chancy, who was born in Port-au-Prince and raised in Haiti and in Canada, teaches at Scripps College in California. Her new novel, What Storm, What Thunder masterfully charts the inner lives of ten characters whose lives are affected by an earthquake that rocks Haiti and its people to the core. Join them in conversation with Guest Curator Lawrence Hill as they discuss modern Caribbean literature.

Defying Stereotypes in Memoir With Ben Philippe and Ian Williams
[in-person and digital)
October 22 2021, 1:30PM
Waterfront Theatre, Granville Island

Description: Both authors of provocative, lively, spirited, and stereotype-defying memoirs, Ben Philippe and Ian Williams are sure to launch into a riveting conversation. Philippe is a New York-based writer and screenwriter with two young adult novels to his credit. His new adult nonfiction book is the memoir in essays, Sure I’ll Be Your Black Friend: Notes From the Other Side of the Fist Bump. Philippe’s new book begins with the line, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a good white person of liberal leanings must be in want of a Black friend…” Williams is an award-winning poet, a Giller-prize winning novelist (Reproduction), and associate professor at the University of Toronto. His new set of essays Disorientation: On Being Black in the World begins with the line, “My resolution this year is to learn how to swim,” and captures the impact of social encounters that focus suddenly, unexpectedly, harshly, or hilariously on matters of racial identity.

Ring: André Alexis in Conversation with Mark Medley
(in-person)
October 22 2021, 6:00PM
Waterfront Theatre, Granville Island

Description: No matter the depth of feeling for our beloved, there is always a moment (or a few) when we’d like to change something about them. Right? Scotiabank Giller Prize and Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize winner, André Alexis, probes love, romance, and the past in his latest novel, Ring, in which a woman in love is gifted a ring that will allow her to change three things about her partner. Following on the heels of Pastoral, Fifteen Dogs, The Hidden Keys, and Days by Moonlight, it completes Alexis’ Quincunx: five genre-bending, stunning novels. We welcome this extraordinary literary mind to discuss his five works, and the philosophy imbued in his latest, with Globe and Mail editor, Mark Medley.

with/holding: Chantal Gibson in Conversation with Lawrence Hill
(in person)

October 23 2021, 10:30AM
Venue: Revue Stage, Granville Island

Description: Award-winning Vancouver poet Chantal Gibson joins the Vancouver Writers Fest stage once more to discuss, in an interview with Lawrence Hill, her latest new poetry collection with/holding: a collection of genre-blurring poems that examines the representation and reproduction of Blackness across communication media and popular culture. Gibson lives a fascinating life as an award-winning teacher at Simon Fraser University, a successful visual artist whose art has been exhibited at museums and galleries across Canada and the United States, and as a poet who has landed with a splash on the Canadian literary scene. Her first collection, How She Read meditates on Blackness, womanhood, denial, and freedom. She explores these themes and more in this morning’s illuminating conversation.

Twitter: @VanWritersFest

Facebook: @VanWritersFest

Instagram: @vancouverwritersfest

Doris Mary Joseph (1930 – 2019)

Doris Joseph

It is with great sadness that the family of Doris Mary Joseph announce her passing.

Doris was born in Guyana, South America, on June 14, 1930.  She passed away peacefully, on Sunday, November 24, 2019.

She is pre-deceased by her husband John and their three daughters, Julianna, Marcia Rose and Lucyanne. She is survived by her four grandchildren, Cecil Garraway, Georgetown Guyana, Paul, Rachael and Emma Jane Campbell, England, and several great grand children.

As well, she is survived by her sister, Elsie Rempel, brother, Joseph Edwards, brother Shirland, and sisters Pearly and Yvonne.

Doris is fondly remembered as a caring older sister in a large family of 15 siblings.

Her funeral will be held at St. Edmunds Parish, 545 Mahon St, North Vancouver, BC on Saturday, December 7th, 2019 at 1 pm;  viewing is 12:15 – 12:45, before memorial service.

In lieu flowers, the family requests that any donations be sent to Diabetes Canada.

Ole Time Lime – 2019

OLE TIME LIME – a fundraiser and social event hosted by Guyanese Canadian Cultural Association of BC (GCCABC)

In 2016, 2017, and 2018 we were able to send at least $500 each year directly to communities in Guyana to help literacy initiatives. We have been able to partner with Guyana Book Foundation to ensure that those libraries get great value for the money; it allows us to spend in Guyana and thus help the economy; and it ensures that the materials are suitable for readers in Guyana. We all think that supporting literacy initiatives is incredibly important.

This is our last chance in 2019 to add to the funds for our donation this year. If you can’t make it, we certainly will miss you, but please consider making a purchase – as a donation – and the full amount will add to the funds

Event will include: Burger, Fries/Salad and a Beer for ONLY $21.50 if you purchase in advance through Eventbrite. Tickets will be $25 at the venue, so you save a few dollars if you buy online (and it helps us plan).

The ‘burger’ option is beef, chicken, OR Veggie and the side option is fries or salad.

The beer is a light ale, or one of their house ales.

We will have music, dominos, and cards and we hope you come out and have a bite to eat and a mingle.

Proceeds from this fundraiser will help the association meet their goals.