LEGACY TRIPLES TOURNAMENT

I have been asked by Linda, a National Triples Champion, to say a few words to kick-off this tournament.

Membership fees alone do not cover all the expenditures involved in running a club such as ours. Hence, the legacy programme.

The Legacy programme was prompted, I think, by a donation from Marion Woiblet’s estate of $10,000 in 2020 and then a similar amount in memory of their mother, Jennifer Letkeman, by her adult children last year. But the Legacy programme had its antecedents long before that. To cite but a few examples: the BC Government under Gordon Campbell gave the Club $113,704 to mark the Winter Olympics to be held in Vancouver and Whistler in 2010 while the Oak Bay Municipality pledged $60,000 in three tranches of $20,000 each, all for the Carnarvon House Expansion Project; John Anderson’s donation in 1998 of $10,300 to cover the cost of buying and installing 240 lockers; the North wall of Carnarvon House with the three large windows of glass blocks, each for a voluntary contribution of $100 (it is of note that there were three couples who donated $1,000 instead of the prescribed amount); the much-used and appreciated bowls polisher donated by John Cossom; Joan Firkins’ Silent Auction that raised over $6,000; the annual yard sale in April that raised over $2,000 for the Club until a few years ago, etc. This is far from an exhaustive list, in the 70th year of its existence.

Now we have an appropriately-named tournament that I hope will remain a fixture in the Club Calendar for a long time to come.

Harnam Grewal

August 10, 2024