Our Board of Directors
The society is managed by a volunteer Board of Directors and the Executive Director. The Board of Directors is recruited from the membership and consists of individuals with a wide range of professional and practical experience. The board meets ten times per year and separate executive meetings are held ten times per year.
Current (June, 2009) Board of Directors:
Newly elected board members for 2009/2010 will be updated soon.
Penny Bain (Chair)
Penny Bain
Penny Bain is a retired legal services manager, having worked for 30 years in the fields of access to justice and prevention of violence against older adults. She is the former executive director of BCCEAS and of the BC Institute Against Family Violence. She was a senior manager for the Legal Services Society of BC for fourteen years. She is a non practising member of the Law Society of BC and has Master of Law degree from the University of London, England.
Pearl McKenzie (Vice Chair)
Pearl McKenzie
Pearl McKenzie is Vice-President of BC CEAS and Chair of the Strategy Committee which provides on-going strategic advice to the CEAS Board and Executive Director during the start up phase of the legal clinic and the initial period of its operation. She was a founder of BC CEAS and the first executive director of the organization. Pearl’s interest in elder law and rights of seniors grew out of her experience in a legal advocacy service that Pearl established on the North Shore in 1982. Over the course of her work, she has developed handbooks, manuals and education kits for use in the community.
Pearl was a member of the BC Task Force on Family Violence and a member of the Advisory Committee to the Federal Panel on Violence Against Women and a contributing writer to the reports produced by both. She was also a member of the Joint Government/Community Working Committee that met for three years to develop recommendations for the Adult Guardianship Legislation in British Columbia. Since that time she has provided training and helped develop policy frameworks to support the implementation of this legislation.
Brian Kirbride (Second Vice Chair)
Brian Kirbride
Brian is a retired elementary school principal from the Delta School District. He, Like Dr. Bikkar Singh Lalli, is a volunteer speaker with BC CEAS’ ABCs of Fraud program. Protecting seniors from financial abuse has led to his interest in all forms of abuse protection for seniors.
Pat Kelln (Secretary)
Pat Kelln
Pat was a banker for 30 years, dealing mainly with medium-large commercial business. Also a survivor of Domestic Violence, after becoming disAbled in 1999, Pat turned her attention to aiding other women who experienced Domestic Abuse. She has been an active and vocal proponent of survivors, known for speaking and participating in numerous workshops, conferences and involved in other diverse projects. Pat has added an integral voice to a growing movement, which respects the strength of survivors and is putting an end to violence against women and men. In addition to BCCEAS she is currently a director of Pacific DAWN-DisAbled Women’s Network and is speaking out for women with DisAbilities. As our population ages there will be more individuals facing the barriers that women with DisAbilities face now.
Pat has been involved in a number of projects ranging from a Participatory Action Research project; Project Violence Free, participant and Auditor in the second Safety Audit in Canada; co writing the Safety Audit of the New Westminster Police Communications Operation report, co-coordinating the Healing Families, Healing Communities conferences; an all inclusive grass roots conference and inspiring and author of the 1st two drafts of the Resource Manual for Community-Based Advocates Assisting Women Dealing with Violence issues.
Through her Organization Women, Information & Advocacy she organizes and presents the Dec. 6 Annual Shoe Memorial at the Vancouver Art Gallery commemorating women who have died by violence, runs a web site www.domesticabusemuststop.org and produces a monthly email News Letter that contains information on the most useful and recent Resources, Research and Articles. As one woman pointed out to her new colleague “Pat is the Google of Domestic Violence.
Sherry Baker (Treasurer)
Sherry Baker
Sherry Baker, B.H.E., M.A/ABS., Bus Admin (Dip), provides consulting services and helps businesses and not-for-profit organizations plan for future growth and development through her company, Sherry Baker & Associates. She has three adult children and six grandchildren, ranging in age from 5 to 19.
For the past 20 years, Sherry, a skilled facilitator, has been executive director of several not-for-profit agencies, providing administrative expertise and leadership. A city counsellor in Chilliwack for six years during the 1980′s, she has also served on many boards and committees, all of which were dedicated to making communities healthier and better places in which to live. Sherry is divesting herself of her business, Reserve Power Source Inc. and is concentrating on her consulting business and spending more time working as a community volunteer. She has been on the board of BCCEAS for 21/2 years and sits as a public member on the College of Occupational Therapists of BC. She is a long-time Rotarian and belongs to Soroptimists International.
Eva Busich-Veloso (Member at Large)
Eva Busich-Veloso
Eva Busich-Veloso has been a director of BC Therapeutic Recreation Association (BCTRA), and was on its Restructuring Task Force. She has served as a Coordinator of Seniors Services, Recreation and Cultural Services in Richmond and has done leisure services at the Jackie Angel Hawthorne Care Centre. She also coordinates Minoru Place Activity Centre in Richmond. It is with appreciation that BC CEAS welcomes her as a leisure advocate, in an organization which needs lessons in relaxation for optimal performance of our advocacy for seniors! Live. Connect. Grow, the name of a recreational program in Richmond, might quickly become a mantra at BC CEAS.
Edie Copland (Member at Large)
Edie Copland
I am originally from the USA, having grown up in Kansas City, Missouri. I earned my B.S. in Psychology and Masters of Science in Counselling and Consulting Psychology (Business minor) from the University of Nebraska. I taught business and psychology at the U. of Nebraska and then U. of Wisconsin for a few years before moving to Baton Rouge, Louisiana where I lived for 20 years. There I was Executive Director of the State’s first domestic violence program for two years and completed all coursework and exams for a PhD in Human Resource Development. I then began teaching at Louisiana State University in the Public Management Institute of the School of Business, was its director for 4 years (a rotating position) and continued teaching there until the end of term 1996, when I got married.
January 1997 my new husband (from Vancouver), my 13year old daughter, and I moved to Ucluelet during the great snowfall and lived there almost 3 years. During that time I taught for North Island College for a year and volunteered on several community committees. In 1999 we moved to Victoria where I took the position of Executive Director of the Single Parent Resource Centre (now on their Board of Directors). In September 2002 I became Executive Director of Silver Threads. I also volunteer in several areas, including the United Way, BC Centre for Elder Advocacy and Support Board of Directors since 2004, and Leadership Victoria where I was on the organizing committee, Curriculum Committee, taught in numerous sessions, and continue to be a mentor to their new participants.
June Laker (Member at Large)
June Laker
June has a B.A. in modern languages (French and Italian) from London University, England, and an LLB. from UBC. Called to the B.C. Bar in 1961, she is now retired. June practised law both privately and for the provincial government, focused mainly on family issue, such as guardianship of both minors and adults, estate law, property rights and real estate practice. Later, as deputy public trustee, June was concerned in matters where individuals were unable to exercise their own rights due to legal disability, either as minors or adults. This necessarily included personal rights, family and estate matters and covered a wide range of legal issues. BC CEAS welcomes another fine addition to the Board!
Bikkar Lalli (Member at Large)
Bikkar Lalli
The readers of A Shared Concern may recognize Dr. Lalli from an article he provided to BC CEAS, printed in Volume 10, No. 3, on the subject of Cultural Contradictions and Societal Restraints, after he presented his speech to the May 2002 AGM/Conference of BC CEAS. His article focused on Punjabi Indo-Canadians who often do not understand the values of Canadians, the latter of whom may see these immigrants as feudalistic, patriarchal and sexist in their expectations of women’s and children’s behavior and roles. Dr. Lalli also discussed the lack of English language skills for many such immigrants, which lessens their ability to participate in Canadian political, economic, social and cultural activities. As Indo-Canadian children grow disrespectful of the cultural values of their elders, wrote Dr. Lalli, seniors grow more isolated even within their own communities. Some religious zealotry may result.
Dr. Lalli says about himself that he retired from the University of Saskatchewan as a Professor of Mathematics and Statistics. He has guest lectured at educational institutions in Japan, China, the Ukraine, Australia, Czechoslovakia, Germany and India, among other locations; and has published over 150 research papers in national and international journals. Dr. Lalli serves as a convocation senator at UBC and sat on several senate sub-committees. He is a member of the Surrey/Delta Indo-Canadian Senior Citizens Society and has served for eight years as an ABCs of Fraud speaker for BC CEAS. He gives free math lessons to children of parents who cannot afford tutors, and runs a computer lab for seniors in Surrey. Dr. Lalli, welcome to the BC CEAS Board of Directors! Your knowledge of cultural issues will assist BC CEAS in its work with Indo-Canadian populations.
Valerie Raoul (Member at Large)
Valerie Raoul
Dr Valerie Raoul, who holds degrees from Cambridge University, the London School of Economics and the University of Toronto, retired two years ago from her position as Professor of Women’s Studies and French at UBC. During her 28 years there she served as Head of the Department of French and Director of the Centre for Research in Women’s and Gender Studies, where she started a graduate programme. She was also founding Director of the SAGA Centre for Studies in Autobiography, Gender, and Age, funded by the Canadian Federation for Innovation, and led a major interdisciplinary research project funded by the Wall Foundation on Narratives of Disease, Disability, and Trauma. She co-edited “Unfitting Stories”, a book based on that research published by Wilfred Laurier University Press in 2007, and is author of three books on diaries and women’s life-writing, as well as co-editor of two other essay collections, “The Anatomy of Gender. Women’s Struggle for the Body”, and “Women Filmmakers. Refocusing”.
Her community work has included involvement with the FREDA Centre for Research on Violence Against Women, and with a local Latin American Women’s Oral Life History project, as well as teaching a life-writing course at the Carnegie Centre in the DES. She served as an elected member of the UBC Senate and received several awards for both teaching and research, as well as a French government decoration, “Chevalier des Palmes Academiques”. She became a supporter of BCCEAS when her father came from England, at the age of 82, to live with her family here for 11 years until his death five years ago. This experience made her aware of many issues related to aging in BC.
Leah Sandhu (Member at Large)
Leah Sandhu
Leah recieved her B.A. (hons) in English Literature in 2004 and her L.L.B. in 2005, both from the University of British Columbia. She was both a research assistant and an articling student with the Canadian Centre for Elder Law Studies and the B.C. Law Institute, sharing articles with the Vancouver law firm of Specht and Pryer. She practised elder law with the Salt Spring Island firm of Clement, Murphy & Woodward before returning to the lower mainland to practice general litigation at the New Westminster firm of Cassady & Company. Leah has co-authored a paper on American and Canadian responses to criminal elder abuse and has also contributed reports to the Aging with Challenges project and the Succession Law Reform project.
Kamilla Singh (Member at Large)
Kamilla Singh
Kamilla Singh has worked in the area of violence against women for over 16 years. She is an advocate and human rights activist for ethno-cultural women and has extensive experience in working with refugee women who have escaped male violence in their countries of origin. In 2003, she spoke at UBC’s Canadian Conference on Preventing Crimes Against Humanity:Lessons From the Asia-Pacific War (1931-1945). Her topic was how to support women who have escaped violence as a result of war in their own countries. See link HERE.
In 2007, in conjunction with International Wo-men’s Day, the Vancouver Port Authority and the Burns Bog Conservation Society recognized Kamilla with the gold award for community spirit, presented to women for significant volunteerism in their communities. Kamilla is the producer of the Asian Pulse Television show, which airs every Saturday on Shaw Multicultural Channel. In 2003, she produced a documentary entitled “Expedition Indian, Bringing HOPE to Kadiri.” This project required research, fact-checking, storyboarding, script and segment recording. The documentary was produced for the Hope International Development Agency. We hope that Kamilla will choose to lend her considerable expertise to the MAC Committee of BC CEAS (the Multicultural Advisory Committee), and to any other area where her understanding of refugee/multi-cultural issues can assist BC CEAS.
Carol Ward Hall
Carol Ward Hall (Member at Large)
Geoffrey White
Geoffrey White (Member at Large)
Geoff is a lawyer. He is the current chair of the Canadian Bar Association Elder Law subsection and the Okanagan Wills & Trust subsection. Geoff’s practice in Kelowna focuses exclusively on estate, tax and elder law matters. He is the second most popular feature at his heritage law firm – beating out seven staff members and losing only to “Peanut” — the canine office greeter.
Joyce Schmalz
