Some notes fol­low about the Society’s activ­i­ties (albeit, out of date).

Cal­gary Ostomy Soci­ety 40th Anniver­sary Celebration

On Feb­ru­ary 24, 2008., the COS cel­e­brated its 40th anniversary.

2007 UOAC “Meet and Greet” Con­fer­ence Report
The Meet and Greet event on the Wednes­day evening “kick-started” the UOAC 10th Annual con­fer­ence.
It was a great event! Our phi­los­o­phy was to present a pos­i­tive wel­come to set the scene for a great con­fer­ence. It
pro­vided an oppor­tu­nity to renew friend­ships and meet new peo­ple, espe­cially 1st-timers.
Cal­gary Chap­ter atten­dees all acted as hosts and dressed in West­ern Wear (includ­ing cow­boy hats). As peo­ple
arrived they were invited to fill out their meal ticket for door prizes and sign a (donated) cow­boy hat, which was
included as a door prize, and won by Janet Pac­quet, Hamilton’s Con­fer­ence chair­per­son!
I had two great co-hosts. Dave Reid and Suzanne Boisvert for a bilin­gual English/French flavour. They kept
things inter­est­ing with Yahoo’s and chat­ting with peo­ple from across our land (Mex­ico, too!)
We enjoyed the easy-listening jazzy gui­tar play­ing of Iouri Kourilov and his singer wife Tatiana.
An offi­cial wel­come was extended by Ann Ham­bridge as Chair­per­son of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee and Pres­i­dent
of the Cal­gary Chap­ter. She intro­duced Doug Gra­ham who brought greet­ings as Pres­i­dent of UOAC.
About 15 door prizes were drawn dur­ing the evening (they had been solicited by our Hol­lis­ter Ter­ri­tory
Man­ager from local ostomy prod­uct ven­dors)
A cash bar was avail­able through­out the evening. Light snacks were served dur­ing the 2nd hour of our gath­er­ing
which was paid for through Chap­ter Fund-raising.
Every­one seemed to have fun (a full house until 10:00 P.M.) “You put on a great party” was heard.
Lots of peo­ple – lots of vis­it­ing – lots of laugh­ter!
As this was my first con­fer­ence, I enjoyed being involved on the plan­ning com­mit­tee. I espe­cially enjoyed
meet­ing so many won­der­ful peo­ple! My thanks to every­one involved in the Cal­gary Chap­ter for mak­ing our
vis­i­tors feel wel­come.
Glo­ria Reid, Hos­pi­tal­ity Coordinator

Con­fer­ence Fund-raising Report:
The COS Fundrais­ers were a great suc­cess. Due to those whom par­tic­i­pated in donat­ing, sell­ing and
buy­ing Tim’s Gourmet Frozen Piz­zas, Shirley Begg’s West­ern cards and our own raf­fle tick­ets, the
Cal­gary Ostomy Soci­ety ben­e­fited from a suc­cess­ful con­fer­ence. Thanks are expressed to all those
whom worked at the sales table dur­ing the con­fer­ence, espe­cially: Marg McCal­lum, Wes and Deana
Richard­son, Heather Berwic­zonek and Lisa Gaus­man. Thank-you to Mar­garet Reynolds for her role as
trea­surer prior to the con­fer­ence and a big thank-you to the Richardson’s who han­dled all the sales table
money through­out the con­fer­ence. A quick sum­mary of the Con­fer­ence fundrais­ing: Sales of Greet­ing
Cards, Raf­fle Tick­ets, Piz­zas, and left­over Can­vas Bags $3,538.00. Expenses for Greet­ing Cards, Raf­fle
Tick­ets, and Piz­zas: ($1,265.20). Expenses for Meet and Greet at Con­fer­ence ($1,500.00) Fianl bal­ance
of $772.80 Thus if we do not receive any other expenses, we made $772.80.
Wes & Deana (Co-Treasurers) & Lisa Gaus­man (Pub­lic­ity & Edi­tor “Chang­ing Times”)
COS Raf­fle Win­ners:
Shel­don Smithens, our osto­m­ate auc­tion­eer mem­ber, han­dled the draw for the Cal­gary Ostomy Soci­ety
Raf­fle with humor and aplomb dur­ing the con­fer­ence auc­tion. The win­ners were:
*Heather Orsted, Cal­gary ET & Hon. Mem­ber, who was one of the high­light Work­shop speak­ers at the
con­fer­ence: Doug Stephens framed pic­ture.
*Suzanne Boisvert, non osto­m­ate Con­fer­ence Plan­ning Com­mit­tee mem­ber and one of the com­peres of
the Meet & Greet: Pat Cimmeck’s leather jacket and hand­bag.
*Jackie Ged­dis, ET in Fer­nie, BC who bought her tick­ets while vol­un­teer­ing at the Youth Camp: the
two wolf ceramic plaques lov­ingly cre­ated by Mrs. June Ash, Lisa’s Grand­mother.
*Nicole Lapointe, SASO of the Pres­i­dent of Mon­treal chap­ter: fleece baby blan­ket made by Mau­reen
Sehlstrom, Lisa’s sis­ter.
*An uniden­ti­fied lady won the stained glass hand­crafted by Mrs. Lynda Mawer, Lisa’s Mom.
Our thanks to the hun­dreds of peo­ple who sold and bought tick­ets — sorry, we couldn’t all win!
Buf­fet Lunch, Auc­tion and Raf­fle by Mar­lene Joly
A won­der­ful buf­fet lun­cheon was put on in the Exhibit Hall and the Raf­fle Tick­ets we had pur­chase
were drawn for some very beau­ti­ful prizes that were donated by all the chap­ters. The Auc­tion Sale was
tremen­dous. Our chap­ter donated some beau­ti­ful items, which I brought with me and the Cal­gary
Chap­ter thanked us. They sure know how to orga­nize an auc­tion and had some very gen­er­ous
chap­ters. Con­grat­u­la­tions to them for a job well done by some very won­der­ful vol­un­teers and let’s not
for­get the help of our sup­pli­ers who also gen­er­ously donated auc­tion items. Pro­ceeds amounted to
Auc­tion: $3,045.00, Raf­fle: $860.00.

The Power of Support

Hi Sheri Rod­well here, I wanted to share the mes­sage of our United Ostomy Asso­ci­a­tions. The Cal­gary Ostomy Soci­ety (COS) is a chap­ter of the United Ostomy Asso­ci­a­tion of Canada which was part of the United Ostomy Ass of Amer­ica, but now stands apart. These asso­ci­a­tions and each chap­ter have a nec­es­sary role in our com­mu­ni­ties, from reach­ing out to the new comer, to always being there for when you need them.

Being that they are all run by vol­un­teers the ded­i­ca­tion of each per­son involved comes from the heart. This first hand knowl­edge makes it a valu­able resource for all in need. After 18 years on my own I now real­ized the value of the sup­port for our chap­ters. I am so impressed that so many have come for­ward and vol­un­teered their time to assure that this sup­port sys­tem con­tin­ues to exist. I want to thank all the per­sons past and present for their love and time in build­ing these chap­ters of sup­port. Thank you.

Our Cal­gary chap­ter which is my sup­port, has many events through out the year, end­ing with a Christ­mas bash that is a must go. This was my first event in over 10 years. Not know­ing any­one when I arrived I was greeted and intro­duced to every­one. Feel­ing right at home in min­utes I was glad that I pushed my fear away to attend.

Since the Christ­mas party I have been going to lots of hap­pen­ings. I have met many new friends who have gone through the same types of issues. We have laughed, shared and I have learned new things I did not even know would be help­ful for me.

Belong­ing to the UOA is a great way to learn more about how to take care of your self in respect to the new changes your body has gone through. At the meet­ings there are pro­fes­sion­als who teach about diet, new prod­ucts and cover all top­ics relat­ing to Ostomy life. There are new friend­ships just wait­ing to be made.

This sum­mer in Cal­gary we are host­ing the Chang­ing Times Ostomy Con­ven­tion. Com­ing to events like this helps relive your feel­ings of iso­la­tion, as they are infor­ma­tive, edu­ca­tional and encour­age a feel­ing of com­mu­nity. Com­ing to these events not only is heal­ing for our self’s it assures the sup­ported needed so we can con­tinue to have these events. I am so excited that it is here in Cal­gary so I have the oppor­tu­nity to attend, I just received my pro­gram out­line and Wow there is some really great stuff. I hope you will be com­ing as it would be great to meet you, not to men­tion that with the guest speak­ers and top­ics being cov­ered you will be glad you came.

It is impor­tant that we reach out and con­nect in our com­mu­ni­ties. Some­times we may not feel that we need to con­nect, but oth­ers may need you to con­nect with them. Lis­ten­ing and shar­ing is heal­ing for every­one involved. Come get involved, you never know what may come about.

Sheri Rod­well