SeanFromCanada's Blog

Originally posted on 09.23.13

My wife Catherine has worked in the kids cancer discipline her entire career. She’s a modest girl, and deflects a lot of the ‘it takes a special person’ type comments that arise as people learn her profession…but her dedication and passion run deep. I’m proud of the work she does.

One of our favourite annual events in her professional circles is the Kids Cancer Care Foundation (KCCF) “Quest for a Cure” dinner. The money raised from this event funds children’s cancer research, kids summer camps and many other valuable programs KCCF sponsors. Originally organized by parents of kids with cancer, this event has grown to be a premier event in Calgary, hosted at the Westin every March. Its black tie (cowboy hats welcome!) and the event planners wear headsets (so you know it’s fancy!). NeoStream bought a table this year, and we invited work colleagues, clients and friends to attend. It was shaping up to be another great evening.

For years I’ve attend this event, but have never actively participated in the live auction. While the prizes have always been fantastic, none have captured my attention the way the “Paratrooper for a Day” package did. When I read the description of the activities, I looked up at Catherine with the excitement of a kid at Christmas…I wanted that experience!

Fortunately, I was several cocktails into the evening when this item went up for auction. The bidding started with about 5 of us waiving our cards around. As the auctioneer spoke faster and the competition dropped off, two of us held steadfast and rallied back and forth like a men’s doubles badminton match. It was fast and furious, with the crowd cheering us on. I was wearing my black cowboy hat that night, so obviously I wasn’t going to lose.

I took the prize, well above my budget. I credit the talent of the auctioneer, the Crown Royal and clarity of my mission for the excessive win. While this wasn’t a “smallenfreuden” purchase by Visa’s standards…I was elated! It was a great conversation piece the rest of the evening, as I learned just how many people would have liked to have taken the prize home with them.

And so the planning began. I connected with a Sergeant from the Third Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and we picked a date (Friday September 20, 2013) for our ten attendees. I was encouraged by the Sergeant’s research into our group (and NeoStream as a company). He was continually emailing me with ideas on how we could ‘stretch’ the event into more of an experience. He asked questions about whether our team had any physical limitations (a hard question to answer without knowing his context…one of our team members asked if being incredibly out of shape counted). Our coordinator’s mission was clearly stated – he wanted the event to be the BEST EVER event of this nature.

He succeeded.