 Good evening, everyone. My name is Peter Tredder. I'm the President and Founder of Journey to Saviors to Workplaces. Welcome to our 2022 Annual General Meeting here on Google Meet. We wish to acknowledge that we are on the traditional territory of the Hodeh Shownay and the Anishinaabe peoples. A reminder, this meeting is being recorded. If you do not want to be visible, please disengage your video, as well as meeting your microphone. If you have a question at the bottom of the Meet, there's a track box where you can answer questions. There will be time at the end of our speaker for a Q&A. And if you don't want your name mentioned when we ask your question, please let us know. It will be first name only if we do. So the first report is my own. Over the last year, we have been a little less active on the volunteer side and a little bit more active on the paid employment side. 2021 was the first year in which we received the federal summer student grant from the government of Canada. This allowed us to hire three summer students, two which did blogging and editing for us. And this resulted in, because of our schedule of posting every two weeks, we ended up with approximately six months of blog posts on various topics related to our mission. And then we had one person hired to help with fundraising and grant writing. Unfortunately, on that front, we were not as successful. Yeah. So we got six months worth of articles and essays and blog posts and they ended up being really fantastic. The little bit of feedback that we've gotten is it was enjoyed by all. No real criticisms. Then again, we're not exactly a high traffic website. So it could be the right people just haven't seen them yet. But we do share them all over social media. I do try and share them multiple times to after their first run when I can because why not. We have some fantastic articles that were written. And yeah, other than that, it's been a fairly quiet year. We've been working on recruiting some new board members, which we have been also successful with. We have three new board members joining us tonight. And yeah, it's been a fantastic year. As usual, our Treasurer hasn't joined us for this meeting. He is one of those lovely volunteers that is in the background. So I'm just pulling up. Okay, where did they go? I'm looking for our bank statement. And I know it was in here and now I can't find it. After paying the payroll taxes in March for the last year, we had approximately $282 in the bank. No. I want dates. Sorry, I'm talking to myself. All right, I'm not sure what happened to it. It's possible it's sitting and waiting to be scanned still. Or we haven't gotten it yet. That's why. That's why. It doesn't come to the next month. So I can go back to the March statement. Here we go. Our credit union doesn't give us online banking access, which is frustrating sometimes. We've got $282 and 2 cents. So that'll be a little bit less our 90-cent monthly fee for the last couple months. So $280, I guess, roughly, is in the bank. Does anyone have any questions about either my report or the bank statement? You can either raise your hand or you can ask in the Q&A box. If you're on your desktop, going back to who we'll meet here is in the bottom right. It looks like a tap bubble. Okay. I'm guessing there's no questions. I don't see any in here. Perfect. So the results of the electronic vote that went out, all members were sent an electronic link from Simply Voting. Two weeks ago, we allowed for two weeks of voting. Anybody who hadn't voted last week was sent a reminder, as well as yesterday I sent in a final reminder. And the deadline was midnight last night. The bylaw amendments as presented were passed. You can review those on the website. They're up with the notice, as well as Frank, Leland, and Medisir were elected to the board. Congratulations, everyone. Thank you. All right. Now we have our, well, everyone came here and was waiting for and we're going to probably be late for, but that's okay. Our wonderful Paralympic athlete, Zach, who definitely is listening to him talk to the very advanced has not had the easiest life. So, yeah, Zach is a three-time Paralympic athlete. Exactly. He has won medals in the sport of wheelchair rugby, and I turned the floor over to Zach. Zach, if you want to share your screen, you can. Sorry? If you wish to share your screen, you can. Oh, that's a good idea. Thanks for that lovely introduction. I hope you guys are all having a fantastic evening. I'm actually reporting to you live right now from Chicago, Illinois, down here this weekend. With your basketball tournament. So, I finished one game, rushed back to the hotel to come meet with you guys. And then, once I'm done here, I head back to the gym for another couple of basketball games this evening. But Peter brought me in today just to share my story in a little bit, like I said, about overcoming obstacles and my journey to the Paralympics. So, I am a three-time Paralympian in the sport of wheelchair rugby for Canada. But let's rewind it a little bit to the beginning of the story. I had education performed to my fingers and legs in 2004. It all started when we were at my family camp in Louisville, which I don't know, about an hour and a half south-east of Calgary. I'm a bird boy born and raised in New York, Canada. Pretty much every weekend growing up. And one day, the family and I had some colder fruit like symptoms. My parents didn't think anything of it. Super healthy until that point. And so, typical parental medicine, food, drink lots of water, translate it off. And hopefully, we'll be able to take a couple of days. And the next day, we realized something started to... Something was more wrong than we initially anticipated. It was very cold, which I know you guys don't know me, but in the wintertime around Jack, I'm always just running very warm. My parents threw me a warm bath to try to warm me up. And then the lips started turning blue. And so, I realized there's something very wrong with this kid. He's not just contracting the common cold. So, they threw me in the truck and drove to the nearest hospital, which was a small county hospital in Vulcan, Alberta. And so, they weren't very well equipped to be dealing with children or having to perform on some of the procedures that they had due that day. By the time we got to the hospital, I was able to stand at the walk into the hospital. I had to carry them. And this was October 17, 2004. And for whatever reason, we had a frequency that day. So, it stars the ambulance helicopter here in Alberta. It was unable to fly. A fixed wing of the aircraft was unable to fly to transport me. And so, an emergency team came down from Calgary. Should have been about an hour or so. I ended up taking essentially twice as long as an ambulance due to weather conditions. And because of what the staff at the hospital did for me in Vulcan, they managed to stabilize me for long enough for that team to come get me. But by the time the infection had happened, the damage was already done on your body when you get a staff infection, which is what was the cost of this incident. Your body tracks preserve, your vital organs, your brain and heart, and the extremities are left without a sufficient blood flow and oxygen. So, by this point, the tissue was unable to recover. I was initially in ICU and life support for the first many weeks. Organisms had failed. I was on dialysis for my kidneys for several months. I was unconscious. I just kept in a medicated coma. Well, a lot of these operations were going on. So, I was pretty aware of what was happening. Just what the doctors were hoping for. And I wouldn't remember a lot of these traumatic experiences. But I think because of the support from my mom, from the rest of my family, we had a friend and family who were bringing in at the hospital, everybody, for my mom and the rest of my family. My mom stayed with me in the hospital, never left for the first six months, probably. She just had clothes brought to the hospital. I was inpatient there, and she didn't want to leave my side. I was trying to do that. Support me, whatever she could. And I think that's a huge part of why I'm able to have the attitude that I did at the time. And earlier on, obviously, it was tough. But I think I decided that I was 10 years old, still my whole life ahead of me. And I could powder it and dwell on the negative and stay in the basement of my parent's house for the rest of my life. Or I could go and make most of the things still. So because of sports, things that are a huge part of my life beforehand, we use sports as a huge part of my life after this happened in order to recover the body and the mind in a healthier way rather than as a 10-year-old sitting in a hospital doing physio and lifting weights or stretching out some rubber bands. It wasn't quite as exciting as sports was before me. And so, earlier on, I went to school at Gordner Townsend in the school of Indianville Children's Hospital. And we have visits from the Calgary Plains who come and play hockey games against us or the Calgary Roughnecks, some of the lacrosse team who come and do hospital visits and sometimes see kids in other rooms and play playboy games with them. And that made me realize that I wanted to pursue sports after my education and not let people back it up. And so, initially, I started playing slide hockey which holding one hockey stick without fingers is difficult enough. When you slide hockey, you have to stick it in your hand. So even more difficult to open. There was a lot of cupcake involved and some prying on it. But I played that as soon as I was healthy enough to really become active again and be able to handle some of the physical contact of plants like hockey after having countless surgeries. I honestly don't know how many surgeries there have been to this day, but early on it seemed like probably a week ago and for something else to be able to work on. Obviously with growing and the amputations, the sea bones kept growing but not always in the way that they were supposed to so they had to go back in for surgeries to branch so you don't have bones trying to grow at the end of your learning. Sorry if that's a little rude from you. And so after a few years we decided that slide hockey wasn't maybe the best fit for me because I wasn't able quite to keep up being duct taped onto the sticks. And so that's when I discovered wheelchair basketball in about 2008 and immediately fell on with that sport. I had plans actually on pursuing a parallel career in the sport of wheelchair basketball and had aspirations of making Team Canada for that. And so I went to Canada Games with Team Alberta in 2011 in Halifax. And that's when I was skilleted by the junior national team so I attended a few training camps with them for basketball and went to a couple tournaments in the States and things like that. I bought pens for a couple of the coaches. I guess I was a bit stubborn or would talk back, which was coaches. I want to appreciate standing up for some of my teammates when I felt they were really mistreating things. So I shot myself in the foot with a little bit of wheelchair basketball but around that time, February 2011 is when I first tried wheelchair rugby and immediately fell on the level of the sport. I grew up pretty avid of a cross player. I was one of the larger kids so I enjoyed the contact and getting out there and roughing around. And the first time I tried wheelchair rugby it's a full contact sport. I remember the first time I collided in my wheelchair with another player and I just immediately fell on level with it. So this was February 2011 and the Team Canada head coach Kevin O'Rourke was the only one to pay at this tournament. And so was my mom on the sideline because her 16-year-old child who she was a little protective of after everything and being through understandably was going to try a new sport with a new group of people mostly grown men or 30s and 40s that she wanted to take along. Supervised. And so after my first team Kevin O'Rourke went out to her and said, introduce yourself. So I was on and said that they had a team going to Germany for a tournament in April of that year and that she would she would like to be a part of that trip if possible. And my mom kind of told me about it knowing that I missed a lot of people for basketball and one of the candidates and all these other events. And so after that game she told me the conversation and at the end of the day asked me if I would be a good basketball player or a good rugby player because I would have to the two you wanted to pursue. And at that time I was fairly quiet. I gave the man a few words and my response to that question was nope. I wasn't ready to make a decision at that point. So after the second game following me Kevin O'Rourke had jokes goes up to my mom again and says we have a national trial next month in Vancouver and if that could be there we'd like to invite him. And so after that conversation her and I had the same conversation and she re-asked the question so are you a good rugby player or a real good basketball player? And again I gave him a few words my response was nope. Still was ready to decide to abandon my being a basketball player just yet. And the final day of that tournament Kevin O'Rourke goes up to my mom again and asks her to let her know that they were planning on bringing 12 players to the London Paralympics the following fall so about 18 months following this conversation and said that if I could be ready that they would like to take me to London for the Paralympics and so my mom relayed the message to me then asked me the question are you a wheelchair rugby player or a real good basketball player? And that's when I decided to her well I guess I said wheelchair rugby now because I could see my dreams of becoming a Paralympian becoming very real very quickly and so that's a climbing on the team initially and then in 2011 disaster struck again I was going in for a fairly routine operation I had a medical device in my chest that was mostly just used for drawn blood out of or for administering medication but at this point it was basically as healthy as one could ask for after everything had entered and so they learned to remove this device while on the operating table I had a cardiac incident where my heart was not beating properly and underwent CPR for 10 or 15 minutes while I was under and on the table and I woke up at 2 and first thing I noticed was I was very cold which again as a person who is always running for other parts I woke up knew something was wrong and I was covered in warm blankets and was still shivering and I remember coming to and being in a room in the ICU with two sticking out of me and a room full of doctors standing around not sure what was going to happen so fortunately obviously they got my heart beating again I'm here today to tell this tale and I remember the first thing that came out of my mouth was my dad was supposed to come and visit after I had woken up from surgery bringing pizza and I woke up and apparently CPR and cardiac arrest was the person very hungry so I woke up and the only thing else concerned about was where my dad was with the pizza and the doctors kind of talk like you're in the ICU but most people aren't conscious here we don't have food like we don't people don't need to be fed and are unconscious so luckily that was just a brief complication or no long-going effects from that I'm very fortunate and thankful to the David not once but twice I should have died and I'm still here to tell the tale and three weeks later I was in Montreal at a training camp with Team Canada much to some of the teams concerned I had a lot of people with eyes on me that trip and we slowly reintroduced me to playing and that was about a year before we won an incredible game and so to this day I don't know for good moments I mean the first time I was 18 years old going like onto the court and running in front of a backstage and I think 18,000 people sitting there seeing the national anthem and seeing the Maple Leafs being raised up in the rafters was a moment that I'll never forget and so I remember first game I believe we were playing and until this point I was a new down team I don't really know what was going on I was still so new before which is crazy to think about going to the Paralympics and being less than two years into the sport obviously I had time to learn different things so I would play a few minutes a game and the coach didn't want to put too much pressure on me or allow me so that game the coach called me and told me what was going on and I just told myself that when I went out there all I could do if I don't know necessarily where to be when at the right time I was just going to go out there as hard as possible because that's why I played two or three minutes into that game I was in the room that night with one of my teammates who was a who was running with me and he was getting to chat with me he was a little bit very excited one of our first game of the tournament and that's when the coach comes to our room and says alright you two we are on the starter line tomorrow so again I was thrown into the deep end and things happened very quickly and that's my my role as to do the the Paralympics and we went to therapy and that was 2012 almost I thought well back then was the crazy thing about so we ended up losing to us very unfortunately in the final the gold medal match of that tournament so I came home and we brought home a silver medal from Canada at Paralympics which again was one of the highlights especially when you're 18 years old just months out of high school really spectacular opportunity and so I continued to play until the Rio Paralympics 2016 and my whole life at that for those four years was basically nothing but rugby I would move wherever the team told me to move I lived in Toronto for a year to pursue better training I lived in Victoria for the one year up to the Rio Paralympics which is not a bad place to be so I was complaining to you all there but after the Rio Games we had a bit we were number one in the world cutting in we won several tournaments a year before internationally and so there's a little bit of pressure and a target on our back in Rio and unfortunately we underperformed and didn't meet those expectations we ended up coming home with a fourth place finish and I was a little bit disturbed after committing four years of my life to this and decided that I wanted to plan for life a little bit outside of rugby and for what life had and still after rugby so I took some time out from the sports I unofficially retired I would like to say and went to State Incalibur to pursue a diploma in architectural technology and while doing that realized that I wasn't quite ready to give up on my dreams of chasing that goal and that I think of myself as a role model for the future turn 80 to the next generation and thought to myself what kind of example am I setting if I just give up on my goals because we do enter into it and so while I was in school I graduated in spring of 2019 and made a return to wheelchair we did that in the national team around the time I graduated I had a conversation with coaches they were accommodating with my school at that point and I finished my degree that spring made a return to the team and here we are three years later when the pandemic hits and so we had four years I guess so we planned on going to Tokyo in 2020 in the fall and obviously everything got pushed back and life was life was as an athlete when you're not giving any no competition in the sport or falling a little bit of a bomb so that was just somebody at that point I think somebody was stuck inside and would work out every once in a while and wasn't doing a whole lot of my life so now things started to return to normal and had some competitions that was very welcomed and luckily the games did still go on in Tokyo in 2021 in the fall everything got pushed back when we were married and we were going to have a competition about open counts in 2020 and that was that unfortunately we were still able to go and compete and then we maybe underperform a little bit of a different I'm not going to put much pressure to remember the number we're going to keep going in but in Tokyo we finished with a fifth place finish so here I am I think you're going to still competing with the team and planning on pursuing the 2024 games in Paris and it's pretty good since that we're only two years ago from that with Tokyo getting pushed back everything is likely to be even flying by we've got a major competition pretty much every year keeping us busy between now and Paris we have World Championships coming up this fall in Denmark so we qualified for that in February and trip to Columbia next year we'll have the Canada meetings in Chile and that will be our fall tournament for the 2024 games and so providing that as well the goal is to continue to pursue that golden level for Canada and hopefully bring it home to all of our very supportive family and friends and fans back home and that kind of brings us to today I guess 11 years later to my preliminary well that's fantastic Zach how do you like doing all the travel after nothing I think I think there was a point where I was a little bit not fed up with travel but it didn't have the same same goal yes it was more off and then COVID definitely changed my perspective really I've been stuck at home mentally without any important competition I felt like a bomb so once things are truly well much more appreciative of an totally changed perspective and I hope on the fact that I get this fantastic opportunity to go represent my country every time I put on that belief on Windows it's a I'd take it okay quite a bit of quite a bit of honor and way to represent my country during this that's fantastic now how did COVID change things for you between Rio and Tokyo there was some interesting months there where a lot of facilities were unavailable to us so early on we had to get a little bit creative we have a little more regular team so we could go over some strategies within the team we had to be able to get together on the court and even early on we might not just do weightlifting facilities we had to get a little creative where at one point early on COVID was using my kitchen furniture to make equipment and filling back packs with water also had many objects to lift around so there was some interesting times early on but things have mostly returned to normal for us luckily here in the gallery and definitely don't miss those early days and what was Tokyo like competing under the conditions of COVID that was definitely different not what we had expected from the Paralympics obviously when they have a facility expecting to fill with I think there was 20,000 seats in the area and none of them were full but on the bright side I was trying to have a positive outlook so it was very well accredited because they were expecting 20,000 screaming fans to be heating it up in there and so we didn't have to worry about overheating anything which was very nice and when there's that many fans it's very tough to hear your teammates or the coaches destruction when you're on the plane so it was oddly quiet for every time but at the same time it did make it a little easier for us to know what everybody was doing for the coach to make sure we were all following instructions properly as possible so with this with these seats so empty who was allowed to watch there were very few people there were actual volunteers obviously to help things run smoothly in the management facility and then we had a number of staff that were allowed to be in there but usually we have a support team 8 and 10 I think we only had two or three of the staff allowed to be on the bench and so changed things up for a little bit but there are still enough people in the building that when we're going out for our stay there will be some commotion still just not as much as was expected for the final few times okay and how did you feel the first time you won that silver medal that's definitely a feeling that I'll never forget every time I see the picture still tiny little 18-year-olds act with this baby face a little more happier not a single error on my chin at that time every time I see that picture it kind of helps me really have that moment experience some emotions against the pride of being able to represent the world very nice very nice does anyone else have a question for Zach feel free to put up your hand or put it in the chat box I'll ask a question hi Zach hello hello how are you I guess what is your resistance to resilience it sounds like you've had more than your fair share of adversity in your life and what do you tell other people when you've got like if they've hit a bump in the road I think so much of it is like I said that attitude shift really long in the hospital really long in the hospital been and told myself I'm not going to let this whole whole back just roll me down too much in life let it ruin my life and I could say you're going to be sad waste my time crying or go out and just live to the fullest and I think that I've taken advantage of that the fact that I'm a team travel world playing sports that I'm absolutely relevant and hopefully making my proud and so some good advice some very good advice I actually heard this earlier this week I was doing a speaking event and I met the mother of a young boy who has had a lot of stress and she said that she made the contact every time she walked from the park to the hospital she started off and it was a real time for me because she said hopefully and they were doing the same for her seeing those smiles and sometimes they're simple but I thought that was such incredible advice and I think I did that myself a little bit or even if I'm having a bit of a top day I don't want bringing people down things like that so I moved the house and I slapped my mom on the face and then after you had a few other people and you see them smiling through the door and you can share your story and share it with us which I was quite impressed by I was wondering do you have any tips for advice that were times where you felt maybe the team performed expectations because there was one time your team came in forth so I just So I was just wondering how you kind of pulled yourselves together, how did you keep your energy up in your good spirits, and what kind of tips do you have for regrouping after something like that? I think when I made my return to the team, after a brief hiatus to go to school, but when I came back I came in with a very different outlook and perspective on the sport of culture early. I told myself that I'm fortunate enough to be playing the game and to keep where there's a game because the sport was fun. And at least if we're up there enjoying ourselves and having fun or getting something out of it, then at that point I think winning is the bonus if that does happen. Because we get these great opportunities. And I feel like I didn't take time to enjoy the Paralympics 2016 anymore because there was so much pressure on myself and the team. And I didn't have this point. And I didn't. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity that I've been fortunate enough to experience three times now. And I feel like I want to take that opportunity a little bit and I want to learn from those states and just try to live in the moment and enjoy the moment. Thank you. Yeah. I think sometimes we forget to enjoy the moment. So I'm glad you raised that. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Catherine, you're next. Hi Zach. Amazing story. Really inspirational. This is really awesome. So whenever you see yourself in five to ten years, what does the future hold for you? So I don't see myself continually after the Paralympics, I don't think. I took that time off to go to school and enjoyed every form of college for architectural technology. So I'm very excited to see what that career has in store for me down the road. So many different avenues that I go with that career. And obviously at some point I would like to settle down and have a start family now. But while on the road all the time, that doesn't seem, which it might be a little bit selfish to do what I do some days. And I don't think that would be fair in the respect of a significant dollar. And so it makes dating interesting at times. So I think that we're going to still keep that on hold until there's no pressure on ourselves to pursue a family in the near future in five to ten years. All the best. Thank you very much. Frank, you're next. Thank you, Zach. Amazing story. Thank you for sharing. The question ahead is, I mean, you've achieved a lot today. You're still going hard and still competing. What do you do? What do you do? What's your downtime? What do you do? So during COVID, just like everybody else, my rate at the time ended up leaving Calgary and moving to Vancouver. And so I was alone. It was COVID, everybody was very lonely. And I had been alone for a long time. But again, my travel schedule didn't allow for raising a puppy, training a puppy, and then didn't prepare to be gone for weeks and weeks at a time. So I got a dog and most of my free time had been outside and doing the outdoors when the weather permits. Obviously, I'm going to snow on the ground and get too far from home, even with work only. But that's why my free time is just any time outside with family friends and my dog these days. Because as much as it might not seem like a full-time gig between training five, six days a week, two to three times a day sometimes, between lifting and video sessions with the team and being on court practicing. And then obviously getting the required amount of sleep to allow the body to cover up for that and finding the time to be cooking healthy and fueling the body. It does take a good time to my day. Yeah, I bet it does. Thank you very much. All right, medicine. Hi, Zach. It was a great story, very motivational. Well, what could be your one line or two, all those who are going through rough times or what we can teach our kids about when things are not really working? I think the last time you have to realize that sometimes things can be difficult at that very moment in time, but they almost always do get better. You might have to be a little patient. For myself, obviously, I was in the hospital for six months and even after I got out it was still very rough. So I recovered from a point where I could be independent and play sports again. Everything that will improve your life or your spirit, I suppose. And so this is the only way it will get better even if at a time it doesn't feel like that's the case. Thank you very much. All right, well, seeing as there seem to be no other questions from the floor. Zach, thank you so much for speaking with us today. I greatly enjoyed your presentation and wish you all the best for the Paris 2024 Parallel Games. Thank you very much. Thank you guys so much for letting me be a part of your medium and busy evening. Thank you. Take care. So as I mentioned, this meeting is being recorded, so I will be happy to share as Zach speaks with everyone post-meeting. And we are now on to adjournment, so thank you to everyone who came to tonight's meeting, which was, of course, presented free for all the attendees. But if you have a few minutes and have a few dollars you'd like to contribute, you can do that on our website at www.jtdw.ngo.donate. As well, I encourage everyone to please follow us on their social media channels. That is it for tonight's meeting. It is 7.51 p.m., so I am adjourning this meeting. Board members, please stick around. We have a board meeting following this. But everyone else, you're welcome to stay and observe or head off as you need to. Thank you for attending, and I hope you have a wonderful evening. Thank you very much for the meeting. I really enjoyed it.