January 4: Vancouver Kick Off

We kicked off the Tour with a good ol' fashioned storyslam. Prior to the event, we had signed up Anja Haman, 2001 Team Canada World Games Gold Medalist and 2017 coach of Fable; Catherine (Chewy) Hui, 2017 Team Canada World Games Bronze Medalist and coach of University of British Columbia Thunderbirds; and Daniela Garcia from Elevate Ultimate Academy's Leadership-In-Training program. The prompt was "when did gender empower or disempower you on an ultimate field?"

After the scheduled program, we opened up the evening into an open mic to invite others to share their stories. An additional 6 people stood up to share personal stories, highlighted by Allison Brown's experience of forming Fable; Laura Mason's experience playing mixed winter league with an all-women team; and Celia Brogan's experience on Mastodon, Vancouver's Mixed Masters team, where rather than gender disappear to focus on skill, Mastodon worked hard to combine how men and women play on the field to create a new strategy. 

It was an incredible first evening of the tour and we look forward to the next stops!