“Home for the Games is enabling us to afford time away from Vancouver during the Games and also provide a hand-up for those in our city in need. The organization is contributing to what will be some of the positive legacy of the 2010 Winter Games.”
–Joan Sangster, Vancouver home stay host
Who We Are
Board Members
Charles Montgomery
Board Chair & Media Consultant
Charles Montgomery brings more than a decade of media and community engagement experience to Home For The Games. Charles is an award-winning journalist and occasional media consultant with a history of service on effective non-profit boards. His writing on communities, culture and history has won numerous Western and Canadian magazine awards.
Lorne Beiles
Board Member
Lorne is a lawyer with over 15 years of experience in the area of tax law, charities and not for profit organizations. Prior to taking on his current position with the Department of Justice, Lorne was a partner with a national law firm where he provided advice to a number of national charities and a national consumer cooperative. Lorne is currently a board member and president of the Vancouver Meals Society (A Loving Spoonful). Lorne has also served on the boards of and advised other local charities including Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival.
Deena Tokaryk
Board Member & Marketing Coordinator
Deena Tokaryk is a marketing-communications specialist with experience in the finance, alternative energy, natural resources, transportation and telecommunications sectors. Deena holds a management diploma in marketing communications from the British Columbia Institute of Technology. She has volunteered her communications expertise to such organizations at Leaders of Tomorrow, Greyhound Dog Society and the BC chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators.
Edward Ho
Board Member & Online Consultant
Edward Ho brings extensive web and systems development experience. Edward graduated from University of British Columbia with an MBA in 1991 and has since worked as a consultant in various firms such as Andersen Consulting and Sierra Systems before starting his own consulting firm Serovia Consulting. At Serovia, he worked with clients such as Telus and ICBC, as well as start-up ventures. He can now be found at MAKE Technologies where he helps clients transform their legacy software into modern web-based applications. Edward has served as a past board member of Out for Kicks soccer league for more than eight years.
Erin Millar
Board Member & Editorial Coordinator
Making the words match the vision is Erin Millar, a freelance writer and editor with Maclean’s, Reader’s Digest, BCBusiness Magazine and others. Erin was a founding editor of Maclean’s OnCampus, a leading website dedicated to daily news and web features about colleges and universities in Canada published by Maclean’s.
Gerard Macdonald
Board Member & Volunteer Coordinator
Gerard is a mechanical engineer by trade and aspires to design active buildings that are able to generate more energy than they use. He has volunteered and helped to organize music festivals in BC and the Yukon and has participated actively at the board level of men’s and youth basketball in Ontario and the Yukon.
Staff
Tracey Axelsson
Acting Project Manager
Tracey Axelsson brings Home For The Games exceptional organizational, non-profit and community engagement experience. As founding executive director of the Co-operative Auto Network and The Company Car, Tracey took the concept of car sharing as it happened in Germany and Switzerland and created what is recognized as the first successful car sharing organization delivered in the English-speaking world. Tracey was named one of BC’s “Top 40 under 40” by Business in Vancouver, was honoured with a YWCA Women of Distinction Award and was twice-recognized by Shared Vision Magazine as a “Visionary.”
Isabelle Swiderski
Branding, Design and Web Development
The branding of HFG and website design and development to facilitate the home stay exchanges were produced with a generous in-kind contribution from Seven25 Design & Typography Inc. Isabelle Swiderski, who founded Seven25 in 2000, brings 15 years of design experience to Home For The Games. She also teaches at Emily Carr University.
Advisors to the Board
Wayne Hartrick
Media Strategy Advisor
As president of Reputations Corporation, Wayne Hartrick has been offering strategic counsel to clients in North America, Europe and Asia for more than 15 years. He has been instrumental in building two successful communications consulting firms, holds an APR (Accreditation in Public Relations), and is an accreditation examiner for the Canadian Public Relations Society.
