Archived Club News




January 23, 2009: VTFC Awards and AGM Night The annual Victrack Awards and AGM event will be held on Saturday, January 23, 2010 at the Les Passmore Centre, 286 Hampton Road, Victoria. The evening will feature a brief AGM and Election of Officers for the upcoming season, a pizza and dessert dinner, draw prizes, a photo competition and recognition of our athletes, coaches and volunteers. Everyone is invited to attend [there is no charge for the events] and bring along your family members in order to congratulate your fellow athletes and club members for their successes in 2009. As the pizzas need to be ordered to ensure that everyone has enough to eat, please send Eileen Carroll an email to let her know how many people in your family will be attending. Please click on this link to send a message to Eileen. Schedule of Events: 6:00pm to 6:30 pm: Arrival and sign in for the AGM tally. 6:30pm - 7:15pm: Dinner and Dessert. 7:15pm to 7:30 pm: AGM and Election of Club Directors for 2010. 7:30pm to 9:00pm: Awards and Recognitions. 9:00pm: Everyone is invited to help "clean up the hall". Entrance to the Les Passmore Centre If you haven't been to the hall in the Les Passmore Centre, go down the ramp at the front of the Seniors Centre, follow the path along the LEFT side of the building. Go past the main door to the Centre and go a little further until you come to an indent in the building where you will find the entrance to the hall. Don't go into the main part of the senior's centre. Candid Photo Competition Bring along your digital camera, take candid shots during the evening and send them to the website. The best ones will be posted and the one judged "Best in Show" will win a prize. Send your photos to the Website Director by clicking here. Club Directors You do not need to stay away from the evening to avoid becoming a director as all of the current directors have agreed to stand for reelection! Thanks to a great Board of Directors! BUT we could use some help as most of the current directors are parents of older athletes and the end is in sight for their involvement with the club. We would like to suggest that parents of younger athletes could understudy the positions and help out on a "learning basis" for the coming year. In particular we need an accountant to help with the finances as this is a job which is hard to just pick up as a volunteer. This is not a position which requires a lot of time to manage and any offers would be very much appreciated by our coaches and athletes. We also need someone to understudy the current Dogwood Meet Manager as Evelyn is only able to continue in this position for 2010.

December 4-6, 2009: BC Athletics Annual General Meeting Two of our club members attended the Annual General Meeting of our parent organization, BC Athletics. Lin Hopkins, Officials, attended the meetings as the new Vancouver Island representative to the Officials Committee of BC Athletics. Diana Hollefeund attended as the Director of Administration and Planning for BC Athletics. While there was a lot of work and material covered over the two days of meetings, the highlight of the wekend was meeting with officals, coaches and club volunteers from around the province. A number of changes to the JD event program will be initiated this year under the direction of Athletics Canada which is moving to have all provincial Junior Develoment programs come into line with the Long Term Athlete Development Plan. You can check out the LTAD program on the Athletics Canada website. Details of the track event changes [April 2010] and field event changes [April 2011] will be released here as soon as possible.

December 5, 2009: BC Athletics Annual Awards Banquet Congratulations are in order for two of our club athletes for their nominations to the annual awards list. Holly Parent, High Jump, was one of three athletes recognized in the Junior Female Track and Field category. David McKay, Pole Vault, was one of three nominees in the Youth Male Track and Field group. In the Excellence Awards category, Diana Hollefreund was the winner of the 2009 Executive of the Year Award for her work on the Membership Review, Human Resources and Risk Management Projects for the BC Athletics Board of Directors.

October 15, 2009: BC Athletics Junior Development Awards Congratulations to our JD athlete, Angelina Davison-O'Brien, who won the club's only BC Athletics JD Performance Award for 2009. Angelina won for her 800 metre racewalk with a time of 4.44.1 which moved her into the Top Ten performances in this event. Well done! The awards will be presented on Sunday, November 1at the JD awards luncheon in Vancouver.


August 27, 2009: Victrack Goes to the Movies On Wednesday, a number of Victrack athletes and officials participated in the making of a movie at our Oak Bay track. An interesting time was had by all who participated! GordBonwick lined up a number of his athletes to run in a staged 100 metre race along with the "star". Alex Economou, Cody Therrien, Clinton Howard, David Hamdiand Tyler Norman were the athletes in the race and they worked particularly hard for most of the day. At last count [and I left early] they had staged at least 25 races from various spots on the track. Background people were Courtney Roskelley, Sarah Griffin, Marc Bonwick, Kira Craigand Zac Economou. They had an easier job acting as school students watching the track meet. Some of them were able to sit in the stands for most of the day while others had to stand for hours and watch the races [over and over and over]. By early afternoon when the weather warmed up it was difficult to look relaxed while wearing a full sweat suit! The "officials" for the track meet were Ruth Economou, Graham Howardand Diana Hollefreund. They did an official-looking job of timing the races using our own Victrack multi-watches. These watches were of great interest to the film crew and we were able to impress everyone with our expertise! Highlights of the day included: 1. a film crew member who asked the three officials to remove his stitches as he thought that we looked like medical personnel in our navy and white uniforms. 2. the starlet and her friend sitting in the stands at a track meet wearing the cutest shoes I have ever seen at a track meet. 3. the weirdest 100 metre race ever which started in the grassy javelin landing area, crossed the track at about the 50 metre mark and ended with all 5 runners in a single file in lane 6. 4. the "happy" Alex Economou who smiled his way through the entire day, even when he was supposed to be viewing the "star" having a heart attack on the track. Eventually the director had to say "stop smiling so much". Well done everyone and thanks for participating in a unique event!

August 23, 2009: IAAF World Championships Well done, Canada! Some successes and some failures for Canada were recorded this past week but we all congratulate our athletes for making the team and for their outstanding efforts in pursuit of their dreams. A personal highlight of this event was the daily posting from Doug Clements who manages the Harry Jerome Track and Field Classic on Facebook. If you are not a member of this group and want to keep up to date with news and rankings on our Canadian athletes, link up to it now. And check out the August 18 posting of the photo of Sam Effah. Look who is standing directly behind him: a certain Victrack racewalker!


March 23, 2009 Congratulations to Ruth Economou who was recently promoted to a Level 2 Official with BC Athletics after completing the required hours and the Level 2 Clinic. In the photo below Evelyn Parentcongratulates Ruth[left] on her promotion.


January 31, 2009 Congratulations to Holly Parent who was one of three Youth Female athletes honoured at the recent BC Athletics Awards Banquet in Vancouver. Other Vancouver Island Athletic Association athletes honoured at the dinner were Nick Blackburn[Comox Valley], Laura Macauley[Alberni Valley], Hannah Bassett[Nanaimo], Justine Johnson[Pacfic Athletics], Steve Osaduik[Prairie Inn], Sandy Anderson[Peninsula Track Club], and Michelle Stillwell[BC Wheelchair Sports]. Local officials were also honoured and included Alice Kubekand Keith Newell. The one thing that all of these athletes and officials share is their participation in one or many of our own Dogwood Track and Field Meets!
Holly Parent at Canadian Junior Championships, Abbotsford, 2008



May 8, 2008 Congratulation to several of our Victrack athletes for their mention in the Times Colonist today. Check out the great photo of Marc Bonwick in the steeplechase! Holly Parent of Reynolds was selected top female field athlete for her record leap of 1.75 metres in the high jump, eclipsing the former standard of 1.71 metres established in 1981 by former Canadian 800-metre international Trish Wellman of Mount Douglas. The VTFC executive members want to wish all of our athletes a great competition in the Island High School Championships next week!


Congratulations to Eileen Carroll who put together a bid package for the General Motors Making Dreams Possible program. As a result VTFC was the only track and field club in BC to win a coaching grant which will help us provide coaching education for our club coaches. For more information on this program go to GM Making Dreams website by clicking on the Making Dreams logo.


April 5, 2008 Victrack Racewalk Clinic ~ Nanaimo , BC Linda Keatley-Campbell, our senior walks coach, put on a racewalk clinic using the Nanaimo Track and Field Club facility at the Rotary Bowl Stadium in Nanaimo. Assisted by Brian Foan of Nanaimo and featuring a surprise visit from award-wining walker Karen Foan who stopped by to encourage the young athletes, the clinic was a great success and a lspringboard to the spring season. 28 racewalkers from around Vancouver Island attended the clinic including VIAA athletes from Campbell River Christian School, Oceanside Track and Field Club, Victoria Track and Field Club, Comox Valley Cougars and Oceanside Track and Field Club. Victrack athletes attending and benefiting from the special training included Aimeeand Natalie Henderson, Rachel Inglis, Lauren Zosiakand Angelina Davison-O’Brien. The rain managed to hold off until the last few minutes of the track workout but it did get windy and cold [not a great surprise this season] so the group headed into the clubhouse for a “strength and stretching” session. Brian Foan led a session on walks judging while the athletes were working on the track. This will benefit all of our athletes competing in the island series meets as walks judges are always in demand! Thank you Linda, Brian and Karen for their work on this event.
Participants and coaches in the VTFC Walks Clinic.

JANUARY 23 to 25, 2008 Congratulations go to Gerard Dumas, our master pole vault coach and official, who was awarded the Dave Copland Officiating award at the BC Athletics AGM in Vancouver. Gerard is always the first person to arrive for a pole vault meet, he helps with the set up and take down of the equipment and then officiates the meet. Watching Gerard at a pole vault meet is never dull! Our long-serving director, Diana Hollefreund, was awarded the Official of the Year trophy and the Executive of the Year trophy at the same AGM awards dinner in Vancouver. Diana was given recognition for the Level 1 Officials Training Plan which she developed for the island clubs and for her work with VTFC, the VIAA, the BOD of BC Athletics and the BC Summer and BC Disability Games. Diana gives credit to the many volunteers, in particular Lin and David Hopkins of VTFC and Florence and Tom Dingle of Pentrack who assist her with all of her endeavours.