Current Board Members 2011 - 2012:
Executive Committee

CHAIR

Ryan Ayre

Ryan was born in Vancouver and has lived in Kitsilano for the past 10 years.  He is a regular user of Pacific Spirit Park, frequently jogging through the trail system and occasionally lounging on the beach.  He also plays ice hockey and softball at UBC and golf at University Golf Club.  Ryan is a partner at Manning Elliott LLP Chartered Accountants specializing in auditing.  Concerned by the development encroaching on the park, Ryan was inspired to join the board of directors of PSPS.  Ryan looks forward to making a positive contribution to PSPS utilizing his financial background, computer programming skills, and passion for preserving the beauty and peacefulness of the park.

Co-CHAIR:  Dave Forsyth

Dave is a registered Professional Engineer and has a small consulting business specializing in industrial control systems and software.  He has lived close to the Park for a large portion of his life and now uses it almost daily for recreation.  Dave has served on the PSPS Board for six years and he also served a one term as Chair.  He is passionate about preserving the Park and has attempted to have it protected from the effects of development at UBC, as well as politically expedient land transfers.  Dave feels that a healthy Society with strong community support is a vital element in our efforts to protect this irreplaceable treasure.

MINUTES: Lance Read

Lance is a retired public school teacher. He attended Kitsilano High School in the 1960s where he became involved in a pollution awareness group, an early form of SPEC. In 1966 he started attending the Wreck Beach sanctuary regularly. In Grade 10, he was selected to attend a student forum at UBC organized by David Suzuki, who was already becoming concerned about the environment. While playing rugby at UBC Lance became intimately connected with the PSP trail system while jogging on them. He joined Save the Whales (Greepeace) in 1973, co-initiated Delta Recycling in 1976, initiated the Salmon in the Classroom program with Bill Bleasdale in 1988, and in 1989 along with teaching colleague Brent Pattison, initiated one of the first paper recycling program in elementary schools. Lance has three children - Taisha b.'83, Stuart b.'85, and Thomas b.'89 and one grandson Daniel b.2008.

TREASURER: Tom Nichols

Tom has been a Board member for most of the years since the Society was founded, including serving as Treasurer for a number of years. He has a particular interest in the protection of the natural resources of the park.  As such, he has served on the Vegetation Group and the Trails Initiatives Group. He is currently one of the project leaders of the Invasive Species Working Group. He is working toward, a Vegetation Management Plan for the Park and a site classification for the park forest.

Directors

Madeleine Barois

Madeleine has lived near and taken advantage of the Pacific Spirit Park’s natural beauty for her whole life. She is a strong advocate for sustainability green action, particularly among Vancouver’s youth community and has taken on many volunteer opportunities and family activities offered by the Pacific Spirit Park Society. Madeleine has recently completed the International Baccalaureate Program and is now an Arts student at UBC. She has been on the Pacific Spirit park board since the fall of 2009. Along with board member Lauren Wright, she has begun and is now co-chair of the PSPS Youth Committee. She strongly believes in encouraging community, notably youth, involvement in promoting and protecting the natural wonders of the Pacific Spirit Park

Stephen Biduk

I have a background in geo-technology and am very familiar with the cliffs, trails and foreshore of Pacific Spirit Regional Park. My family and I cycle and walk in the uplands and play Frisbee along the foreshore. If elected to the Board, I can add wisdom, common sense, intelligence and verve to any discussions regarding the park. My future goals of the park are to preserve its integrity including its viewscapes from Wreck Beach, to build better relations with UBC and to add to Board discussions. I run my own geotechnical business from home and am a dedicated daddy.

Ian Goldman

I have been an immigration lawyer since 1993. My wife and I use the park for regular walks and runs and our two children use the park for walks and the special events organized by PSPS including the “trail troupers” monthly walks. The park has a very special, even spiritual, place in my heart. I want to join the board to help organize events and keep the park protected and maintained.

Emma Harrower

Emma grew up in Vancouver and has been visiting Pacific Spirit Park for twenty years. She has been volunteering with the Camosun Bog Restoration Group since 2002. She received her Bachelor of Science from UBC in 2008. There she formed the UBC Botany Enthusiasts Club, an undergraduate society that sought to bring together students from different faculties (Forestry, Land and Food Systems and Biology) that have an interest in plants, fungi and algae. She received her Master of Science in 2010 from the University of Toronto in mycology, the scientific study of fungi. Her passion is natural history.

Liz Kendler

Liz has a great love of the outdoors – enough to share! She feels that parks are an essential but underappreciated component of the urban ecosystem. They do most of the work, but don’t get much of the credit.  Liz is teacher, and she spends her days working with young people in Langley, learning about bugs, worms, salmon, bats and the many other aspects of our local ecosystems.  She believes in making more space for kids to explore, experiment and experience the wonder around us.  Liz has served on the PSPS board as a member of the Outreach Committee since 2011.

Bruce MacPherson

Bruce was born and raised on West 31st Avenue between Wallace and Crown in Vancouver BC's Dunbar district. Bruce spent most of his youth playing in what is now Pacific Spirit Park, attending Queen Elizabeth Annex, Southlands Elementary, and Lord Byng High School, all close to or right inside Pacific Spirit Park. Bruce graduated with a BA in Geography from UBC in 1982. Many days were spent wandering in this forest beside the City. As an Adult Bruce looks to this beautiful park on the edge of the City as his place of solace, using it for mind clearing walks and as perfect back drop for his photography. Recently Bruce has created an annual fund-raising hike "Take a Walk on the Wild Side" to remember Shane Drinkwine who lost his fight with Leukemia in 2004. Shane was the only child of Bruce's dear friend Pamela Gauthier.  This 20 Km hike through the trails and along the natural beaches of Pacific Spirit Park is roughly based on the hike Bruce took on the day he learned that Shane had lost his fight with Leukemia. Bruce has a life long commitment to preserve this little bit of paradise on the edge of the City.

Veronica Wahl

Veronica (Ronnie) Wahl has been active with environmental stewardship groups for more than ten years.  She has played many roles with these groups from board member, to volunteer, to paid staff.  Ronnie has also been involved in the work of stewardship groups as an academic researcher, completing her Master’s in Environmental Studies degree at York University through doing a case study on a stewardship group in Toronto.  She has also recently completed her PhD in Resource Management and Environmental Studies at UBC, where she worked with eleven stewardship groups in Metro Vancouver to complete her dissertation on the motivations and barriers people have for this type of volunteering.

Judy Williams

Judy has been involved with the preservation of the Point Grey foreshore, (now an important part of Pacific Spirit Regional Park), since 1969. Passionate about ethnobotany since childhood, she recognizes the need to preserve as much habitat as possible for the entire park, believing we must constantly strive to strike a balance between park usage/recreation and the preservation of park habitat. She has sat on the GVRD Parks Forum since 1997 and was on the inaugural PSPS Board. As co-chair of the Fraser River Coalition, she helped win the fight to keep Barnston Island in the ALR. Though now retired, she spent over 40 years teaching special needs secondary students and has a good grasp of the political dynamics at UBC where she earned her Masters in 1974. She is dedicated to a new park centre, to revising the park management plan, to urging UBC to clean up its stormwaters, and to making Night Quest 2007 the best one yet.

Brian Woodcock

Brian is a lover of parks, world travel and mountains - ideally all combined.  At home he has been a long time supporter of Pacific Spirit Park and PSPS.   Living on the Eastern edge of the park adjacent to Camosun Bog, his introduction to Pacific Spirit Park was as a cofounder of Camosun Bog Restoration Group.....a group that has successfully restored Camosun bog , a rare ancient wetlands in our park.   A participant in PSPS affairs, he was a past board member between 2000 and 2004 and chair in the 2001/2002 year.  His career interests include marketing and strategic planning, and he has worked as a corporate marketing manager, university instructor, and recently as a tourism marketing consultant.....and he loves to assist park and environmental groups to use marketing and strategic planning to achieve their goals....when not trekking in strange mountainous areas in Asia....or digging in the muck at Camosun Bog.  

Lauren Wright

Living seconds away from the park her whole life, Lauren has enjoyed the forest in every season as she walks in the trails with her dogs, family, and friends. For as long as she can remember, Lauren has felt a strong connection with the environment and wildlife which sparked in her a desire to make a difference. This has led to a variety of volunteer activities such as creating an environmental club at her high-school, helping out regularly at Holly Hauling, UBC farm, Greenpeace, Vancouver Humane Society/Liberation B.C, and getting involved in different clubs now at UBC. She hopes to make people aware of the value and beauty of Pacific Spirit Park and ensure that it remains preserved and protected for generations to come. After the success of Forum in the Forest, Lauren is anticipating further opportunities to make a positive impact through her position as co-head of the PSPS Youth Committee.