To all members—this is something that I was asked to send out to all you members to see if anyone is interested—-I did send it out about a month ago and it was on the club website last time I looked—but for those that didnt receive it—-here it is—-please note that there are events such as this several times a year—and so if you cant make it out to one of them , there are always others—-Lynne Kelman

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I’m writing in the hopes you will share with your club members information about the Achieve Anything Foundation and our unique mission to inspire female future leaders in high-tech STEM fields with incredible, FREE, hands-on experience events. Like everyone else around the world, we’ve been adversely affected by the pandemic and unable to organize any events for the past year and a half. Now that vaccines are freely available, and case counts coming (somewhat) under control, we’re slowly gearing up to resume our important work.

Event photographers are needed to help us tell the story of our unique hands-on diversity outreach events, projects and programs. Event photographers regularly get special access to incredible opportunities not normally available to the general public! Your photos will be used in our web, media and social media to attract participants, sponsors, media attention and volunteers so we can continue to grow our free events, projects and programs! Photographer credit is given where possible. For examples of some of the ways your photos might be used, check out www.girlsfly2.ca  and www.achieveanything.ca

In exchange for access to unprecedented experience events, we’re looking for photographers willing to donate their time and unedited, RAW digital photos and video to help us document our events. RAW photos are extremely important to us so that we can edit as appropriate to the medium – plus we often need photos of weird shapes and sizes to fill our print publications. Also we don’t necessarily want the photographer’s perception of a “perfect” photo since our events, projects and programs are unique in the world. Our story is about inspiring female future leaders from shop floor to top floor but it’s equally about age and cultural diversity. When we go through the photos, we need the medium to tell the overall story. And as talented any particular photographer may be, nobody knows better than we do what we’re looking for in telling that story. So sometimes we may choose a “less perfect” photo because of the angle, subject or total content. We also try and showcase the work of many photographers, not just a select few “favourites”.

We have a really great team of volunteer photographers, from amateur to professionals, and they’re always willing to share tips and tricks to help each other develop and grow. For example, on our Navy warship events, within a short time frame photographers may be faced with everything from fluorescent lighting in enclosed spaces below decks, wide angles in blinding sun (or grey overcast) with complicated shadows on deck, to compensating for aircraft movement along with differing main rotor/tail rotor speeds to achieve the proper rotor blur on a passing helicopter doing a SAR demonstration.

If anyone is interested in volunteering with the Achieve Anything Foundation, please direct them to www.achieveanything.ca/volunteer.html and select photographer as the option. Once a person is in our database as a photographer, we’ll send invites to events such as the one below, with a request to RSVP. We’ll keep sending invites as long as the person seems interested in volunteering, or unless they request to be removed from the list.

We also need regular volunteers, and participants – so I hope you will share news of our Foundation and the below event far and wide!

Please feel free to reach out with any questions!

Kirsten

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Invitation: The Sky’s No Limit – Girls Fly Too! 2021

World’s largest Aviation, Aerospace, Marine & Defence diversity outreach event

at the Abbotsford International Airport, Abbotsford BC – Oct. 2-3

As per our recent press release (attached), we’re officially a go for a full event on October 2-3.  We’ll continue vigilantly monitoring the situation in the coming weeks and adjust our plans as needed to ensure a safe and successful event. Given the ongoing pandemic and for the health and safety of all concerned, we’ve also implemented a “fully vaccinated” policy for all participants at our event this year. Participants age 12 and up will be required to show proof of being fully vaccinated in order to gain entry to our event this year (press release attached).

We invite you to join us for the world’s largest diversity outreach event to inspire female future leaders in Aviation, Aerospace, Marine & Defence, as well as other STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) based fields. Without your support, we wouldn’t be able to host this incredibly important diversity outreach event and keep it free for all participants to prevent barriers to participation.

The Sky’s No Limit – Girls Fly Too! is not an air show and the event is not just for “girls”. Everyone is welcome regardless of age, gender or citizenship and no registration is required to participate.

All invited agencies and partners are encouraged to bring any personnel, vessels, vehicles, hands-on equipment and displays that showcase the various aspects of their activities to event participants widely diverse in age, gender and culture. The gauntlet has been dropped for each agency partner to “out-cool” the others! While female role models are important, we don’t specifically seek “all-female” crews, rather any friendly, outgoing personnel that love their profession and are open to a fun, team-based approach towards improving gender and cultural diversity. We want participants to see and feel that diversity is welcomed and encouraged by all members, not just by a particular demographic.

At our last event in 2019, the Canadian and U.S. Military, RCMP, Canadian Coast Guard, and many other agency/industry partners joined forces with well over a billion dollars in aircraft and tactical assets to inspire over 22,000 people from Canada, the U.S. and beyond over the two-day event. We’re thrilled that 1,496 girls and women of all ages had the opportunity to experience the magic of first flight, free, thanks to the generous support of agency, industry and education partners. The 2019 Summary Report and photos may be found here: www.girlsfly2.ca/past_events.html.

We’ve all been hit hard by the pandemic – it’s going to take a team effort to pull ourselves out of the ashes and return to “normal”. But I’d like to remind you that in our previous “normal” women were already appallingly underrepresented in all our target, high-tech STEM-based fields. Numerous reports indicate that women worldwide have been hit hardest by the pandemic and without significant intervention, many will not recover. By taking action now to engage, support and improve the participation of women in high-tech fields, and our economy will prosper in the long term as a result.

Our hands-on outreach approach has proven very successful in awakening women and girls to the many possibilities open to them in high-tech STEM fields. Continuous engagement, financial support and collaborative action is needed by agencies and industry to carry on this momentum and effect long-term change. With time and the data we collect, we look forward to documenting a correlation of our team effort and collective hands-on approach, to an overall improvement of diversity in high-tech STEM fields. Your support is needed more than ever to help us achieve this goal.

I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Best Regards,
Kirsten Brazier
D. Tech. (honoris causa)
President
604-210-4033 ext. 102
 www.achieveanything.ca // www.girlsfly2.ca
  @AchieveAnythingFoundation // @SkysNoLimitGirlsFlyToo
 @AchieveGirl // @she_is_anything
 @achieve.girl // @she.is.anything
 Achieve Anything Foundation