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Survivor Conference 2010, the dates are booked!

Get your calendar, agenda, timer set for November 4-8, 2010 for our next Survivor Conference!

The 2009 Conference was really great and it was the biggest reunion of young adult cancer survivors and supporters to date. We are hoping to grow a little again this year and get up to 75 people!!! For 2010, we will bring the conference to the city. The location will be in St-John’s at the Comfort Inn Hotel. The location is perfect, minutes from the airport with a free shuttle and 10 minutes from downtown St-John’s.

Many of you were part of the adventure last year and, based on your suggestions and comments we will work on making this year’s event even better. The year has just begun and the excitement is already palpable in the office.

As usual, we will have tools and ways to help you get to this “don’t want to miss” weekend, but until the details are on, start saving! Lookout for seat sales (they can be pretty amazing) and we will keep you posted with all the details.

We will let you know as soon as we are ready to take registrations.

Can’t wait!!! 2010 here we come!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted on Jan 13, 2010 - 09:28 PM by Karine

The 2009 Survivor Conference on the Rock…rocked!

Many months ago, we started to plan our Annual Survivor Conference and tried to imagine how great it would be if we had 60 participants. Well, now we can look back and say: We did it and it was…some great!

From October 22-26, 2009, Young Adult Cancer Canada held its 3rd Annual Survivor Conference at The Wilds in Salmonier River, just outside of St. John’s NL. We were very excited to welcome our survivor family to our beautiful home province of Newfoundland and Labrador. A total of 60 individuals (50 survivors and supporters, and 10 facilitators and staff) came from almost every province in Canada, only missing New Brunswick this time.
We were blessed to be in the presence of the beauty and inspiration that makes this group so amazing. We shared wisdom, information, support, and even joined 300 others to climb Signal Hill for YACC’s Annual Climb. The survivors were a diverse group at varying points in their own cancer journeys: with some still in treatment, some recent bone marrow transplant recipients, and with others out of treatment for a number of years. All were driven by the same energy, camaraderie, and hope for their fellow survivors. Witnessing their participation in the Climb touched many of our hearts deeply and was such a beautiful expression of what survivors and supporters go through every day. It snowed, rained, was even sunny at times, but no matter what the weather was, they conquered.

Again, faced with such an intense experience, words are never enough and they rarely express the emotions that come with it, so I will leave you with some of the wisdom that came out of the Survivor Conference from the participants themselves:

Self-care is not selfish
Greater Risk, greater rewards
Focus on smaller goals to attain larger goals
Cancer does not define who we are, we make our own definition
Tough times never last, tough people do.
Direction, not intention set the destination.

This is just a little glimpse of what happened during those four days: the love, the life, and the laughs were omnipresent all weekend.

Events like the Survivor Conference will not work if no one shows up, so we thank the courageous survivors and supporters for taking this leap of faith again this year. We also have to thank the wonderful facilitators that help each year with our events. We could not do this without their expertise, feedback, and support before, during, and after the Conference. To all of them a gigantic thank you!

We are already talking about next year and hopefully, we will get even more people…Dare we dream 100 survivors? Till next year….

Posted on Nov 03, 2009 - 03:44 PM by Karine

Creating the path forward… together

DesktopScenes.com

It’s no secret anymore, this year at the conference; we will have the chance to hear Barry Green, a professional speaker from Newfoundland with lots of energy and lots of heart. The Survivor Conference is about taking some time to take care of ourselves, to learn, to share, to connect, and it’s also about community. We are so much stronger as a group. Try and break one pencil, easy. Try and break 50 pencils…good luck. If you can, let us know, maybe we could do a little fundraising activity with your talent .
Barry will open the conference with an inspiring talk bringing us energy and empowering us to work together to make things better for young adults (individually and as a community).

The tone will be given Thursday night and the rest of the weekend will be all about giving each other’s tools to make the rest of our life the very best it can be. I can’t wait to see you all; we are very close to a full house, only a few spots left…Close to 55 registered!!! Those late comers hurry up.

If you want to learn more on what Barry Green will talk about on Thursday night The_Unity_guy.pdf

Posted on Oct 14, 2009 - 02:16 PM by Karine

Our latest speaker: The Unity Guy…

We just booked another amazing speaker from St. John’s who will open our weekend with an inspiring talk. Mr. Barry L. Green has agreed to join us and share his expertise with our community. Barry describes himself as”The Unity Guy”. For 25 years, he has been working with businesses, government departments and agencies, community service organizations, universities, colleges and schools (from Vancouver to St. Johns and Seattle to Dallas) who seek to achieve greater identity, balance, poise and effectiveness for enhanced success “on and off the field”. He does that by helping forge a sense of real, tangible, taste-able unity of spirit, mission, and action that screams out “purposefulness is joyfulness”. Through it all, his vision in this process is “united we stand, no regrets”. If you want to learn more on Barry you can visit his website: Unity Guy

We will post a more detailed schedule soon, but here is a quick overview of the weekend:

Thursday, October 22, 2009:
Arrivals and opening of the Conference with Barry Green.

Friday, October 23, 2009:
Assessing where we are and where we want to be…
Carl George and his holistic approach to health. Fun time in perspective
Some free time including possibilities like hikes, karaoke, games, fire (and by fire I mean bonfire, not burning down the place )

Saturday, October 24, 2009:
How do I get where I want to be? Life is a highway!??
The 10th Annual Climb of Signal Hill and free time (we will post more detail on the possibilities).
Dinner in the city.

Sunday, October 25, 2009:
Where is YACC and where does it want to be?
What if you wanted to get involved?
Optional workshops on support/awareness/fund development for young adults/free time
Closing the weekend
Free time and Banquet and more free time!!!

Monday, October 26, 2009:
Going back home, see you next year!

Finally, you probably already know, but the deadline for registration is Friday October 2nd, 2009 and there are only 15 spots left…you have to hurry up! If you are still hesitating, I strongly suggest you still send me your application. If anything happens and you see that you can’t make it, I’ll take your name off the list, but at least this will guarantee you a place.
Can’t wait to see you all!

Posted on Sep 16, 2009 - 06:33 PM by Karine

Need help to get on The Rock for the Survivor Conference?

The answer: YACC’s 10th Annual Climb!
As you all know, registrations have started for our Survivor Conference happening from October 22-26, 2009 in St-John’s, NL. In order to help you get to the Conference, we have travel assistance for those who need it, based on the province where you live. Knowing that the travel assistance, as helpful as it is, might not be enough, we have something else to offer you.

This year, YACC is celebrating its 10th Climb anniversary and the Climb happens to be on the same weekend as the Survivor Conference, on Saturday afternoon, October 24, 2009, what a beautiful coincidence! The Climb is approximately a 45 minutes’ walk up Signal Hill, a historical hill downtown St-John’s. The Climb is on a paved road (not involving getting lost in the woods, having to camp in the middle of the climb or rock climbing ).

We have decided to use this opportunity to help you raise some extra funds for your plane ticket! If you register and Climb Signal Hill with us, you could get family and friends to sponsor you. The money you raise (up to the amount of your plane ticket) will go towards your travel. Any money raised above your plane ticket will go into the ‘travel assistance pot’ to help another young adult.

There is no obligation to do so, but if you are interested in adding a Climb to your amazing Survivor Conference weekend, we will make it happen for you. We included The Climb in our Conference schedule and it will be one of the options on Saturday afternoon. If you decide to raise some money and Climb with survivors, family members, and friends from St-John’s and other communities in NL, you won’t miss any scheduled program. We will get anyone interested to Signal Hill on Saturday afternoon and everyone back at the end of the day.

If physically, you are unable to Climb on foot, but still want to raise some money and be part of this symbolic event, you can still register. We are in the process of making the necessary arrangements to get any survivors unable to climb to the top of Signal Hill.

Wondering ‘How do I register?’

To register and start raising some money, connect with (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and she will send you your survivors link. The link was created exclusively for our survivor that is the reason why we ask you to register and do everything using the link we send you. Once you are registered, you will receive a confirmation email and everything you need to start raising some money.
If you want information on the Climb, you can check our website http://www.youngadultcancer.ca/climb/ just don’t register there (the general public will register through our site).

There are two ways to raise pledges for The Climb – online and in person. For online pledges, donors can visit the site (to get the link, again you have to connect with Karine at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
to search for your name and give by credit card. For all other donations, you may download a pledge sheet through your link and go to town! PLEASE NOTE: the physical pledge sheet is for OFFLINE donations only. DO NOT record your ONLINE donations on this form. If you ONLY have ONLINE donations, you DO NOT need to bring a pledge form with you the day of The Climb.

If you asked for travel assistance, we will still send you your cheque and we will keep track of your pledges and amount raised until the conference. After the event, we will send you a cheque with the extra money you raised, up to the total cost of your ticket. If you raised more than the cost of your ticket, the extra money will be added to our travel assistance budget and will help another young adult get to the conference.

Anyone interested in climbing Signal Hill can register and raise money for YACC. As you know, the majority of the money we raise yearly goes to support programs (Retreats, Conferences, Workshops, etc.). This could be an amazing way to raise awareness among your friends and family and also help yourself (and maybe someone else) get to the biggest young adult reunion in Canada.

You still have more than 2 months before the conference, who knows how much you could raise by then.

This year, YACC is dedicating The Climb to the survivors who are no longer with us. Some of them you have known, loved, been inspired by. You can Climb for yourself, someone you love, the cause, anything that gets your heart racing.

For any questions about the process or the Conference, please connect with me at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Posted on Aug 31, 2009 - 07:57 PM by Karine

More details for this years conference

I know, it’s been a while, but it was worth it! Much more information is coming your way for our up-coming Conference. First of all, the program is getting more and more detailed and we will be able to post it soon on the web.

We are already half full. Only 30 spots left. I know it sounds like a lot, but knowing that we open the conference to every young adult in the country who is interested, it is quite small. If you have not already registered, I encourage you to apply as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, our “sex” specialist Sylvie Aubin won’t be able to join us due to a scheduling conflict. We are sad, but we will keep connecting with Sylvie on future projects for sure. This change and the feedback we got from your application forms helped us create the program for this year’s conference. We are trying to come up with the perfect combination of connection, tools to move forward and inspiration to raise awareness and get fired up about the young adult community and what we can do to keep the flame alive.

I should be able to post our program in a couple of weeks, so keep checking our site. www.youngadultcancer.ca

I know many of you are planning your trip to Newfoundland and some of you are looking into staying a couple of extra days in beautiful St-John’s. To help you plan, the Comfort Inn Hotel has set up a rate of $99 per night for survivors/supporters attending the Conference. If you chose to sleep there, you must be booked directly with them at 1.709.753.3500 as this rate is not offered through their central reservation system.

The Comfort Inn is just beside the Airport. If you want to go downtown, you would have to take a taxi (about a 10 minutes ride).
If you are interested, check out their website http://www.comfortinnstjohns.com/

If you need any help or information to plan your time in NL, I suggest you go on the following websites:
http://www.destinationstjohns.com/
http://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/
http://www.stjohns.ca/index.jsp

If you have any questions about the conference, connect with Karine at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Can’t wait to get wild at The Wilds.

Posted on Aug 31, 2009 - 06:49 PM by Karine

Registrations are coming in!

About a month ago, we posted our first official invitation for our next Survivor Conference. Since then, more than 20 of you have already registered and I keep receiving new forms every week! It’s really shaping out to be incredible! YOU have the power to make this event everything that it can be and will be. I don’t want the pace of registration to slow down! With 20 in a month, we will quickly reach our maximum capacity of 60!

Try to picture this; 60 inspiring, fun, loving, informed and motivated survivors in the same room…60 people sharing their story, what they have learned, what works, what doesn’t.. 60 people being silly, relaxing, and having fun…60 people invested and interested in the future of young adults, and working together in making the rest of their life, the best it can be. Do you see it? I do, and it looks amazing!

Many alumni survivors are registering and some new ones as well. Reading everybody’s forms, I feel the same energy. It’s filled with openness to see old friends and make new ones, to share and to try and put our heads together to make things better. Every facilitator we spoke to is excited and feels privilege to be part of it with all of you. At YACC, heads are bubbling, phones are ringing and we are all working together to get things ready for this big event.

If you have not registered yet, do. If you know a survivor who does not know about us, share the good news.

Can’t wait! Can you?

Posted on Aug 07, 2009 - 07:05 PM by Karine

Survivor Conference 2009…I am hooked

By the’ Wannabe Newfoundlander’
Karine Chalifour

For the past couple of months, besides getting used to living in a different province (almost feels like a different country some days…mostly because the ocean is everywhere), talking in English all the time, and decrypting some of the wonderful local Newfoundland expressions, I have been working on our upcoming Survivor Conference. Like all our events, the closer it gets - the more excited we get, but I have to say, I feel this year’s conference is going to be different. Why? Not sure quite yet, but something is up…First of all, we have doubled our capacity. This means that if the excitement is as contagious as it should be, we could have up to 60 survivors/supporters attending the weekend on The Rock! Knowing how incredible the previous conferences were with 30 survivors, can you imagine if this year we double everything, the inspiration, the information and the support - My brain can’t fathom that much “amazingness”. The fact that it will be the biggest young adult reunion in the country also calls for excitement, don’t you think? Also, once again, we have a group of really amazing facilitators and speakers who are psyched to make this year’s conference the best it can be. Building the conference, we always have in mind helping survivors make the rest of their life the best of their life, in order to do that, we have to make the conference the best it can be as well.

Many more things need to be done before the big weekend, many more surprises to come, many registrations need to be filled as well. In the mean time, I hope I gave my conference bug to some of you. The word is out, spread it!

Posted on Jul 13, 2009 - 05:46 PM by Karine