Happiness after RSGC

We checked in with some of your favourite former staff members to find out what has brought them joy since they left the halls of 120 Howland Ave.

John Birkett: COVID has had a big impact on my normal daily life. I’ve spent more than 40 years (including two as president) on the volunteer committee of the National Ballet of Canada. This usually involves all aspects of running a very successful boutique in the theatre, but COVID has kept us out of the theatre and the National Ballet of Canada headquarters. We still have to honour our $150,000 support commitment and other volunteer work has been similarly affected. I’ve been able to attend a few virtual conferences with programmes, but I miss the person-to-person contact. Aside from that, I’ve been reading uncountable numbers of books—some fiction, some not. I do three to five hours a day of brisk walking. Swimming still doesn’t feel comfortable because of COVID. The camera is busy most days. Michael Burgess: I have led a full life since leaving RSGC in 1989! I have held numerous positions, including being a parish priest at various churches in Toronto and Domestic Chaplain to the Archbishop of Toronto. I was made a Canon in 2001 and became Regional Dean of Eglinton Deanery in 2007. I’ve served on a number of boards and committees, including Habitat For Humanity, the Meighan Health Centre, the Toronto Operetta Theatre and the Toronto Branch of the Gilbert and Sullivan Society.

Taking part in theatre has brought me a lot of joy. Since retirement, I’ve been involved in numerous dramatic productions—performing, scripting, narrating, singing and directing. In 2011, I played Julius Caesar for Bard in the Park, and became Artistic Director of Stage Centre Productions, one of Toronto’s most highly regarded community theatre groups, where I was responsible for seven successful seasons during which the company presented 37 productions, 25 of which I directed myself. I am especially proud that SCP presented the North American premiere of Entertaining Angels. I appeared at the Palmerstone Library Theatre as Major Metcalf in a production of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap and as Mr. Browning in Oliver! For the Scarborough Theatre Guild, I directed Dear Charles.

I am honoured to be trusted as Spiritual Director and Confessor to several younger clergy, students and others. My friends are important to me, and I take great delight that among them, I can count five Georgians who were students during my time as Chaplain. It gives me great joy that I continue to live a fulfilling and active life—I sometimes wonder how I managed to find time to work—and I am grateful that I have spent my entire working life doing a job that I love, among people I love, in a place that I love. I consider myself to have been richly blessed, doubly so because I know that I am blessed! Who could be better off than that?

Kelley Fitzpatrick: It’s been an adjustment adapting to life as a Grade 7 teacher at St. George’s in British Columbia, but I’ve really enjoyed discovering our new home province. The B.C. lifestyle suits our family well. The pace of Vancouver is quite different from Toronto, and it has taken us some time to adjust. It’s all about work-life balance. Most people here are very active and spend a great deal of time exploring the outdoor playground that surrounds us.

I love spending time with my family, Dave, Kieran, Quinn and our dog Frodo.

Kelley has really adapted to life in Vancouver.

Kieran spends numerous hours on the water, training with the St. George’s Rowing Team, while Quinn spends most evenings on a soccer pitch. We have had days where we have been up in the mountains cross-country skate skiing in the morning and back down in Vancouver for an afternoon outdoor soccer game wearing shorts and t-shirts.

It makes me happy to be physically active and fit, walking to work chasing the sunshine or embracing the misty mornings in the air. Just being outside, on the ocean, close to the water and wandering the woods and trails is so invigorating. Of course, I love supporting my boys in their sports, connecting with friends and collaborating with colleagues, students and their families. Just like at RSGC, it brings me joy to help others become the best version of themselves. Kelley loves hearing from former students and families. If you would like to get in touch, she can be reached at kfitzpatrick@stgeorges.bc.ca.

Hal Hannaford: I retired from Selwyn House in 2020 and now split my time between Montreal and Kennebunk, Maine. I derive huge joy from playing as much music as I can in Montreal and in Kennebunk Beach. I’m still doing the odd auction. But what really brings me my greatest joy is working in my Sanctuary in Kennebunk. I just love it!

My wife Susan is working feverishly on her next novel, my daughter Alisse and her husband Christopher are doctors at the Hospital at UPenn in Philadelphia, and my son Reid (who left RSGC after Grade 8 in 2009) is a filmmaker in NYC.

And of course, I still miss those wonderful, incredible and joyful RSGC years. Oh yeah, and... Go Habs Go! David Lee: Things have changed slightly since COVID hit. Before the pandemic, I enjoyed presenting wines at food and wine shows, and festivals, working as an extra for a variety of TV shows and movies filmed in Toronto and selling movie memorabilia at comic conventions across Ontario with former RSGC VP Mike Orlando.

Since COVID, I’ve been playing golf and hockey with alumni and current and former RSGC staff and parents, doing voiceover work for numerous companies and narrating instructional videos. I’m also the Chair of the Board of Crestwood Preparatory College (my daughter Julia's former school).

Hal is keeping busy doing the things he loves: auctions, music and working in his sanctuary.

James Lee: Our two boys and the wonderful journey of parenting have brought me so much joy. I always feel that the days may be long at times, but the years are too short!

Despite living far away in West Vancouver and working as the Deputy Head at Collingwood School, I feel great joy in staying connected with my fellow Georgian colleagues and playing rounds of golf with former RSGC faculty, then catching up with stories and a drink. As the years go by, it’s nice to stay in touch and reminisce about those years that continue to sustain lasting memories of joy and happiness. It was truly a fantastic experience over the 11 years that I spent there. Great students and families, and very fond memories of the classes I taught, athletes I coached in volleyball and hockey, and colleagues who were very supportive and who provided a sense of laughter when needed.

Teaching Grade 11 Economics class in third-floor See House, throwing a baseball on the tarmac with Hal Hannaford, and the famous hotdogs at Forest Hill Arena after each home game—great memories. RSGC is a school that understands the definition of community and a true sense of belonging.

Richard Nakatsu: I am doing well and still don’t own a cell phone! I’m still gardening and golfing for the most part, with some home exercise (I roll around on a yoga mat). Former staff member Doug Smith has hosted me for a few suppers. I occasionally spin some yarns over chicken wings and cold beverages with former staff members Mark Ackley and Wayne Dunkley. Some present staff members, Adrian Thornbury and John Evans, have been kind enough to give me golf lessons. I enjoyed watching Afrim Pristine’s series on cheese.

Morris Reid: My life is very simple and I’m enjoying retirement. I thought I might be bored, but I’m not, and the day passes quickly. In the morning, I go for a 40-minute walk, 20 there, 20 back, to Yonge and Finch from where I Iive, to buy my newspapers. On returning home, I read them for an hour, and then do some work—prepare food for or with my wife, or deal with email correspondence. After lunch, I read some more and do some more light work. In the evening, I watch television. In summer, there is gardening; in winter, yard work and shovelling snow.

George Rutherford ’71: A central joy in my life is my family: my wife, to whom I have been married for 39 years, our three daughters, our two sons-in-law and our grandson.

Secondly, my career as Head of School for Holy Trinity School in Richmond Hill for 18 years followed by a three-year Headship at the Canadian College Italy located in Lanciano, Italy, was immensely rewarding. As a strong proponent of leadership as service, I had the pleasure to work with volunteers, faculty and staff, all of whom were dedicated to building strong and vibrant schools based on research-based principles and data. Working as a consultant for CAIServices for the last seven years has also been very rewarding, as I have had the privilege to work with boards and leadership teams in schools across Canada to address and solve problems in order to advance their schools. These career experiences prepared me for my current service as the chair of two Boards in Collingwood,

Ont., where we now live. The move to Collingwood has proven to be a genuine enhancement to our lives, as we now have greater opportunities for active living through hiking, skiing, cycling, curling and golfing.

Finally, I have had more opportunities to draw and paint, which have been pursuits I did not have much time for while working. In the end, I realize that I was indeed fortunate to attend St. George's as a student and then to return there as a teacher for seven years. As a teenager and as a young teacher, St. George's taught me lessons and principles to live by, which have guided me through my life.

Morris is enjoying the simple life of retirement.

James Lee has received much joy from parenting his two boys. He also enjoys staying in touch with his former RSGC colleagues. George's family brings him much joy. Don Schroder: After I left RSGC, I went back to Kingsway College School to teach Middle School math for six years. I retired from teaching this past June.

During the pandemic, the things that have given me joy have been playing golf, tennis and pickleball, as well as cycling and hiking. Lots of classes on our stationary bike. Watching several different series on Netflix and Amazon Prime. Reading. Playing cards and board games with my family. Watching sports on TV, especially the Leafs and Raptors.

Andy Whiteley: On the first Monday after our retirement, Annette and I were in a fully packed Forester on our way to Florida on the first leg of a planned sixmonth lap of North America. We lived in different places along the way, a week in Tobago, a month in Florida, a leisurely amble across US-10 to California, up the Pacific Coast highway from bottom to top seeing a million redwood trees, a week in Vancouver, and a trip west-to-east on the Trans-Canada highway with stops along the way to see family, former colleagues and friends. By June, we were at our cottage and spent the full summer there, a longtime dream fulfilled. I bought myself a pontoon boat and enjoyed countless hours cruising the lake with friends and family. By fall, we realized we needed a place to call home, so we bought and settled into our new home in Niagara-on-theLake. We love life in the town and have become reacquainted with friends and colleagues from my Ridley days.

Life since then has been home in Niagara, summers at the cottage and winters somewhere hot. Florida, California, Maui, Australia and New Zealand. We peaked out in the winter of 2020 with a trip to Tahiti, a 20-day South Pacific cruise from Tahiti to a dozen islands and ended up in Australia.

Since then, we have not travelled at all, but have found a great deal of satisfaction in executing a number of home improvement projects, all on time and on budget, I might add!

So, yes, we have found lots of joy along the way in retirement thus far:

Joy in the luxury of time to spend any way we choose.

Joy in being able to visit with friends and family for extended periods of time.

Joy in the deepening of our relationships.

Joy in watching what other generations are getting up to.

And last but not least, the continuing joy and satisfaction of a job well done, no matter what that job is or how old you are while you’re doing it.

Don has been active, but also enjoying some relaxation. Andy has taken great joy from travelling around the world.

Tristan Bogler ’10 FROM BAY STREET TO THE RINK

BY LAUREN ALPERN

Tristan Bogler ’10 always knew he wanted a career in hockey. When he was in Grade 12, he remembers when the General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs at the time, Brian Burke, came to speak to him and his fellow Georgians in the Chapel. Tristan stopped him at the Chapel door and told him good-naturedly that he was going to take his job. And while Mr. Burke is no longer the Leafs’ GM and Tristan is now working in hockey, he is still aspiring to become one of 32 General Managers in the National Hockey League.

It has been a tumultuous route for Tristan, who studied Kinesiology at Western. Despite internships with the Hamilton Tigercats, the London Knights, Hockey Canada and small roles with the Baycrest Scotiabank ProAm, Tristan absolutely could not find a job in sports after he graduated.

“I put my name and resume on baseballs and sent them to the Blue Jays. I called everybody I could think of. I just couldn’t find a job in sports,” said Tristan. “I ended up in sales roles and in the insurance business, of all places. I knew it wasn’t for me. I was sitting at my desk in 2015, throwing pencils up at the ceiling. I knew where I wanted to be—and that’s the hockey arena.”

That’s when Tristan contacted every single GM in the NHL to ask what he had to do to get where they are. He heard back from two, including Ken Holland of the Detroit Red Wings, who told him that since he didn’t have a history as an NHL player, he would either need a law degree or an MBA. Tristan immediately went back to Western to upgrade his GPA and then got into the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.

“I had no business being there, but I managed to get in because my reason for doing an MBA was so unique,” said Tristan.

Much to Tristan’s dismay, upon graduation, there was still no hockey job for him. He ended up working at Accenture in human capital development. As with everything he did, he saw it as a way to parlay that experience into a hockey

Tristan loves sports and was on several athletics teams while at RSGC. It was a long and winding road, but Tristan has finally found his place in the sports world. He's not going to stop, but he is happy.

experience. He hoped to learn why certain teams work better than others, how to build the culture of a team and how to manage projects, but that didn’t turn out to be possible.

“That industry wasn’t for me and I wasn’t happy. Fast forward to October of 2020, and I said, ‘I’ve had enough.’ I knew I couldn’t keep doing this to myself, so I resigned with nothing in hand. I had no job networks, no nothing,” said Tristan.

“That same week that I left, I spoke to my old manager at Hockey Canada. I ended up with a six-month contract, and that set things in motion to put me in the hockey world. I had had enough of big Bay Street, and the game was there for me when I least expected it.”

That six-month contract has since turned into a full-time gig. Tristan is now the Manager of Philanthropy of the Hockey Canada Foundation.

“Now, instead of building spreadsheets and talking in corporate gibberish, through Hockey Canada Foundation’s Assist Fund, I get to remove financial barriers for families in need from coastto-coast and ultimately grow the game that we all love!” said Tristan.

Tristan has worked hard to get where he is. He is determined, driven and passionate.

“It definitely feels right to be here, but it has come with a lot of frustration and patience. It’s been a big time commitment and there has been a lot of rejection. But to be able to be a part of the game that I love every single day and get paid for it... come on!” said Tristan, who also works as a scout for the Ontario Hockey League’s North Bay Battalion on his own time.

“It’s a dream come true in a sense, but it’s keeping me hungry. I don’t believe in looking in the rearview mirror—I’m keeping one foot forward,” said Tristan. “Until I’ve got the Cup over my shoulders, I’m not going to stop. I’m always going to look for opportunities. As soon as it’s enough, you become lazy, you become sloppy. I’m not there yet. That’s not to say that I’m unhappy, but it’s not the dream yet.”

Fellow Georgian Will Bryant ’10 has known Tristan since Grade 7 and is proud of his sports-loving friend for finally making it in the sports world.

“I’m very happy and proud of Tristan for knowing what he wants to do and never being satisfied with less,” said Will. “He’s definitely not afraid to speak his mind and take risks.”

Which is exactly the message that Tristan has for Georgians of all ages: you have to take risks—especially if you want to find joy and laughter in what you do.

“The place you’re in now is the perfect breeding ground for your ideas. If you want to find joy and laughter, know what you want. Who do you want to be? You don’t have to be those pre-determined visions of what people have for you or whatever path people have for you. If you want to work in hockey, go do it,” said Tristan.

“I just want these guys to know to kick some butt. If you want to be in hockey, you can make it happen. There’s a lot of potential for all Georgians. It matters what you want to do with your life.”

MELODIE SCHAFFER AT SEA, AT LAST

BY LAUREN ALPERN

Melodie Schaffer has always loved to sail. She was a high-performance sailor before she became a biomedical engineer. But she gave up both high-level sailing and her career to go into full-fledged mom mode while she raised her three children: Sierra, Jasper ’18 and Fraser, Class of 2022.

Fast forward 20 years and Melodie decided it was time to get back to her first love: being out on the open water. But this time, she has made the leap from regular sailing to offshore sailing. That means that she can go days or even weeks without seeing land. When she told her family that this is what she wanted to do, they were all very supportive.

“I spoke with everyone in the family and told them that I’d forgotten who I was and how much I love sailing,” said Melodie, who did her first offshore race in 2018. “I’ve been so busy doing ‘mom’. I need to do ‘me’. My whole family was brilliant with it and told me to go for it. It’s been strange for me to have people know me as Melodie, not as Fraser’s mom or Jasper’s mom.”

In January 2020, Melodie left for South Africa to race to Australia as part of the Clipper Round the World race. She flew home for Christmas and then returned to Australia to do the next leg, heading towards China. With her older two kids away at university and Fraser away on an exchange program in France, it was the perfect opportunity to go away for a long race. Unfortunately, COVID changed those plans. The virus was starting to hit China hard in February, and she and her 19 sailing mates on the boat were unable to dock at their planned destination in the country. They eventually ended up in the Philippines, where they were unable to disembark for four days.

“Customs didn’t come to check us in, so we were tied up at the dock along with 10 other boats, but we weren’t allowed to go ashore, and they had the military at the other side of the gate,” said Melodie. “Each day, they would bring us a five-gallon jug of water and we would pass them our garbage, but we couldn't leave! Because we were docked, there weren’t enough beds for everyone, so people ended up sleeping on the deck, on bunks—wherever they could find. Finally, they told us we had to fly out by Friday or we were going to be in lockdown. So we got on a plane and flew home.”

While there was no risk of contracting COVID in the middle of the ocean, it still wreaked havoc on her trip. The boat is still in the Philippines, where Melodie will pick it up at the beginning of March, to resume her leg across the Pacific Ocean to Seattle, delayed by two years.

Melodie has learned to adapt to all sorts of conditions, both on and off the water. On her Clipper Round the World race, the team worked in three-hour shifts, so they would either be working for three hours or have time below deck to rest.

“When you come off watch, you change out of your clothes, go to the bathroom, go lie down and have maybe two and a quarter hours before you have to get back to work. There’s very little time to sleep,” said Melodie. “There are times where I debate: am I going to brush my teeth? Am I going to change my clothes? I need sleep. You pick one thing and that’s what you do. You just adjust to the way of living. If you’re tired, you have to pick and choose.”

Melodie has gotten used to weeks of no sleep, no showers and tic tac breakfasts. She packs for months with two small sacks of gear: two pairs of thermal leggings, three long-sleeve shirts and a couple of sweatshirts. “The conditions are tough, but you learn that you don't really need that much,” said Melodie. “People change their underwear once a week. There are no showers, you take wet wipes and you don’t wash your hair. It ends up being alright. I guess it’s just being out in the open air. There’s no issue as far as cleanliness goes.”

Her youngest son, Fraser, isn’t surprised at his mother’s toughness and adaptability.

“Really, she’s one of the heartiest people I know, so the fact that she’s okay with the conditions and is voluntarily putting herself through it doesn’t surprise me. And getting up every three hours is just like having little kids,” said Fraser. “We've always sailed as a family, but with her moving to offshore sailing, this is pretty much who I imagined her to be: this super hearty sailor who can do anything she puts her mind to.”

Melodie’s daughter, Sierra, who is studying pediatric medicine at St. George’s University of London, England, is so proud of her mother for following her passion.

“It’s such a good role model when you can find your passion and follow it with so much energy and determination. She is incredibly kind and so competitive, has a lot of tenacity and is really passionate about it,” said Sierra. “She loves sailing so much, and you see that she comes alive when she’s on the ocean.”

Melodie does love the ocean. Despite being away from her family and only being able to communicate with them via scarce emails or brief phone calls from the middle of the ocean, it truly brings her joy.

“It’s magical. It’s brutally hard and absolutely magical as well,” said Melodie. “There’s something sort of mesmerizing when you’re out on the ocean. It’s the ongoing infinity. You look and there's nothing to see. You're part of this infinity and it captivates you.”

So what’s next for Melodie? She has teamed up with fellow Canadian Ryan Barkey for a double-handed sailing race around the world, the Globe 40. It will be a tough haul against the world’s most elite sailors. And with only the two of them, the conditions will be even more difficult.

No doubt with Melodie’s passion and determination, only another global pandemic will prevent her from finishing this race.

Follow her story on Instagram at @ whiskeyjack128