Clovies honour best of Cloverdale businesses, citizens

The best of Cloverdale’s businesses and community organizations were honoured Thursday evening at the fourth-annual Clovies awards.

The evening, hosted by the Cloverdale Chamber of Commerce at the Northview Golf & Country Club, honoured 25 award nominees in nine categories. Businesses of all sizes were recognized, as well as notable not-for-profits and exemplary business people and citizens of the community.

The 2019 Bill Reid Memorial Business Person of the Year went to Dean Moore, owner of Michaud’s Salon & Spa and president of the Cloverdale Business Improvement Association.

The award is given to an individual who promotes the town centre and serves as an inspirational leader, in memory of the late Bill Reid, who was known as a resolute champion for the Cloverdale community.

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For Moore, it was a “big deal” to receive an award with Reid’s name on it. “He was a mentor and an inspiration,” he remembered, as he accepted the Clovie.

“The point of business is profit, yes, but really our success comes through building people. That’s what this room is,” he said, looking out at crowded dining room. “It’s people looking after people.”

The Good Citizenship Award, given to a person who has made “outstanding contributions to the well-being of the Cloverdale community” went to Ursula Maxwell-Lewis, founder of the Cloverdale Reporter and now a dedicated volunteer for many local organizations.

Maxwell-Lewis thanked the Chamber for hosting events that honour so many “absolutely fantastic” citizens of Cloverdale, and acknowledged not just the good citizen nominees but “all the businesses I worked with while I owned the Cloverdale Reporter and later on as a volunteer.”

She returned to the stage soon after, along with Allen Aubert, to accept the Giddy Up Award on behalf of the Friends of the Surrey Museum and Archives Society.

The Giddy Up Award is given to an organization that has that “real get-up and go,” and advocates for the community at large.

The Friends society was honoured in wake of the long-awaited opening for the Museum of Surrey expansion, of which they have been tireless advocates from the very start.

The society formed in 2000 with the intention of collecting funds to build a Surrey museum, and they raised $1.6 million. When it was decided that the museum would be built in two phases, the society gave $1 million towards “phase 1” construction and $200,000 was put into a fund for an eventual “phase 2” construction.

The remaining $400,000 went into an endowment fund, which ensured that admission to the museum would be free for all visitors. (To this day, admission is free of charge due to the society’s support.)

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The museum was completed in 2003, but the society never lost sight of a completed “phase 2,” which would, among other things, double the museum’s footprint and allow the facility to display national travelling exhibits.

In September of 2018, after nearly two decades of working towards building their envisioned Surrey museum, the Friends were able to see the $15.7-million expansion open to the public. The newly-dubbed “Museum of Surrey” draws thousands of people to the downtown business core in Cloverdale and is a large part of what makes Cloverdale a destination for locals, visitors, and, importantly for the business community, potential customers.

Maxwell-Lewis and Aubert accepted the award in memory of Al Cleaver, “one of our late great presidents,” and community champion Bill McNamara, who passed away last week.

The winners of the 2019 Clovies were: