Tickets for what’s believed to be Surrey’s first-ever TEDx event go on sale next Tuesday (Jan. 15). TEDxBearCreekPark is set for April 6 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Centre Stage, inside Surrey City Hall.
“We had 97 people apply to be a speakers for TEDxBearCreekPark,” said organizer and retired principal Alan Warburton. “After a rigorous process, a selection committee created a shortlist of 25 applicants who each attended a 15-minute audition.”
Of that group, 13 people were selected to speak, with one more as an alternate.
“The speakers are truly an outstanding group with diverse topics including medicine, law, science, human experience, spirituality, the environment, etc.,” said Warburton, an Ocean Park resident.
See more: Organizers of Surrey TEDx talk seek ‘inspirational’ speakers (Nov. 1, 2018)
Tickets, once available on Jan. 15, can be purchased from tedxbearcreekpark.ca, for $87 each.
And they’re expected to go fast.
“Based on the high level of interest, we anticipate that we will be sold out within a week of the first day of general sale,” Warburton told the Now-Leader, explaining they are “restricted by TED to sell no more than 100 tickets in our first year of operation.”
Organizers are currently compiling bios and photos of each of the speakers, which should soon be available at tedxbearcreekpark.ca.
But the Now-Leader was given an early look at the roster.
Speakers include “world-renowned” family addiction therapist Candace Platter who says she is “dedicated to bringing ‘A Shift in Thinking’ about what helping an addict really looks like.” Another speaker, Carmelle Kemp, is a self-described “spiritual teacher, mystic and medicine woman” who has travelled the globe studying and training with shamans in the Amazon, gurus in India, monks in Nepal and has been named a “Nagual Shaman in the lineage of Don Miguel Ruiz.”
Another speaker is Cindy Sheldan, a creative director at Vancouver graphic firm SWCA, whose areas of expertise include concept development, packaging design and infographic design.
Sheldan’s bio states in her talk, dubbed Sensation Transference, she “raises awareness and sparks ‘A Shift in Thinking’ in the area of consumer choice, and answers the question ‘Why does wine taste better at the winery than it does at home?'”
Also speaking will be third-year UBC student Hebah Hussaina, founder of Youth for CARE that raises funds and awareness for Surrey Memorial Hospital, who was a recipient of the Now-Leader‘s 2018 Community Leader Award in the Youth Volunteer of the Year category. Her bio states she will offer a “Shift in Thinking” for the “transformation of youth volunteering with leading-edge technologies.”
See also: Surrey Community Leader Award winners revealed
Janet Law, meantime, works in pre- and post-natal care and her bio says she is “passionate about the transformative potential that dwells in each person.” Her talk, titled “Yew-You — & The Family Forest” aims to empower individuals to “breathe, plant a tree, thrive and keep yourself alive.”
Karen Klein Galbraith is a road safety practitioner, in addition to being a certified life coach who is “passionate about making meaningful human connections.” Her talk will focus on “personalizing death” to show “how to become comfortable in our discomfort and how to simply ‘just be’ with those who need us, because they are dying.”
Scientist, inventor and entrepreneur Klaus Oehr will also speak. Oehr has spent the last four years studying the bio-electrochemistry and biophysics of cognitive decline, including Alzheimer’s and other dementias. He aims to provide a shift in thinking that “addresses the prevention and removal of three types of brain protein sludge associated with cognitive decline.”
Another speaker at the April event will be “survival expert” and author Nikki van Schyndel. She once paid someone to abandon her “in the rugged wilderness of British Columbia” for nearly two years. She says this helped her master the “skills of primitive survival,” which she shares in her book, Becoming Wild. Her bio says documentaries and TV shows have followed her “off-the-grid” life in a log cabin she built herself. Today, she forages off the land and sea while living in Echo Bay, a tiny, coastal B.C. community.
Psychologist Rick Bradshaw will present on his area of expertise: psychological trauma, an area which he’s specialized for more than two decades. He’s co-led several research projects, and co-developed, a psychotherapy called “Observed & Experiential Integration” with his colleague, Audrey Cook. The treatment involves a “shift in thinking away from talk therapy and toward neurobiologically-based interventions.”
Roy Campbell is a youth worker in the Delta school district, who currently runs an after-school youth-at-risk program and has worked with at-risk youth for nearly 30 years. As a young, professional rugby player, Campbell overcame various challenges and became an “ultra-endurance athlete.” His bio states those “memorable experience enhanced his determination to empower youth to overcome adversity.”
Sally Claire will deliver a talk about suicide. Claire’s bio says she is a businesswoman, entrepreneur and volunteer in pet therapy for seniors. Her talk, titled “After the ‘S’ word; Why grace and casseroles are important,’ will focus on food, beliefs, language and actions after a death by suicide.
“CDC Certified Divorce Coach” Vindy Teja will deliver a talk on managing the overwhelming experience of a divorce, avoiding costly mistakes, divorcing in a healthy way and a “shift in thinking” for those entering marriage of co-habitation.
Family physician and clinical professor Wayne Phimister – who practices in Abbotsford, Agassiz and Fort Langley – will speak about finding solutions for chronic pain. He will aim to provide a “shift in thinking for chronic pain and how people have the power to change their lives toward a more functional and restored life.”
The alternate is Darren Frew. If he speaks, he will zero in on how to “get much more value from our household garbage – after we have thrown it away.”
TEDxBearCreekPark has received a license to hold its talk through TED, a non-profit foundation devoted to “spreading ideas,” in the form of “short, powerful talks” usually 18 minutes or less.
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