Honorary Consul General for Iceland, Glenn Sigurdson

 

Glenn is a renowned mediator and lawyer in his day job, and on the side, he is the Honorary Consul General for Iceland. He is also an author, having penned the book “Vikings on a Prairie Ocean” in which he blends personal memoir, family history and Icelandic lore in a unique and wide-ranging autobiography. Vikings on a Prairie Ocean brings to life the people and places of Lake Winnipeg since the arrival of the Icelandic settlers to its shores in 1875 through the engaging lens of a family legacy of fishing on those waters. (http://prairieocean.ca/)
 
Beyond authoring this book, in his regular life (http://www.glennsigurdson.com/) Glenn Sigurdson has been known as a mediator, negotiator, lawyer, facilitator, adjudicator, economist, teacher, writer, but now all of these influences have melded and today he states, “I lead without owning” “working in the space between”. Much of his work is within and among companies, communities, civil society organizations, and governments in the public and private sectors, building partnerships and resolving differences. My role is to deliver a special kind of leadership as the “man in the middle”. Today many would describe this as the work of a Social Innovator.

 

 Glenn Sigurdson spoke to us in June 2018 and again in April 2023.

Midsummer Festival

Each June we have a booth at the Midsummer Festival on the grounds of the Scandinavian Community Centre. In addition to handing out information about our club, we also sign up new members. Everyone is invited to come out to enjoy this fun annual event. If you have time available, why not consider volunteering to help with our booth?

Christmas Party

 

In December, instead of our usual monthly dinner meeting, we have our annual Christmas party. Our guests are welcomed into the hall by the cheerful sounds of the Runeberg Choir. We have a fabulous Scandinavian Christmas dinner, followed by dancing to live music.

Monthly Dinners

Our dinner schedule for 2024 will be: Feb 14th, Apr 10th, TBD. Social hour starts at 6:00pm, dinner at 7:00pm and the dinner speaker starts at about 8:00pm. The dinner is Scandinavian and usually starts with herring and salmon open-faced sandwich appetizers and ends with coffee/tea and delicious Scandinavian desserts. The theme for the after dinner talk is usually business related and hopefully with a Scandinavian connection but we also schedule other speakers of interest. Two meetings of the year we have no speaker. Instead, in February we have our Annual General meeting where we discuss business for the upcoming year and elect our new board of directors. In June, we have our annual joke-telling contest and discover who, among us, is the best teller of jokes.