Spencer, Carina

Carina Spencer - Honorary Consul of Sweden in Vancouver

Carina Spencer was born and raised in Småland, Sweden.

Growing up her goal was to become an architect however significant travel and volunteer work abroad led her to Israel then to Vancouver Canada for EXPO 86.

It was there she met her future husband. Upon their completion of university and post secondary education they married and moved to Sweden for 2 years before returning back to Vancouver, BC. In 1992 their first son Joshua was born and Mathias their second was born in 1994.

Together with her husband Doug they owned and built a successful Canadian Foodservice Brokerage Company. With 25 years of ownership came many challenges and rewards along the way but most of all great personal growth and success.

In 2017 they sold their successful business which enabled Carina to further continue her involvement at the Scandinavian Centre in Burnaby. She has had held several positions on different boards since 2012 including President of the Centre, chair of SHS, vice chair of SCS and director of several other Swedish Societies.

Carina has spent most or her life and career involved simultaneously in her Business and Community while volunteering and spending countless hours supporting worthy causes and organizations.

In 2021 she was asked to be the Honorary Consul of Sweden in Vancouver due to her exemplary work in the community and involvement and dedication to Sweden and the Nordic Countries. Happily she took on this position and role in the Fall of 2021.

 

“I am extremely proud and it is an honor for my team member Anna and I to work in our respective roles to represent Sweden and support keeping the consulate running smoothly here in Vancouver.

 

Please come and meet me at the Centre where I will talk about the role of an Honorary Consul, the CETA agreement between Canada and EU as well as discussions about Nordic cooperation and a potential Nordic Chamber of Commerce in the West.

Carina Spencer spoke to us in October 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.