Robbie Burns Dinner for Vancouver & District Labour Council

Toddish McWong gives Address to the Haggis
at VDLC Burns Supper

Friday January 21, 2011
Maritime Labour Centre
Vancouver, BC

The Burns Supper by the Vancouver & District Labour Council is one of my favorite Burns Supper events.  It is also a fundraiser for the Queen Alexandra Elementary School hot lunch program.  I also belong to CUPE 391 Vancouver library workers, and I am a delegate for the VDLC.  This past year has been challenging for Queen Alexandra School, because it was one of the schools named to a short list of schools that could be closed due to budget cuts for Vancouver School Board.

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Paul Sihota, Todd Wong, and Bill Saunders, VDLC President.  Bill is wearing the tam hat and bow-tie in Burns check, that I brought back from the Burns Cottage last year from my trip to Scotland.  Paul and I are looking very dapper in our kilt outfits.  We were finalists in the “Best dressed kilt” contest… that was decided by a final showdown between the two of us.  Paul had great applause, but I pushed it further when I stepped up to the stage edge, and performed a kilt twirl.

This was the third year in a row that I have performed the Address to the Haggis at the VDLC Dinner.  Each year I receive great compliments.  Last year, somebody said they were outside the room, and heard a Scottish voice, but walked back into the banquet hall to see a Chinese face… They were surprised!

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Here is the bottle of Glenlivet single malt scotch that I won as a prize.

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Dinner!  There is a wee bit of haggis on the left side of the plate, but I do prefer the roast beef.

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Jim Sinclair, president of the BC Federation of Labour, gives the toast to Robbie Burns, after giving the Immortal Memory – which recounts the life of Robert Burns.  Sinclair highlighted the reasons why Burns was known as “The Ploughman's Poet”, or “workingman's poet”, emphasizing that Burns was also a public employee, while he was an exiseman (tax collector), which he hated doing, and apparently donated some of the taxes to worthy causes.

2011_January_VDLC_Burns_Dinner 027 Click on this video
If you look closely, you will see an Asian Highland Dancer… well half-Asian….

see more pictures here on my Flickr account:

VDLC Burns Dinner

VDLC Burns Dinner

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