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PHOTOS: Campbell River Mirror celebrates female business community

Women of Business special issue published last week

When Jacquie Duns was tasked with coming up with a tag line for one of her clients, she thought it would be a piece of cake.

“To me, it was simple,” Duns says. “Well, Carol, we’ll just say you’re a cut above the rest.”

For a client and business that focuses on giving the best haircuts, it would have been a great tag line, except for one thing. That business owner, Carol Chapman, wasn’t interested in bettering herself if it meant putting another business down.

“That really resonated with me,” Duns told a room of female businesspeople Thursday. “It shaped the way I approached marketing for women on all levels.”

Duns was speaking at the Campbell River Mirror’s annual Women of Business event. Held at the Maritime Heritage Centre, the Mirror hosted about 50 women from the local business community to celebrate their successes and launch our seventh-annual Women of Business special issue (which you can read here).

Online Gourmet Catering provided a delicious mountain of food for guests as Wild Coast Cocktails crafted custom cocktails and Foggdukkers served up hot tea and coffee.

Co-owner and craft bartender Caitlynn Zandvliet said she and co-owner Aaron Mercer were happy to be at the event and used the opportunity to show off what they could do.

“Offering something nice and fun and tasty for the ladies,” said Zandvliet. “They’re all here to mingle and we like to offer them something a little special to go with that.”

Foggdukkers, which has been involved with the Mirror’s Women of Business event since it started, enjoys serving the female business community.

“The ladies are so much fun,” said Kimberly Fairfax. “It’s just beautiful what we have in Campbell River. Our women in Campbell River, we nail it.”

Everyone is pretty down-to-earth as well, Amanda Faulks added.

“They might be running a billion dollar business, but they’ve still got mud on their shoes.”

Mirror Multi-Media representative Mandy-Rae Krack was the event’s keynote speaker. She spoke about her journey as a freediver in a male-dominated industry – her previous career.

Krack is a seven-time world-record holder in freediving. Her records include a no-limits dive to 136 metres, a static breathhold for six minutes and 25 seconds and a self-powered constant weight record of 88 metres.

Krack spoke of how supportive women in the sport are of each other. When she broke the women’s constant weight record in 2004, held at the time by Tanya Streeter (70 metres), Streeter sent her flowers and a note that said “Congratulations, I hope you get more,” to the Cayman Islands. It was a gesture Krack repeated when her own record was broken.

“In a sport where it’s all competitive and you’re taking someone else’s record and it can mean sponsorship for them, it was amazing to see that people weren’t trying to hide their secrets; weren’t trying to keep you down,” she said.

When she was going for the no-limit record, the late Audrey Mestre offered to lend her the equipment.

“I always thought that was amazing,” said Krack. “It’s not about how good you can do. If you’re at the top, you should be able to reach down and help others get up there too.”


@marissatiel
marissa.tiel@campbellrivermirror.com

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