Alum Association

My name is Connie Chan, and I am thrilled to be the new President of the York House School Alum Association. 

My family’s York House journey started in 1980 when my sister Carole Chan ’93 started kindergarten. After accompanying my mom to endless pick ups and drop offs at the school, I was eager to kick off my own YHS career when I finally made it to kindergarten in 1982 as a newly minted member of the YHS class of 1995. 

For me, York House has been a family affair. My mom, Mei-ching (May) Chan volunteered extensively during our junior school years and eventually served on the board of governors. As both my grandma and mom graduated from the same outstanding all-girls high school in their native Taiwan, by attending York House, the girls in my generation continued our family tradition of high quality and rigorous education for the girls in our family. I am pleased that we are passing the torch to my daughter Adele who is a member of the YHS Class of 2031. 

York House opened a myriad of opportunities for me to explore my interests both academic and otherwise. During my time in the senior school, I participated in volleyball, tennis, choir and drama alongside my academic work and was a member of the student executive in Grade 12.  After graduating from York House and leaving Vancouver to, among other things, attend undergrad at Wellesley College and law school at the George Washington University Law School, I returned to Vancouver in 2004 to build my life and career which coincided with the return to Vancouver of many of my YHS friends. I am grateful that the friendships formed back in our days at YHS have held firm long past our YHS graduation date and evolved and grown as we navigate different stages of life. 

Over the years, both in chance encounters with other YHS Alum or through participating in Alum Association events, I have been amazed by the generosity of so many individual Alums in their willingness to share their experience and knowledge with others. Since I started serving on the Alum Association Executive in 2019, I have been continually impressed by the energy and ingenuity of my fellow Alum executive members, particularly with finding ways to connect Alum during the pandemic. While we are glad that the era of lockdowns is behind us, one silver lining to that experience was finding ways to include Alums who live outside the Vancouver area in our activities for the first time.  I am eager to continue working to find effective and rewarding ways for Alum to connect in this ever-changing world both in person and virtually.
 
I look forward to seeing you during my time as President and invite you to reach out to let us know how the Alum Association can evolve, grow, and connect with you. 

Sincerely,

Connie Chan ‘95