Alumni

We are thrilled that so many past campers and staff retain a strong connection to Centauri. The spirit that you helped infuse and the traditions that you helped to create are still a vital part of our camp each summer. As alumni, you are important to us, whether you were a camper, counsellor or program director. As Alumni, you know the enjoyment, fun and positive impact camp can have on a young person’s life.

What Can I Do As An Alumni?

Write a letter!!
Send us a short note telling us how camp impacted your life and what you are doing now! We will publish your letters in our newsletters and on the website.

 

Introduce a Kid to Camp!
Is there a young person in your life who might benefit from a Centauri summer? Then let us know! We're always delighted to welcome at camp the brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces and even the children of alumni.

Stay in Touch!
Often campers or staff from years ago will reconnect with camp, either simply to share stories and photos, or to enquire about work! Last summer, we welcomed as a program director a wonderful professional artist who had been a camper with us almost a decade earlier! If you would like to learn more about job opportunities, please call.Check out photos from the first 10 years of camp (1994 to 2003). Click here
 

News from Staff Alumni

 

Mike Powell (Staff 1998) 

It's your old staff member, Mike Powell here...I think it was 1999 when I was there so quite a while ago now. Just wanted to say hello and all that. I am now a Child and Youth Worker and I work for a program called SNAP (stop now and plan) which is a cognitive behavioral program where we work with children aged 6-12.  really hope things are going well for you and from the looks of the website, things have advanced at the camp (though i'm sure your hard pressed to find a staff such as the one over the summer of 99). I am a dad to my 4 year old boy named Mason and any day now, my wife will be delivering our second and last baby.
I am the lead singer in a band and play guitar and harmonica on a weekly bases.

 

Leslie Sidley 

 In the 3 years since Leslie left Centauri, she's moved to Winnipeg , where she's  been busily launching her technical theatre career! Leslie has assistant stage managed and stage managed  for many theatre companies in  Winnipeg  (the Manitoba Theatre Centre, Prairie Theatre Exchange, Rainbow Stage, Shakespeare In The Ruins), on many musicals including: Guys & Dolls, The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, Footloose, Annie, Fiddler on the Roof, and The Full Monty; AND some plays including apple by Vern Theissen, Marion Bridge by Daniel MacIvor, Copenhagen by Michael Frayn, and A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare.

Diane McGrath

Diane (who taught Art with us in 2003) has continued with her art and teaching since leaving Centauri, and has also been doing aerial performance work. This summer, she went to Vienna for a month to choreograph an aerial show on a tall ship with a company called the Caravanstage. The show toured for the summer down the Danube river and to Istanbul. If you want to learn more about Diane's art work, check out her new website at: http://web.mac.com/dmcgrath5/iWeb/Artist/Welcome.html Diane continues to paint murals, most recently for the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, doing some scenic painting of an old medieval tapestry for the play "Falstaff". Last year, Diane worked as project manager on a huge job at the Windsor Casino doing 20 ceiling murals with crew of 10 people.

 

Michelle Ma

Michelle has enjoyed the last few years completing her Bachelor of Music in Music Education with Honours, and her Bachelor of Education. She now teaches full time as an instrumental teacher for the York Region District School Board. She teaches grades 6, 7,8 and enjoys working with teenagers for their passion and high energy! Michelle also got married in 2006, lives in Toronto, and has two very lively cats. Michelle loves to bake, and has taken cake decorating classes!

 

Julia Rannala

Hi everyone!  After I finished my degree at Guelph, I went back to school at Sheridan College for their Theatre Production program.  Since then I've been working in and around Toronto, as the stage manager on some smaller shows, and as the apprentice stage manager on larger ones.  At the moment, I'm apprenticing on Opera Atelier's The Return of Ulysses.  Work has also taken me out to the Banff Centre twice.  It's an incredible place up in the Rocky Mountains for artists.  My first thought was "This is like Centauri for grown-ups!"
And I still wear black and knit.

 

Megan Chadwick

Since I left camp: I became a certified teacher. I worked as a project leader for Katimavik.  I taught for 3 years at an Inner City School called Rose Avenue in Toronto focusing primarily on working with ESL and special needs students. I had the privileged to get in on the ground floor of a Literacy camp that partnered Rose Avenue with Branksome Hall.  It was amazing because we were given the support we needed to design and carry out an exciting program based on experiential literacy that motivated and challenged our students skills. This year, I am excited to be in Ottawa with my partner where I am taking some art classes again and getting my yoga teachers certification.

 

Laura Kim

Since Centauri, I've worked in TV production up until now at both Corus Entertainment & Astral Media.  But now I'm off to another adventure (moving to England).  That pretty much sums me up. =)

 

Heather Malcolm

I finished my degree at Queen's, and moved back to Toronto. Went to George Brown College for training as a Pastry Chef and got certified as one in the spring of 2005. After working at a bakery, however, I realized it was not the industry for me. I took a customer service job at Roy Thomson Hall (with a few other Centauri alumnae, actually) and have remained there for the past three years, working RTH and Massey Halls, as well as the International Film Festival gala screenings that take place at RTH.  Outside of work, I can be found wandering the streets of Toronto, or in the audience at Improv Comedy shows put on by a group of my cohorts.

Many Renshaw

I finished my degree in History of Art at the University of Leeds and then set off to teach English in China and travel around Asia.  On my return, I spent a year working in the curatorial department at Tate Britain, before deciding on a change of career...
I have recently received a masters degree in landscape architecture from Edinburgh College of Art with an exchange at Rhode Island School of Design.  After winning awards for my design work, I am now based in a private practice in London and am involved in a range of projects including parks, schools and urban plazas.   

 

Sarah Merry

Sarah's work has been exhibited in London, Toronto, New York and Bogota, where her first International solo exhibition was presented by the Canadian Embassy in Colombia, in 2005.  Over the past five years, her work has been featured on three covers of Risk Magazine; she created and directed COOP, a Toronto co-op gallery for emerging artists and taught art at Pine River Institute, a therapeutic boarding school for adolescents in crisis.  In 2007, Sarah found a way to champion the work of national artists when she founded and curated the Parca Biennale, an exhibition of Canadian art in New York city. Currently, she runs the Yorkville House Studio, a small painting school for all stages of artistic development. http://www.sarahmerry.com/

 

Camper Alumni News and Letters

Zach Kotzer (camper 2000 to 2005)

Zack Kotzer here, January 2010! I currently edit and write a local web magazine, Steel Bananas, starting just over a year we cover the Toronto on a monthly (the 15th of every month to be exact) basis profiling everything from art, musicians both local and passing through, to just general interest and niftyness. The year has been kind to us, we've garnered praise and respect from local voices like The Torontoist and Broken Pencil alike, we've received a grant from the Canadian Council for the Arts for whatever the hell "excellence in merit" means, on top of which we scored a book deal with Tightrope to publish GULCH, an anthology of poetry and prose by our readers and writers, tied together by themes based on the writings of Giles Deleuze. I both contributed and illustrated the book. My specific contributions to the magazine however, including my ongoing series on nerd culture, can be seen here. On top of my zine-like-DIY adventures, as of recently I have begun doing content writing for CTV/CHUM, specifically the SPACE network. I'm majoring in Professional Writing, minor Creative at York.

Kate Bascom

My name is Kate Bascom and I attended Centauri from 2000 - 2004 (if I remember correctly). I just wanted to thank you for the lovely surprise that was your newsletter. I'm in my third year of a Political Science/History degree at Queen's University and am currently bogged down in readings, essays and exams. I couldn't believe that some of my fellow campers were now counsellors or program heads. I just wanted to let you know that I enjoyed my experience at Centauri more then I can ever say. I haven't been able to use my creative 'gifts' lately and I have stayed as far away from the stage as I can (my mom still kids me about my starring role as witch in my second or third year at camp). However I will always cherish my memories from camp and especially our trip around Ireland which I took in my last year (something about around the bend - I thought it was a great play even though the idea of singing in front of an audience scared the daylights out of me). That memory will probably stay with me the longest as travelling has become one of my passions; this summer I have plans to visit Paris, Edinbourough and London. Staying in hostels is now secondhand and I'll always remember performing the play in a room the size of a closet in front of about 10 people. My mom still talks about you, Julie. Always remembering you as having so much passion and enthusiasm for the camp, the kids and the art. Thank you so much for all the memories that are unforgettable. I appreciate all the advice that you both unknowingly doled out and for the fact that when I think back to my time at Centauri, I just smile from all my happy memories. Thank you again

 

 

 

If you want to see photos from previous years, please click here for the photo archive.