Speakers

Georgina Patko Bio

Georgina Patko is a member of Harbourside Rotary and the Executive Director of Connections Place.  She has 25 years of non-profit management experience in a variety of roles. Her goals are always to work in an environment that satisfies her soul as well as helping to make the world a better place.She has done management consulting for various non-profits. Helping them be as efficient and effective as possible.She recently completed a contract with Progress Place In Toronto where she worked on building public awareness to support human resource development.  Her specialities includefund development for non-profits, community/public relations, communications,Board Development and trainingand community engagement.

What is Cohousing

Georgina moved to Vancouver Island last year with plans to retire to Sooke and prepare for moving into the cohousing development she was planning. The retirement plan was thwarted when she was offered what turned out to be the most rewarding work of her career at Connections Place, but plans for cohousing are still firmly on track and she’s going to share with us the reasons she believes this is such a fabulous opportunity for people who are interested In living their best life as they age in place.

Executive Director/Chair

Philippe Blanchard

As head of the Board of Directors and founder, Philippe oversees the execution of all our operations by providing direction and exercising control over charitable resources and the coordination of directors in their areas of responsibility. Philippe was born and raised in Granby, Quebec, a French province of Canada. In 1988, Philippe joined the Canadian Armed Forces as an Air Force Officer, and served Canada for over 26 years, first as an Air Navigator onboard Canada’s Long-Range Patrol Aircraft CP-140 Aurora, then as an Air Logistics Officer. He graduated in 2008 with a Bachelor of Commerce in Entrepreneurial Management from Royal Roads University (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada), and in 2013, received his Master's Certificate in Project Management from the University of Victoria. Philippe resides in Canada; however, he spends 3-4 months a year in the Philippines to effectively carry out our agenda. Philippe believes that by helping others, it brings true meaning to our own lives, and as a bonus all the smiles and hugs he receives from our beneficiaries.

BIOGRAPHY: Garth is an entrepreneur with a history of six start-ups, several failures, two exits and one acquisition. For the past 14 years he’s owned and operated Allsite IT, an IT Managed Infrastructure company. Clients include Bell-Canada, Carbon Engineering, Hilton Hotels and several Small Medium Businesses. Allsite IT has offices in Victoria, Vancouver and Toronto. 

Garth’s work experience and love of a good story means he translates IT subject matter into interesting and useful and information for small-medium business owners. He tells stories with real world actions owners and managers can take to mitigate the business situations discussed.

The Little Known Story of Notpetya

The NotPetya attack on 27 June 2017 started at a small-medium company serving the Accounting business and spread to affect the US national security supply of vaccines and nearly a fifth of global shipping. The final estimate of the damage was $10 Billion, the most expensive cyberattack ever. Later the US and UK formally blamed Russia for the attack but that didn’t help the small family-owned business that was hand picked by Russia to be “patient zero”. They were not even the target, they were the best available conduit to the target. The owners faced arrest and a class action lawsuit, a SWAT team raided their office. Could it happen to you? Who’s on your client list? Is a client-of-a-client maybe a target or “pathway of interest”? We are interconnected, don’t be the weakest link that catches the blame.