Branch of the Year Award

Branch of the Year Award

Toronto Branch
Robin Fowler, BA'90, MEd'96
President

Under new president Robin Fowler, BA'90, MEd'96, and an excellent board, the Toronto branch drew impressive crowds to an array of events which provided entertainment for graduates and their friends, but also benefited McGill and the community. Among the highlights: a pub crawl attended by 300, a screening of Genie award-winning film Just Watch Me with director Catherine Annau, BA'89, MA'92, a Holiday Party with McGill Chancellor Dick Pound, the always-amusing Leacock Luncheon, and a contemporary art exhibit tour hosted by Power Plant Gallery director Marc Mayer, BA'84. Participants in the Terry Fox Run raised almost $2,000 for cancer research ? which Robin vows to at least double this year ? and the Volunteer Phonathon brought out lots of recent graduates who solicited pledges of $120,000 for their alma mater.

Robin herself volunteered for phonathons as a student, and after graduating she worked in McGill's Development Office for five years. She moved to Toronto in 1997, applying the fundraising skills she learned at McGill in jobs at the Mount Sinai Hospital Foundation, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and Havergal College, an independent girls' school, where she is now Director of Development and External Relations. A great motivator, Robin calls herself "hyperorganized" and in the last year alone has managed "two new jobs, a new house, renovating, training for marathons, getting married, and volunteering for McGill and several other organizations."