Kamloops Mayors Gala for the Arts.

John with Dr Jill & Dr Bob

It was a real pleasure and honor to attend the Kamloops BC, Mayors Gala for the Arts on Saturday January 30, 2016. Accent Inns was blessed with a nomination by the Kamloops Festival of the Performing Arts and the Kamloops Symphony. The Gala itself was a fun and playful event with a Shakespearian forest theme with many of the attendees wearing beautiful masks. The event was MC’d by Actor Alan Corbishley and Mayor Peter Milobar. Alan stayed in character all night as “Bishleycor” and added lots of humor to the event.

Three categories were celebrated; Emerging Artist, Business in support of the Arts, Craft & design. Meeting all the nominees before the awards presentation was wonderful. All were very

Lindsay Rainbird & John Espley

deserving and congratulations to the organizers for doing a great job of recognizing the finalists not just the award winners. My hats off to the Mayor and community of Kamloops for taking the time to both support and celebrate the arts community in their region. The arts are often overlooked in their importance to a community but obviously this isn’t so in Kamloops BC. Myself and Regional Sales Manager Lindsay Rainbird were thrilled to be in attendance and even more so when Accent Inns was announced as the winner in our category. Sincere thanks go to Dr. Robert Walters and friends for their work in nominating our little BC company.

We’d like to ask everyone to follow and support the great works and work of all the nominees and winners: Emerging Artist – Kelsey Gilker, Andrew Cooper, Erik Prytula   Craft & Design – Amanda Eccleston , Vaughn Warren  Business in Support of the Arts – ideaLever Solutions, GK Sound

Always remember without the arts we have no culture. Visual, textural arts, dance and music all help to bring a community together. They make us happy and most importantly they allow us to dream.

On behalf of all of us at Accent Inns …. Keep dreaming BC!