A Fond Farewell

I would like to introduce you to two very important members of the St Giles family here in Vancouver. Meet Sabrina and Roger Boeni. Sabrina is the North American Junior Centres registrar based at the school and Roger is an intern for St Giles Vancouver.

Roger and Sabrina are originally from Winkel, Switzerland (near Zurich). They first came to St Giles Vancouver in 2010 as Platinum students. They were looking for small-sized classes in a school in Vancouver, and their agent recommended St Giles. So, for 7 weeks during the summer, Roger and Sabrina came to study English with us!

Both of them quickly fell in love with the city. They both talk about the beauty of the scenery in and around Vancouver, as well as the kindness of the people here. While they were here, Roger proposed to Sabrina… and of course she said, “YES!”

They decided to return to Vancouver in 2011 to get married here. Sabrina says, “We wanted to have a special wedding, and we both felt so connected to Vancouver. The city is our second love, and so we thought it would be the perfect place to get married.”

After their wedding, they decided to live here. Roger started the Cambridge FCE course, and Sabrina began to look for a job. One day, Roger came home and told Sabrina that St Giles Vancouver was looking for a Junior Summer Centres registrar. She came in to the school the next day and spoke to Jackie, our Director at that time (Jackie now runs all of the St Giles Junior Centres in the UK, USA and Canada!), and Jackie was so impressed by Sabrina that she hired her to start that very day!

Roger finished his FCE course with a ‘B’, started to do little bits of office work to help out, and then slowly took on intern tasks. He has since become a key member of our office staff! If you need anything done, Roger knows how to do it!

Sadly, at the end of September, Roger and Sabrina are leaving us, and they will be greatly missed by us all once they have gone. When asked about some of their most memorable moments in Vancouver, both mentioned the world-famous ‘Grouse Grind” hike up the side of Grouse Mountain. Sabrina will miss inline skating around the sea wall, while Roger will miss playing hockey.

We are absolutely thrilled to have been a part of Roger and Sabrina’s story. They have been a key part of our staff for the past couple of years and we are going to miss them very much once they leave. But, this is now their second home, and we look forward to welcoming them back to St Giles one day soon!

(Written by Frances Seaton, Director of St Giles Vancouver)

If you would like to learn English in Canada, come and visit our English school in Vancouver!  Please email us at english@stgiles-canada.com for more information.