Pride 2015: Vancouver Wrap-Up

2015 was a big year for The Flag Shop’s involvement in LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations with a lot of firsts. We launched our new Pride mini-site: pride.flagshop.com, joined in partnerships, and made donations to important local charities as well as launching a new contest. Read on to see the specifics of our involvement.

This year The Flag Shop came out in a big way. While our company has a longstanding relationship with members of the LGBTQ+ community this year we really took things to the next level.

Beginning in May, with the launch of our Pride-specific website, pride.flagshop.com, our commitment to the cause has really taken on steam. The website not only features our entire Pride product line but has also expanded to include a comprehensive listing of Pride events across Canada, Pride news coverage, a listing of Pride Societies across Canada and more. We are working on adding new products to our line to better serve the LGBTQ+ community.

Clockwise (from top-right): Our media wall looking great at this info booth (Photo: Vancouver Pride); Two of our Pride booth workers; A custom sewn Transgender flag for PFLAG Vancouver; One of our furry booth volunteers; Some Flag Shop paper flags adorning some fabulous shopping carts in the parade. (Photos: Rebecca Love)

Clockwise (from top-right): Our media wall looking great at this info booth (Photo: Vancouver Pride); Two of our Pride booth workers; A custom sewn Transgender flag for PFLAG Vancouver; One of our furry booth volunteers; Some Flag Shop paper flags adorning some fabulous shopping carts in the parade. (Photos: Rebecca Love)

We also deepened our involvement with local charitable organizations. We recently worked with the Vancouver Pride Society to produce a media wall for them as well as running a Pride flag booth at the Vancouver Pride Festival with proceeds being donated. We also donated a hand-sewn transgender flag for PFLAG Vancouver, an organization that speaks for a more accepting Canadian society in regards to sexual orientation and gender identity issues.

From left to right: A standing banner outside of the Out on Screen Gala Opening; Two retractable banners fresh off the press in our production warehouse.

From left to right: A gamma banner outside of the Out on Screen Gala Opening; Two retractable banners fresh off the press in our production warehouse.

The Vancouver Queer Film Festival has some great new banners at a discount as a result of another print partnership, this time with their organizer, Out on Screen.

From left to right: Early Bird Winner, Tyler; 2nd Place winner, Kylee; Grand Prize Winner, Zoltan

From left to right: Early Bird Winner, Tyler; 2nd Place winner, Kylee; Grand Prize Winner, Zoltan

This was also the year of our first ever #PrideFlag social media contest! In an effort to encourage people to proudly show their Pride Flags all around Vancouver, we launched a photography contest that yielded some great shots and a few excellent winners that helped raise the profile of the Pride flag even further.

From left to right: The Flag Shop Victoria takes part in the local Pride Parade; The Flag Shop London set up a booth at Niagara Pride.

From left to right: The Flag Shop Victoria takes part in the local Pride Parade; The Flag Shop London set up a booth at Niagara Pride.

Better still, it’s not just here in Vancouver that The Flag Shop is involved in Pride activities. Our store in London, Ontario had a great booth set up at Niagara Pride while The Flag Shop Victoria made a giant Pride flag and used a pick-up truck to drive it in the local Pride Parade!

All in all we made some great memories through this year’s Vancouver Pride season. Of course Pride issues aren’t just important at one time of year, so we’ll continue to grow and strengthen our participation in supporting LGBTQ+ people as an ally. What is coming next? I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.

Our First Ever #PrideFlag Contest

The Vancouver Pride Parade is fast approaching, and things are getting rather technicoloured here at The Flag Shop. We love the pride flag (a lot!), and we want to see it out in the community. But we need your help! This is where we ask you, fellow flag enthusiasts, to snap a picture of pride flags out in the community, and share it with us on Twitter or Instagram!

The Challenge

All you need to do is take a respectful photo of the rainbow pride flag somewhere in your community and then, using your preferred social channel, post the picture to either Twitter or Instagram tagging us here @TheFlagShop and using the hashtag #PrideFlag. You have from now until Sunday, August 2nd at midnight to enter via Twitter and Instagram. One entry per person or organization!

Feeling camera shy?

If social media isn’t your thing, we have another way to enter. Stop by our Flag Shop booth at the Pride Festival on August 2, 2015, and you can enter to win by filling out a ballot. No purchase necessary.

The Prizes

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Two of the flag prizes available in our #PrideFlag Contest. Not pictured: The Canada Pride flag, as it is currently in production.

We have three (3) prizes up for grabs:

  1. EARLY BIRD! The winner of our early bird draw on July 31st will be awarded their very own 33″ x 60″ Pride Pirate flag, made at The Flag Shop Vancouver. Yar! (Value CAD $59.95)
  2. A 36″ x 72″ sewn nylon 6-colour pride flag sewn in-house at The Flag Shop Vancouver. (Value CAD $96.95)
  3. One of the first ever made 36″ x 72″ sewn nylon Canadian pride flag sewn in-house (as we speak!) at The Flag Shop Vancouver. (Value CAD $299.95)

The sewn nylon flags will be drawn for on August 4th at approximately 12:00 pm.

Additional Information

A full version of our official contest rules and regulations is available on our website at: http://vancouver.flagshop.com/pdf/PrideFlag-Contest-Rules-Regs.pdf

Don’t have a flag? We will be handing out 1,000 paper pride flags to our social media followers at the Pride Festival in Vancouver’s West End on August 2nd. Be sure to come and get one for yourself!

The Flag Shop is involved in Pride events all over Canada. For a comprehensive look at The Flag Shop’s involvement, as well as to purchase Pride products online please visit:  http://pride.flagshop.com/.



The Honda Celebration: A Flag Shop ‘Tail’

Above: Celebration of Light banners in 2013 (left) and 2015 (right). The same banners were used with attached black tails for different event dates.

This year the Honda Celebration of Light is turning 25 and as seasoned Vancouverites know, some of the best viewing is from one of the city’s downtown bridges. Every year our client brand.LIVE, the event organizer, works with us at the Flag Shop to deck out the Granville Street bridge end to end with Celebration of Light street banners.

Something that The Flag Shop has been able to do to help reduce costs, and more importantly waste, for the event has been to help brand.LIVE and Celebration of Light re-use their street banners year after year.

Printed on 200 denier Dacron, the banners last far longer than the month or so that they are on display. Following the event, we give the banners a good cleaning and then store them safely for the next year. Then, to keep them current and informative, new tails are produced every year with the event dates listed and replaced on the bottom of the banners. This allows brand.LIVE to reuse the banners but lose none of their informative value.

Now that’s a bright idea!

Do you have a recurring event in your community? Street banner tails are a great way to get more mileage from your banners without missing a chance to inform your audience of a great event! http://www.flagshop.com/street-banners.php

How to fold a Canadian flag

The Vancouver Sun interviewed Susan for Canada Day about the Canadian flag turning 50. The article also includes a video of our store manager, Deanna, giving a brief history of the red ensign as well as describing how most Canadian flags are folded since there is no standardized way.

Deanna

Photograph by: Nick Procaylo, PNG

http://www.vancouversun.com/Canada+time+display+your+colours/11163362/story.html

5th Annual Mike Gibson Memorial Golf Tournament

On June 13th, 2015 family, friends, and fellow golfers will gather for the 5th Annual Mike Gibson Memorial Golf (MGMG) Tournament to raise funds for the Canucks Place Children’s Hospice. The Tournament was started in June 2011 following the death of Vera Gibson’s son Mike who, alongside his high school sweetheart Kelly Pockett, were involved in an accident that took both of their lives while driving back from the family cabin near Penticton.

Each year about 65 participants ranging in age from teens to late sixties enter the Texas Scramble format tournament, which allows players of all skill sets to participate in a fun filled round of 18 holes. Following the tournament portion with prizes up for grabs, there’s a family style BBQ and silent auction / raffle hosted at the Gibson’s cabin. To date, $15,529 has been raised with no plans to end the tournament anytime soon. Vera says that the Canucks Place Children’s Hospice was specifically chosen because “helping other families who are dealing with challenging circumstances feels like a good fit.”

Mike-Gibson-Golf-Tournament-Group-Shot

This year, after realizing that a windsurfing board and laminated photo of Mike used to promote the tournament was on its last leg, Vera visited The Flag Shop Vancouver to inquire about pricing for a custom flag that would be able to replace the damaged board. After coming across Vera during her in store visit (unaware that she was there to explore signage options), President Susan Braverman, touched by the story behind the tournament and Vera’s ability to turn her loss into something positive was happy to donate a flag of Vera’s choice. The final product – a feather flag specially designed for the tournament – speaks for itself!

Feather-Banner

With no official sponsors or staff, the tournament is truly a labor of love. As not only the main organizer but also an accomplished writer and certified life coach, Vera sees her involvement as an investment of time that would have been spent in other ways if Mike were still here. Instead of celebrating future birthdays and holidays together scattered over the years, Vera’s planning and hard work is a condensed ball of energy that gets poured into the weeks leading up to the event and on the tournament day every year. Although the pain that comes from losing a loved one never disappears, we couldn’t image a better way to celebrate Mike’s precious memory. Thank you for letting us be a part of your wonderful event!

If you know of a special event or charity that needs banners or signage, contact us to discuss how we can help your organization shine.

We are wearing pink today!

Staff in our stores across the country wore pink for Pink Shirt Day (February 25th)!

The Flag Shop Vancouver donated 1,000 Anti-Bullying paper stick flags to I Am Someone‘s annual Walk2Talk event on February 22nd.

The Flag Shop in the news for Flag Day

Rebecca Bollwitt of Miss604 wrote this nice profile of us.


Xinhuanet came in to do a photo shoot of Canada flags being made and displayed in our store.

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AM1470 came in to report on us for the radio.

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Phyllis and The Flag Shop Edmonton celebrate Flag Day and 25 years in business.

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Judy Denham from The Flag Shop Saskatoon sewed Canada flags at the Diefenbaker Centre on Flag Day.

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Happy Halloween!

Some highlights from Halloween at The Flag Shop Vancouver this year:


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Pirate Flag

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“Respect Our Teachers” current product availability

Items available by donation:

  • 4″ x 6″ Paper Stick Flags – Suggested donation: $.25 each ($250 per box).
  • 8.5″ x 11″ Posters – Suggested donation: Whatever you want. We just want to see them out there.
  • 2.25″ Round Buttons – Suggested donation: $.25.
  • 2.5″ x 10.5″ Bumper Stickers – Suggested donation: $1

 

Items for sale:

Car Flags


Price: $20 for the public, $10 for teachers with ID

Feather Flags

Price: The discounted prices are FOR teachers or the official organizers supporting teachers. Anyone in the public who wants to support the teachers will receive a 25% discount off the regular prices below.

8.5 feather flag on a 10.2 ft pole
Flag/pole/ground spike: $150.00 (Regular price is $280.00)
Flag/pole/flat metal base: $160.00 (regular price is $305.00)

If you want to buy these à la carte:
Flag – $70 (regular $140)
Pole: $50 (regular $90)
Ground Spike: $30 (regular $50)
Flat Metal base: $40 (regular $75)

 

 

 

 

 

Our Vancouver store is at 1615 Powell Street, and we are open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Please send us photos of all of these items in action! We’d appreciate it.

“Respect Our Teachers” paper flags

 

Paper flags just got here! And by paper flags, we mean just the paper. Now comes the labour intensive part where we hand staple all of them to the sticks.

We invite you to come pick them up in our store (1615 Powell Street) on Saturday afternoon and distribute them at the rallies at the Vancouver Art Gallery (Sunday morning 10 a.m.) and Holland Park in Surrey (Sunday evening 5 p.m.).

The paper flags are FREE to take to rallies, protests, and picket lines. If for some reason they are not all distributed, you can bring them back to us so we can keep giving them out. Or if people start tossing them, they can be collected and brought back. We’ll recycle the ones in rough shape.

Some people have given us donations for the free items to help us cover costs which we definitely appreciate and only use to keep making more items. These are not expected, just appreciated and we wanted to acknowledge that.

The 8.5″x11″ posters are available now.

Everyone has been very cooperative and reasonable with what they take so far, and we really appreciate it! Thanks for letting us help fight this battle.

See the most recent post here.