Greer Family News July 15, 2007: A Year to Celebrate

(l-r) Karalee, David, Allen, Kevin, and Jocelyn Greer

The year 2007 is an extraordinary one for the Greer family of Vancouver, BC. Just some of the things we are celebrating this year:

• David and Karalee's twenty-fifth wedding anniversary
• David's fiftieth birthday
• Jocelyn's graduation from high school
• Kevin's sixteenth birthday

We have much to be grateful for. We are all healthy and engaged in our activities. We hope that you enjoy seeing and reading more about what we have been up to.

Children's Sports

Allen (#13) kicking the soccer ball

Jocelyn, Kevin, and Allen continue to be active in sports. All three took part in multiple sports through the fall, winter, and spring. We have created a pictorial featuring all three children and their sports activities.

Jocelyn

Jocelyn at the Wendy's Scholarship Award Ceremony

Jocelyn completed Grade 12 (her last year of high school) in June. She graduated from the International Baccalaureate program at Britannia Secondary High School. Relatives and friends flew into town so that we could all see the graduating class of 2007 walk across the UBC Chan Center stage to receive their diplomas and scholarships. Finishing IB is a major accomplishment on its own. Jocelyn had many other achievements to be proud of:

• Played three sports: volleyball, basketball, and ultimate
• Captain of the Sr. Girl's Basketball Team
• Sr. Female Athlete of the Year
• Traveled to China in the fall of 2006 with more than twenty of her fellow classmates and two teachers.
• She won three scholarships, including a Wendy's of Canada Scholarship with a cash prize.

Kevin

Kevin Dressed Up for End of School Activities

Kevin had an outstanding year, completing his pre-IB Grade 10 year at Britannia Secondary High School. He started the fall with an improved work ethic that saw his marks steadily improve over the year. Kevin had a number of accomplishments:

• Accepted into the International Baccalaureate program at Brit
• Played three sports: soccer, basketball, and ultimate
• Even though he's only in Grade 10, he played for the senior ultimate team
• Captain of the Jr. Boy's Basketball Team
• Jr. Male Athlete of the Year

Allen

Allen on the beach at Spanish Banks, Vancouver

Allen completed Grade Six at West Point Grey Academy. In addition to the regular academic subjects, including French, he also took Spanish. With a solid academic year and a good group of friends, Allen is well prepared to enter Grade Seven at WPGA. Like Jocelyn and Kevin, Allen was active in sports:

• Played for the Striker's recreational soccer team
• Was on the school basketball team and a recreational basketball team
• Selected for the WPGA World Cup soccer team which will be competing in the fall of 2007

Tammy and Meeka

Meeka

In January, we added a second dog to our family. Meeka is a three quarter Bichon and one quarter Maltese. She's still just a puppy and full of energy. She loves to play with Tammy, our year and a half year old Shitu Bichon Poodle.

David's Early Stage Investing

David continues to be an active entrepreneur and early stage investor. He takes an active role in two of the companies he invests in Backbone Systems and MailChannels. He has been attending early stage workshops and gathering resources for both founders and investors on early stage investing. He has gathered these resources together into a single web page that also has details on each of the early stage investments that he has made over the last three years.

Backbone Systems

Sarah Morton, CEO, Backbone Systems

David is an investor and director in Backbone Systems where he works directly with Sarah Morton, Founder and CEO. Sarah is leading a global movement to a completely new way of delivering information technology infrastructure to small and medium businesses. Rather than have a business purchase, build, and maintain expensive capital and people resources, Backbone offers businesses the same software solutions as a low-cost monthly subscription service delivered over the Internet. In May, David, Sarah, Backbone Chairman Basil Peters, and Director Dorian Banks held their first two-day Board retreat up at Whistler.

Blue Joe Coffee

John Shanebrook and AJ Brown, Blue Joe Coffee Founders

In December, 2006, David made an investment in Blue Joe Coffee after his long-time technology friend Mark Klein, told him about his investment in the company. In February, 2007, David traveled to Portland, Oregon where he got to meet Blue Joe Coffee founders John Shanebrook and AJ Brown. He also visited the warehouse and learned how Blue Joe source coffee beans directly from ethical growers. The beans are then roasted in their own roaster in a highly controlled manner to produce outstanding coffee.

MailChannels

Ken Simpson, Founder and CEO MailChannels

Ken Simpson founded MailChannels to fight the scourge of our time: unwanted email in the form of spam. Ken and his team have been studying the whole economy of spammers (yes, they do make a lot of money). They have come up with an approach that attacks the spammers' business model. What's the secret of their patent pending approach? Suspicious email messages are slowed down, rather than being blocked or put in a junk folder. When spammers are slowed down, they quickly give up, resulting in a 90% reduction in spam when MailChannels' solution is deployed in an organization's email infrastructure. David was one of the initial investors in MailChannels and he has been a director of the company since February, 2005.

We Celebrate Our Marriage in Spain and Portugal

David and Karalee the morning of their 25th anniversary in Sagres, Portugal

It seems like a short time ago that we got married. The years fly past with amazing speed. We still don't know how Jocelyn became old enough to graduate from high school. To help keep things in perspective, David arranged a surprise trip to Spain and Portugal for Karalee. We spent eighteen days in April, traveling from Madrid to Portugal and back again. In the southwestern town of Sagres, Portugal we celebrated twenty-five years of marriage and togetherness.

Our House Project is Done

Garden and House After Renovations

In previous family updates, we've told you about our house renovation. After years of planning, we moved out of the house and completely updated the 1927 structure. The end result preserves the original style of the house, while making it much more livable for our family. New landscaping has completely transformed our yard. We've created a separate document to show before and after pictures of our project and the changes that we made.