First Exposure: Getting Started with CP Sports

A blog series by Stephen Lee, CP Alberta Board Member

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Cerebral Palsy Alberta (CPAA). To celebrate this milestone, I am sharing a series of stories about my involvement as a volunteer, board member and supporter with the organization and its programs over the past five decades.

The story begins in the early 1980s, during a time when I was participating in sports. While competing in track and field in the early 1980s, I became involved with CPAA and its efforts to support athletes with Cerebral Palsy. CPAA worked with others to help establish the Alberta Cerebral Palsy Sports Association, commonly known as CP Sports. One of the CPAA board members involved in getting CP Sports started was Ken Thomas, who became its first president. Ken would go on to become a world-class track athlete. My involvement at this stage was helping with CP Sports and its activities. Sports provided opportunities for athletes with Cerebral Palsy to participate in competition and develop their abilities.

In 1984, after graduating from Grant MacEwan Community College, I became president of the Alberta Cerebral Palsy Sports Association. CPAA provided important support to CP Sports. This included funding to help send athletes to competitions and sharing office space for the organization. The CP Sports office was located in a surplus classroom at Princeton School in Edmonton. It was a modest space, but it provided a place where the organization could conduct its business and coordinate its activities.

The relationship between CPAA and CP Sports continued to develop. CPAA's support helped athletes participate in competitions.

In 1986, Ken Thomas resigned from the CPAA board. Before leaving the board, he suggested that I should consider joining. I contacted Shirley Church, who was president of CPAA at the time, and told her that I was interested in becoming involved with the board. At the next annual general meeting, I was elected to the CPAA board.

At the time, the board was made up primarily of parents from the Edmonton and Calgary locals. There were also a few members with lived experience and one or two members from other parts of Alberta.

The board met several times a year. Board Members from Edmonton would meet at the parking lot of the Saratoga Restaurant on Highway 2 south of Edmonton. From there, they would travel together to Red Deer to meet with the Calgary group. The meetings included discussions of the organization's business as well as committee work. The board had committees such as personnel and finance, and members would divide into committees for an hour or two during the meeting. For a couple of years, the meetings were held in a boardroom at the Red Deer hospital, with lunch being taken in the hospital cafeteria.

My involvement with CPAA had now moved beyond sports. It was becoming an opportunity to participate directly in the organization's work supporting people with Cerebral Palsy and other disabilities across Alberta.

Outside of my volunteer work, I built a career in information technology with Environment and Climate Change Canada, where I worked for 35 years before retiring in 2019.

This blog series will cover my involvement with CPAA and look back at the past 50 years. Future stories will include the development of community events, fundraising activities, volunteer experiences, and partnerships that helped expand services and opportunities for individuals with cerebral palsy throughout Alberta.