BCTF Job Action

Dear Teacher,

 Tickets for the Vancouver International Writers Festival's school events are now on sale. If you have already made your booking, thank you.

Given the current job action, we realize that there may be some confusion or concern about whether field trips to the Festival are permissible or what procedures would have to be followed to allow students to attend our events. This morning we spoke to the BCTF and they confirmed that field trips to Writers Festival events are still permitted.

We understand that in cases where there are insufficient school funds available for the field trip, collecting money from students may still be an obstacle. We have consulted with the BCTF and we have some suggestions to facilitate these matters:

• Principals, if willing, would be able to handle the collection of students' money.
• If not principals, there may be PAC representatives who would be willing to collect the money.
• If neither the principal nor parents can collect the students' money, let us know, and we will make arrangements to waive our non-refundable deposit when your ticket order is placed, plus we will accept payment for the tickets after the job action has ended, when some other arrangements could be made to collect the money.
• If all else fails, students would be able to pay for tickets themselves at the event, as long as we have advance notice.

This email was approved by Richard Hoover, Director of the Field Service Division at the BCTF. You can contact your local president if you have questions.

If you have any questions for the Festival please contact Allison Sullivan in our box office at 604-681-6330 ext. 107 or Hal Wake, Artistic Director, 604-681-6330 ext. 102. We have seats available for a good number of events featuring stellar authors, for all grade levels and we hope this encourages you to join us once again at the festival in October.

Thanks you for your time and consideration,

Hal Wake
Artistic Director
Vancouver International Writers Festival