The Greenhorn Chronicles 57: Lynne Denison Foster on Hard Work an
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/02/15
The Greenhorn Chronicles 57: Lynne Denison Foster on Hard Work and Helping the Least of These (4)
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Start with what you know. Before starting here, I worked in four restaurants. I took any position I could get, even Event Coordinator, for a little while. They even made a card. Everyone gets thrown in the dishpit to start, to know what that is like because everyone thinks it is the worst job – because it is.
Lynne Denison Foster: Another opportunity! Thunderbird asked Rebecca to come into the horse world and take over the restaurant that was there. When she took it on, she had an advantage that others who had been in it before her didn’t have. She was a groom. So, she knows what the grooms need when it comes to food service and she had her previous horse show food service experience.The timing was everything. She has been there 11 years and people rave about her food.
Jacobsen: Do what you can reach out to because you will be surprised by the cross-linkages; I can give you an example if you want – it takes about a minute. I have been doing interviews for about a decade with Mensa and various other high-IQ groups. There is one that is called the Mega Society. It was a one-in-a-million society when they had the world’s highest IQ category in Guinness; that was the society they used as the metric. Smart person and a comedy writer for Jimmy Kimmel for about 12 years; there were other members like Marilyn Vos Savant and Keith Raniere. This guy (Raniere) is one of the worst scandals I have seen in the high-IQ world. He formed a multilevel marketing scheme in the 90s. Then he formed a cult. The cult branded like cattle, women. These women would sleep with him. He was involved in trafficking. It was an organization called NXVIM. His name was Vanguard within it. Two ladies who got involved with him were part of a family fortune. He swindled them out of $150,000,000 (USD). If you check their bios, it says, ‘Brief equestrian career.’ I asked my friend about it. I check it up. Those names were Clare and Sara Bronfman. When I talked to one of my bosses, they knew about it. They were in that world. One has been safe-sported, at least. I will be writing on the SafeSport cases. One, at least, is in jail. It is weird to me that this one area was related. With cross-pollination, you should pursue your passions. Explore your talents; they can be dramatic or benign, like being a groom and dishwasher and knowing the timings in the different industries.
Jacobsen: Because of that, there is a lot of corruption in this world. There is a lot of exploitation and things like that. Getting back to the role of the mom, where do you belong?
Foster: I am not an important person, but I am part of the infrastructure because I went in and worked for Dianne. Dianne had some strong principles. Her daughters and son will tell you that as well. She ran the ship. She had expectations. One of the things she told me. “You are Hospitality. But when you are at the Show Park, you look after it. Whatever you can do, do it. If a toilet is plugged, unplug it. If there’s litter on the ground, pick it up and throw it away. It is important that that is part of your role as well. Make sure it is clean and safe.”
It is based on her personality of hospitality and a family-oriented environment. Making sure if there was anything I could do to make anyone else feel welcome and safe, I would do it. My career was in a safety and service-oriented (another word for hospitality) industry, which brings me to my current job at Thunderbird. You read the article. It was about rewards and recognition.
I am now responsible for coordinating Ribbons and Awards, and I volunteered to be the employee advocate. One of my jobs that I felt was necessary, was to provide support to the crew, (which I haven’t done very well this year because I have been super busy), and introduce myself to each one of the employees.
I used to do orientations. We’ve let it slip by the wayside because other things, like COVID have distracted us. We would do orientation sessions at the beginning of the year. Just because you pick up poop or serve coffee or serve food, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be part of the team. I initiated the Tbird Spirit Recognition program. But again, I have to depend on management to see it through because I am a seasonal employee and don’t have the ability to provide special awards and stuff like that. I had it all laid out for them. It has fallen to the wayside because they thought other commitments were more important than that.
I also created the Legacy Club.
Because I did hospitality and fed everybody when this Show Park started up , I knew all of the old regime; the people who were judges and stewards and the coaches 23 years (or so) ago. Eventually, they retired. More people now come to the shows and there are more employees. They don’t know these veterans of the equestrian sport. I know them because I fed them. They were retired people working as officials. I saw Dave Esworthy, an elderly gentleman who was well-respected and known in the industry, wandering around Show Park maybe 12 years ago, looking for someone who knew him so that he could go and watch the Grand Prix.
Jacobsen: No one knew who he was.
Foster: No one working in Hospitality knew who he was. Dianne, by this time, was ill. She had early dementia, and Jane had recently taken over. At the time, Jane didn’t know him because, originally, Jane wasn’t in the equestrian sport world. She was in the skiing world when she was younger [Ed. Olympics, Jane Tidball]. I greeted Dave with pleasure and asked, “Are you going to the Grand Prix field?” I took him to the TimberFrame, introduced him to the hostess and invited him to take a seat.
I thought it was so sad that this man was such a longtime integral and influential contributor to the sport and on that day, he was a nobody until I recognized him. So I approached Jane and Chris and said, “I think we should have…” You will get a kick out of this. I wanted to do something to give recognition to the people who initially supported the equestrian industry years ago because, in Canada, equestrian sport is not a high-visibility, popular sport. Right? Here was Dave; he put his heart and soul into it since he was young. He was a trainer, rider, and coach. He was a judge. That was how I knew him because I fed him as a judge. I introduced him to Chris and Jane. I said, “We should be honouring these people and offering them some kind of membership in a club.”They wholeheartedly agreed. Because everyone knows “Captain Canada,” Ian Millar, we wanted to think of a good name for these folks. You’re going to get a kick out of this. I suggested “The Pasture Prime Club”, but Jane didn’t like it, so we settled for The Legacy Club.
Jacobsen: [Laughing] That’s very good.
Hans De Ceuster (Belgian military, Chief of Humanist Chaplains and 2-Star General, who was visiting me and joined us): [Laughing] You’re past your prime.
Foster: Isn’t that good? When a horse has done its best and is finished doing its job it’s put out to pasture. And prime is a word used to describe the best possible quality or excellence!
Ceuster: [Laughing].
Jacobsen: The girls at the barn would know. That would be something I would say.
Foster: The farm Tiffany operates out of in Belgium is now the retirement farm. Those barns are in a pasture.
Ceuster: Antwerp?
Foster: Just outside of Antwerp.
Ceuster: Vrasene.
Foster: Yes! That’s it!
Ceuster: Yes, I found it on the website.
Foster: Thank you for doing that. That barn is still there. It is now also a breeding farm. Artisan Farms still owns it. The owner of Artisan Farms keeps his favorite horses there and Tiffany’s Olympic horses are retired there. They spend their time in the pasture. They were prime.
Jacobsen: These horses must be incredible.
Foster: Yes! So, we called it the Legacy Club instead. It’s kind of boring, but it does offer membership to someone who has contributed to the industry, is over the age of 70, is not actively working anymore, and has retired basically from whatever their contribution was, but their heart is still there. What they get is free access to the VIP area and the TimberFrame; they can go anywhere in Thunderbird and enjoy being a special person there. There are about five of them that come to the shows these days and have been welcomed into the Club.. Dave passed away as did Alfie Fletcher. To me, that’s a part of honouring the infrastructure there.
Jacobsen: You have to do this.
Foster: You cannot put on a show without having those people.
Jacobsen: The best form of memory right now is institutional memory. Word of mouth degrades fast. Print, few people read. So, having a place for these people, they can tell their stories.
Foster: It is to show that we respect and honour them and have gratitude for them, for they have made the industry what it is now.
Jacobsen: As a teenager, I was kicked out of the house for several months. I was a troublesome kid. I got back! I got back.
Foster: I can tell you. I am surprised you didn’t end up at my house because I took in a lot of kids whose parents kicked them out. After all, they weren’t happy with them.
Jacobsen: One of your kids, you told me, threatened to run away.
Foster: Tiffany only tried twice, but there were other kids. One was hooked on speed. The other was promiscuous. Her stepfather said, “Get the hell out.” She was 16! Tiffany said, “She has nowhere to go. Can she come and stay with us?” Long story short, it was eight years that I lived just outside of Walnut Grove by the Redwoods Golf Course; the house was brand new in 1999 when my girls and I moved in. When I sold the place and went back to North Vancouver, I thought, “This place has had a lot of people (besides my two daughters and me) live in it.” I decided I would figure out how many, using the time frame of anyone who had lived with us for more than three months: 13 people…not all at once, but over the eight years.
I had a homeless guy staying in the basement once. But the girls that worked for Brent and Laura and lived in my house, they felt uncomfortable. Brent was the one who found him. I don’t know where he found this guy. He was trying to help him out, and asked me if he could stay in the basement. I was okay with him. The girls weren’t. I had to ask him to leave. Jesse, Sarah, and Sid were living there when I sold . Jesse and Sarah had been there for three years. They were disappointed when I said I was selling and moving back to North Vancouver. Jesse is the one who is now married to Chris Pack, who also lived in my house for about 2 years.
Jacobsen: It is a very tightknit community, like Fort Langley. Once they are there, they’re there.
Foster: I’m surprised you didn’t come to live at my house! [Laughing] How old are you?
Jacobsen: 34.
Foster: Yes, so you could have been one of those kids.
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