SCM’s GENERAL BOARD

is student-led and is elected annually at General Conference (formerly ‘National Conference’).

Student Co-Chairs

Sheryl Johnson (Toronto ON)

Sheryl Johnson has been co-chair of SCM Canada since May 2008. Originally from Winnipeg, she is currently an M.Div/MPS student at Emmanuel College in Toronto and a Candidate for Ministry in the United Church. She also serves SCM as local unit coordiantor for the University of Toronto and on the board of the North American Regional Committee. She loves camping, sing-a-longs, planning, urban exploring, reading and road-trips!

[vacant]

Eastern Region Representative

Kaitlyn Duthie-Kannikkatt (Ottawa ON)

Kaitlyn is SCM Canada’s Eastern Region Coordinator. She’s a global politics student at Carleton U in Ottawa. She’s got mad love for community kitchens and lives in a multi-faith intentional community called Faith House, which she shares with 5 other fabulous, justice-loving people. She is currently interning at MiningWatch Canada with some of the coolest people the mining justice movement in Canada has ever seen. She first got involved in SCM by tagging along for the School of the Americas pilgrimage in 2009, which got her hooked on radical faith-seeking-justice stuff, and she’s never looked back. In her spare time, Kaitlyn enjoys sewing, gardening, biking, and dancing to musical soundtracks alone in her living room.

Western Region Representative

Anna Sparks (Vancouver BC)

Anna Sparks grew up in Salmon Arm, BC with her parents and two younger siblings. She has spent her time since high school at two universities, two colleges, one United Church retreat center, travelling in seven countries, trying to learn two languages, and working at a farm, a library, a summer camp, an elementary school and two grocery stores. She is currently lives in Vancouver where she is completing an interdisciplinary degree in Latin American Studies. Some day she hopes to complete her degree so she can spend more time cooking and eating with friends. She joined the board for her first in-person meeting in January and is very excited about working with the lovely people of the SCM.

Anti-Oppression Coordinator

Theo J. Naven (Vancouver BC)

Theo J. Naven is consultant and community programmer who works in health-care, faith-based, academic and radical queer, Trans* and ally communities. Theo’s work often centres around policy, organizational development, sustainability, anti-oppression and accessibility, while working with diverse individuals and communities, including individuals with addictions and substance use histories, individuals of multiple and varying abilities, backgrounds, spiritualities and experiences. Theo is a male-passing/genderqueer Trans* boy/bear who loves diving into communities, projects, and the occasional treasure-filled dumpster.

Communications & Resources Coordinators

Miriam Spies (Toronto SK)

Miriam Spies is a student, advocate, and church geek. She has been involved in The United Church of Canada since she was born and is active at the congregational, conference, and national level. She is the co-chair of the North American Regional Committee (NARC) of the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) and loves discussing how issues of faith, justice, and politics intersect. She is finishing up a Bachelor’s of Journalism this spring and is discerning whether she is called to ordered ministry. She hopes to start a Master’s of Divinity in the fall. She loves SCM!

Gabby Richichi-Fried (Toronto SK)

Gabriella Richichi-Fried is a feminist, activist, and distracted student. She is really excited about SCM being a radical community where her activism and faith are not in contradiction or landing her trips to the principal’s office. At the moment, Gabby finds herself confirmation resource-writing, media advising and communications chairing for an advocacy group for women in politics, internal coordinating for a student union and trudging through a BA in Women and Gender Studies. She loves going on adventures in her sunshine yellow rain boots, especially ones filled with skating, cooperative sports, alternative bookstores and fair-trade coffee.

Fundraising & Finance Coordinator

Kelly Colwell (Toronto ON)

Kelly Colwell is a first-year student at Emmanuel College at the University of Toronto, pursuing a Master of Divinity degree and heading towards some sort of really radical and awesome ministry-related work in the future. She moved to Toronto from Portland, Oregon, last year. With a background in engineering and statistics, she enjoys thinking about numbers, which makes the Fundraising and Finance board position pretty fun. She’s passionate about helping people see the ways that giving up some of their money can make a big difference and enrich their lives as well. Kelly loves talking about meaning, justice, purpose, and equity, and has enjoyed the anti-oppression lens she’s been learning through her work at SCM. She also loves learning languages, spending time outdoors, and cooking.

Outreach Coordinator

Sean Neil-Barron (Ottawa ON)

Sean Neil-Barron is Queer Unitarian Universalist who finds himself trying to understand what it means to be in right relations with each other and the world. Sean is a student, loves to read, has a thing for vigils and is passionate about conflict resolution, interfaith cooperation, Palestinian liberation, bad-dance moves and social change. If you are interested in working on SCM outreach, get a hold of me at outreach@scmcanada.org

Personnel Committee (Senior Friend representative)

Patricia Hayward (Toronto ON)

Treasurer (Senior Friend representative)

Brian Burch (Toronto ON)

EX OFFICIO (Non-Voting)

WSCF North America Regional Rep

Bre Woligroski(Winnipeg MB)

Bre is an activist, a feminist, and a Christian, though not necessarily in that order. She brings a lot of community experience around women’s rights on the local, national, and international levels. She likes Jesus, has too many Star Trek toys, and is trying desperately to be become comfortable in her own skin.

World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) Executive Committee Representative

Alice Glaze (Ottawa ON)

Co-General Secretaries

Jan Braun (Toronto ON)

Jan Guenther Braun took her first steps in the fields of northern Saskatchewan among her Mennonite brothers and sisters. She walked a little further to Winnipeg and Waterloo earning degrees in Theology and English Lit along the way. Not quite a farm, but closest to her farming past, was a six year tenure at Organic Planet Worker Co-op in Winnipeg selling organic groceries. Two and a half years ago she published her first novel called Somewhere Else, which was nominated for a best first fiction prize at the Manitoba Book Awards in 2009. Jan has presented and spoken on numerous panels around the topics of religion and sexuality, as well as community shared agriculture and worker co-ops.

Ryan Tristin Chapman (Toronto ON)

Ryan Tristin Chapman straddles borders of Queer, Trans, Athletic, Spiritual, and Activist communities. While completing his English/Film Studies degree at the University of Victoria, Tristin worked in Queer Campus services and the Interfaith Chaplaincy. He was a varsity long distance swimmer. He is thankful for all the folks who have fed him in many ways. He hopes to help build more bridges, and dreams of a utopic farmboy existence, or living in a treehouse. In the meantime he enjoys gathering or gathering around food and playing in gardens and parks. He needs more kites in his life, enjoys skateboarding badly, playing guitar, and playing most any sport for laughs. He is passionate about anti-oppression, accessibility, low-cost programming and activism, and ethical and local production, particularly of food.

Staff Associate

Chris Miller (Toronto ON)

Chris Miller is the half-time administrator in the SCM Canada General Office. In addition to employment with SCM Canada, he is in his third year of work as the Local Unit Coordinator of the SCM at York University, and was a member of the SCM General Board, serving as the Eastern Region Coordinator and then as a Co-Chair. A graduate in Theology and Anglican Studies from St Paul University in Ottawa, Chris is pursuing on-again off-again part-time graduate studies in Trinity College’s Faculty of Divinity at the University of Toronto, where he is specializing in political theologies, focusing particularly on ecumenical theologies of liberation, resistance, and eco-justice. He is also interested in community development, popular education and critical pedagogy, effective social movement building, non-profit and para-church organization management and governance, and anti-oppressive organizing. Chris also coordinates a lunch club program two days a week at a French language public elementary school in downtown Toronto. In his scarce spare time, Chris enjoys recreational sports with friends, the occasional winter ski trip, playing the guitar (badly), and cooking a healthy meal from local ingredients topped off with a locally brewed beer or wine. Chris is married to Tobi, who’s a social worker here in Toronto.