Michele Stobie retired from a 30 year Nursing Education career as a professor with Algonquin College’s RN program. She graduated from her basic nursing program in 1996 from the Holy Cross Hospital, Calgary and immediately acquired a teaching certificate from the University of Alberta, Edmonton. After a few years in clinical practice she returned to complete her BSc. Nursing Education and teach in the hospital nursing program at Foothills Hospital, Calgary. Michele moved to Ottawa and joined the faculty at Algonquin College, Ottawa, Ontario in 1972. She stayed there for 31 years which included achieving two Masters Degrees during sabbatical and unpaid academic semesters. They were a Masters of Education (Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario) and Masters in Nursing Science from Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida). The second one frequently found her doing her coursework and thesis research on the beautiful beaches of the Atlantic Ocean.
Michele was always active in her church wherever she was living, usually on the Board, and in her professional association. Music, particularly singing, was always a passion for Michele who was blessed with a clear and haunting sound until post Covid. Retirement came early for Michele, before she was 60, when her husband retired for health reasons, and moved to the Sunshine Coast where his brother lived. They never looked back.
After moving to the Coast in 2003 Michele has volunteered with the Visitor Information Centre in Gibsons (for almost 10 years if it was Saturday morning Michele was at the little log cabin in Lower Gibsons), is a regular member of a volunteer support group offering and receiving support from other women (primarily) while dealing with a common life situation, and has always found her way to volunteer at the church of her choice, currently St. John’s United Church in Davis Bay, in the many jobs that keep them running and supporting the community as well as the congregants. At church and as a long time member of the Suncoast Phoenix Community Choir Michele is able to celebrate the joy of singing and share great music with many of our very talented musicians and hugely appreciative audiences.
Michele joined the CFUW Sunshine Coast within a year of coming to the Coast and quickly got involved with the club and its Board of Directors as Communications Chair, Secretary, and twice as President, a position she has currently held for 3 years and will pass on in June. She promotes the club in their advocacy activities, one of which is annually donating 3 to 4 filled tool boxes to women who have found safety and support in the transition program of the SCCSS. She is involved with fundraising for the
affiliated Bursary Society, made up of the members of CFUW-SC, which is responsible for generating funds to help mature local women who are wanting to go or return to post secondary studies. This local Society has proudly provided local women with $224,000, given as 200 educational bursaries, to Coast women since 1990. Bursary Applications for 2024 are open March 1 – April 15, 2024 from Bursary Society Sunshine Coast.
