Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

This audio clip is an excerpt from an interview by Sooke Region Museum Collections Manager Montana Stanley on Aimee McIntosh and her work and life in Sooke.

Montana: (not heard) What is your current role in the community and how do you view that role?

Aimee: My current role in the community, I wouldn’t consider it a role in the community, it’s just maintaining a connection with my daughter, you know, and being involved in her life. For me, I view it very importantly. It’s a very important part of growing up, to be involved, to be around so that they know that you’re there, so that you can talk to them, so that you are close with them. I had that with my parents, and I want to be able to give that back to her.

I got into karate because it was family. At that time it was privately owned by Jim Beckett, and he is a long time Sooke resident, so he ran that, and his wife was also a sensei, so I was able to look up to her, Marilyn Beckett, so she was somebody I was able to, and there were a number of women senseis. Diane Voleck, she no longer resides in Sooke, but she was in Sooke, and she was a sensei, and she was there every Monday, and every Thursday, for every class, and she was strong, and she was independent, and she was somebody who you could really look up to as a woman in a mostly male dominated sport.

I had to fight, and I had to prove myself, and I had to work for it, but the things I learned doing that, and growing up there, and being pushed that way, I still use. So, for me being able to teach my daughter that is very important. That work ethic, it’s not something that you can see a lot of or without damaging or hurting them in some way, so being able to give them something to work towards, a goal, an expectation, for me it’s extremely important. And to do be able to do it in a sport that I love, and grew up with, and still have that connection with my family because of it, it’s not something that you can find all the time.