21 Sep Inside Clearline: Summer Smash, New Hires, and a Very Long Hot Dog

A Busy Few Months Inside the Firm

While we were out on the golf course this summer, things were also moving quickly inside the firm. We closed out the warm months with one of our favourite events of the year and then headed into September with some fresh energy and a few new additions to the team.

Summer Smash: Vancouver Canadians Game

Every summer, Clearline hosts what we call the Summer Smash, an event where we open the doors beyond just the team and invite everyone to bring their families out for a day together. This year, we took over 50 staff and family members to a Vancouver Canadians game at Nat Bailey Stadium, and it delivered everything a summer afternoon at the ballpark should.

The Canadians didn’t win, but nobody seemed too concerned about that. We sang baseball classics, waved foam fingers, and watched a few brave souls take on the yard dog, a three-foot hot dog that is as ambitious as it sounds. One person finished the whole thing on their own, two others tried and came up short, which was probably the right call. The foam fingers also found a second life when the kids claimed the top of the grandstands for what became a full-on foam finger battle that turned out to be excellent entertainment for everyone sitting nearby.

The highlight off the field was James Paxton, who made an appearance as a special guest. Paxton, a Ladner BC native who spent years pitching in the MLB, was at the stadium signing foam fingers and mini baseball bats and taking time with everyone who came over. For a lot of the kids especially, it was a genuinely memorable moment.

More than anything though, the Summer Smash is about getting to meet the real families behind our work family. You spend all year working alongside people and then one afternoon at the ballpark you get to see them in a completely different context; cheering, laughing, losing badly at estimating how much hot dog one person can eat. It’s one of our favourite days of the year, and this one lived up to it.

Welcome to the Team

September brought some fresh faces through the door. We welcomed three new Staff Accountants to the Clearline team; Herman Sandhu, Karan Singh, and Kareena Jassal. Karan is actually a familiar face around here; he came through as a co-op student and has now joined us full time, which is always a great thing to see. We’re glad to have all three on board and look forward to what they bring to the firm.

We also welcomed back Flora Kim for a second co-op term. Flora knows the rhythm of the place, knows the team, and hit the ground running from day one. Having returning co-op students is something we genuinely value as it speaks to the experience people have here, and Flora coming back for another term is a good reflection of that.

To Herman, Karan, Kareena, and Flora, welcome and welcome back., you’ve joined a great team.