"Know just when to jump off the swing."  Unknown

A message from Patti & Bobbe, Partners verve2 events

When we started verve2 in 2005 we decided we were going to take a risk and start a company that would be different.  This difference was not just to be about the services that we would provide and how we would provide them, but would also be about creating a culture of flexibility, balance, authenticity, and fun.  One that would give us energy rather than take it. 

The set of services we delivered, based on our individual strengths, and the values with which we delivered them were very well received.  We succeeded early and grew quite quickly.  It wasn't long before we had to double our staff resources.  But behind the scenes we were both being propelled into the reality of the sandwich generation with teenagers still at home and mothers who became gravely ill almost simultaneously and who needed us more than ever. 

In the months and years that followed our business volume and life circumstances transformed our dreams for a culture of flexibility, balance and authenticity into one of simply doing the best we could with the tools that we had in an effort to keep up with verve2, which had begun driving us instead of the other way around, and the demands of our most important roles as mothers and daughters.  We also began to realize that our dreams for ourselves, while complementary, were also quite different and ever changing with each new experience. 

When we started verve2 in 2005 we made a promise to each other and sealed it with a pinky swear.  Our promise was that when verve2 ceased to be fun we would stop.  That our values for balance, flexibility, authenticity and work that created energy rather than taking it was the cornerstone for our partnership.  If they ever became compromised for any reason and we lost our energy to bring them back, we would stop.   In August of 2008 we kept that promise to each other and stopped. 

There are some things that haven't changed and those are our personal passions.  Bobbe still wants to apply her creativity and organizational skills to events.  Patti still wants to blaze new trails helping to design and manage projects that have profoundly positive impacts on this world.  We both remain passionate about continuing to be daring, different, fun and authentic.  But now we will do it as independent consultants, each pursuing our own personal passions and working in an environment that protects the balance we need to fulfill all of the roles that we play in life with pleasure and grace.

Bobbe will design and produce wicked events and provide sponsorship marketing services to accompany them.  She continues to provide special event planning and sponsorship marketing services to the Saskatoon Opera Association, who joined the verve2 family of clients in 2008.

Patti plans to continue her work with people and organizations to help them discover their values, uniqueness and potential and to help create exciting actions with remarkable impact.  She will continue to work with the Saskatchewan Rotary Youth Foundation's My Future is Here Initiative, a verve2 client since 2006.

Shana, who was with us almost the entire time as a prized employee with amazing abilities for organization and getting things done, has also moved to the world of independent consulting as a project management and implementation specialist.  Shana continues to serve the Saskatchewan Rotary Youth Foundation's MyFiH initiative with Patti. 

We consider the verve years a success.  We appreciate the gifts of the lessons we learned and the people we met.  We are better people and better service providers for them.  We hope that others will look upon our choice to stop as an example of leadership, courage and integrity.  And if by chance, one of those people watching feels that they need to make a change in their own life but is afraid, to them we say,  "know just when to jump off the swing".