What Happened to the Griff?

The Griff, 2019

Disclosure: three editors at The Nest were involved with The Griff in recent school years. They were not involved in the majority of the editing of this article.

The Griff, Eric Hamber’s student-run store that once operated in the cafeteria, sold snacks, refreshments, school supplies, and Hamber merchandise. The Griff had been running for over three decades, and has been a staple of the school community. However, for the past two years, it hasn’t operated.

Before the COVID-19 Pandemic, the store was run and staffed by students of the Marketing and Promotion 11 class, taught by Mrs. T. Hayes (Business Education).

Mrs. Hayes contributed a lot of extra time and dedication to the program. Her years of experience teaching business education allowed The Griff to run smoothly.

Students in this class would get the chance to manage, design marketing campaigns, and sell, practicing the different aspects of running a store. They would work shifts, interact with customers, and would even go through an interview process for management positions in The Griff.

Integrated into classroom material, The Griff ran year after year, until the COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020. COVID prevented students from returning to school until the next school year, when the store stayed closed. This is partially due to the staggered timetables implemented to limit contact, with some students coming in the morning, and others in the afternoon. It was also closed due to COVID pro- tocols not allowing it to open, and the Vancouver School Board’s restrictions.

Unfortunately, in the spring of 2020, Mrs. Hayes passed away. Mrs. Hayes was a mentor to her students, and losing her was very hard for many in the Hamber communtiy, staff included. Along with that, after losing Mrs. Hayes, there were no business teachers who had the experience to run The Griff to its full capacity.

Due to the challenges The Griff faced last year, it was rebranded into Trilogy Hamber Business Group, which was based on the triple bottom line that Mrs. Hayes always impressed on her students; people, profit, and planet.

“The Griff was rebranded as Trilo- gy to pay tribute to the teaching and in- spirations Mrs. Hayes gave to Trilogy’s now grade 12 members,” said Veronica Miranda (11), Trilogy Chief Commu- nications Officer. “Trilogy is Hamber’s business group, in commemoration of Mrs. Hayes. The reason for its name and reinvention is because of the em- phasis on Mrs. Hayes’ teaching of the triple bottom line.”

During the 2020/2021 school year, Trilogy hosted a variety of initiatives, selling school merchandise, decorating classroom doors for the holidays, running a case competition, and overseeing donation campaigns.

The case competition they held involved students from across the dis- trcit, competing over a 24-hour period.

In September when students came back to Hamber to attend classes reg- ularly for this school year, there were plans in the making that scheduled The Griff to reopen in October. Then, the plans for operation were halted once again by COVID protocols. Trilogy, now in charge of The Griff, was told they would not be able to run at all this year.

Maddie Baker (11), the Chief Human Resources Officer for Trilogy, assured that The Griff will be open again in the 2022-2023 school year. “We haven’t been able to operate The Griff in past two years due to the COVID restrictions set by the District, however we plan to be fully up and running for next school year!”