BONSPIELS
Participants in Regan Birr’s Lupus Spiel at the Four Seasons Curling Club pose for a fun team picture. Photo by Rich Harmer for USA Curling
support of the curling community, truly, the curling family, that this event has become a success. Well, here goes. I imagine most of you already know that I have lupus.
Fundraising for a cause – with some fun, too I
By Regan Birr, Four Seasons Curling Club
t was suggested to me by one of my friends and Lupus ’Spiel sup- porter, Joey Bata, that I submit an article to USA Curling about Lu- pus Spiel USA. Tanks, Joey, and thanks, USA Curling. It is with the
I talk about it all the time (even though for a long time I didn’t tell a soul). But, from the very beginning, Lupus ’Spiel USA began with a dream of rais- ing funds to help find a cure for lupus. When I was diagnosed several years ago, one of the only ways I could
cope with the diagnosis was thinking that someday, in some way, I could contribute to lupus research. Tat was the only thing that made sense to me and kept me thinking forward. Because one of the only things one can do when receiving a diagnosis, of any sort, especially one that dishes out a ton of fatigue, and a ton of pain, and medical challenges and treatment, is just sit, and think. It can drive you mad. And, it can fuel you. We’ve all been there; we’ve all felt that push-and-pull. Tat’s how I envisioned making this diagnosis worthwhile, giving it a reason for happening. It took a long while to recuperate. And even now I still have bad days.
Incidentally, I never did quite reconcile having lupus – a lot of us lupies feel that way – and I’m OK with that. But, regarding the long process of recovery, I cannot emphasize enough: curling was a huge part of getting better. It got me thinking, using my legs, standing. Getting out on the ice and talking to people. Socializing aſter the game. All things that aſter my diagnosis became a challenge. I started feeling way better. Aſter a couple of seasons of curling in Denver (before they had dedicated ice), I really started
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linking my passion for curling with lupus fundraising. Te journey con- tinued to California, where I started planning a women’s World Curling Tour event. I’d envisioned a star-studded event that could count for points, provide a wonderful place for players to visit and bring their families to tour, and have the players split the pot with the local Lupus Foundation. Te obstacles were: building traction without having dedicated ice. Te idea did have interest from several high-profile curlers, including Olympian Cheryl Bernard. But the cost of prepping the ice in the current facilities was pro- hibitive. So, I held on to that dream. Te other obstacle was that I didn’t know what I was doing. Fast forward several years to Minnesota. Living in this beautiful state
and working with my husband, icemaker Todd Birr, who helped design the bonspiel, has allowed the dream to happen. Todd won’t admit it, but he co- planned everything. We couldn’t do it without him. Working with John Benton has been instrumental. Te idea was alive and it had lots of support. Other ideas struck like lightning. We worked with the House of Hearts planners (House of Hearts is a fantastic, long-standing charity Pro-Am in Duluth), and we were given lots of pointers to get started by Tyler George. We will forever be grateful to him and all the House of Hearts organizers, including John Shuster, Joe Polo, Chris Plys, and Laura Plys. I believe we can all participate in this goodwill, with our own respective projects, across the nation. So, with our helpers, including auction-organizer Carrie Ben- ton, and our in-house staff of Todd, John, General Manager Rob Hall and the support of Fogerty Arena, we were able to get it started. Of course the biggest support came from our Four Seasons Curling Club (FSCC) mem-
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