My First Season

My guest today and I have never met, but we do have 56 mutual friends on Facebook. His first season was in Club Med Sandpiper in October of 1991 as a Mini Club Scuba G.O. Originally from Chicago and now living in the Golden State, please help me welcome, Dan Beeman! Dan flew from Chicago to New York for his interview with Club Med and because he had taken a Scuba course in school, he was offered t...

My guest today and I have never met but her first season was in Club Med Sandpiper in February of 2007 as a Mini Club G.O. Please help me welcome, from London, Ontario (and not England as I discovered), Jessi Weeks! Jessi was going to Fanshawe College in Ontario and she applied to Club Med on a student contract to satisfy her Co-op requirements for College. Jessi had her Club Med interview in the...

My very special guest today and I met in Columbus Isle in Winter of 2000, but her first season was in Club Med Paradise Island in October of 1997 as a Reception G.O. From my hometown of Montreal, please help me welcome the amazing and funny Sabrina Fagen! Sabrina heard about Club Med from her parents who were frequent guests, so she decided to apply in 1997. Sabrina worked about 3 ½ years in Club...

My guest today and I kept missing each other at various villages and have never met, despite having a whopping 102 mutual friends. Her first season was in Club Med Punta Cana in November during the 1992/1993 Winter season as a Fitness and Dance G.O. Originally from London, Ontario and now living in beautiful Vancouver, please help me welcome Shelley Markevich Lawrence! Shelley has a very good memo...

My guest today and I have never worked together before despite having a combined 20 years in Club Med and 45 mutual friends. Her first season was in November of 1990 in Club Med Paradise Island as an au pair Snorkel/Picnic G.O. From Montreal, please help me welcome, Silvy Dufour! Silvy initially went to Paradise Island as a G.M was but was invited to come back as a G.O by the interim manager. Her...

My special guest today was one of those rare G.O’s that I always heard about during my time in Club Med, but sadly never got the chance to work with. He does confirm one of the stories I heard about him if it was true or not. Do you want a hint? Okay, it involves something called a “Stuntman Shot”. We did, however, finally meet at the EXGO reunion 2 in Cancun in 2008. His first season was in Club...

  Hello everyone, and welcome to a very special episode of MFS. It’s not often you get to interview a student at the university where you work, which is Concordia University in the Gina Cody School of Engineering & Computer Science in Montreal, Quebec, and who just happened to win a bronze medal at the XXIV Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, China! The closing ceremony was held this past Sunday,...

My guest today recorded her episode of MFS on December 10 2021 and she had just stopped working for Club Med at the end of November 2021, making her the most recent EXGO I have interviewed thus far. Her first season was in Club Med Sandpiper in November of 2018 as a Meetings & Event Co-ordinator. Please help me welcome to MFS, Sydney Gaudreau! Both of Sydney’s parents were G.O’s in Club Med an...

My guest today was a Scuba G.O. in his first season in Club Med Columbus Isle in June of 1997. Please help me welcome, from Calgary, Alberta, Jay Tighe! Jay started to scuba dive at a young age in Indonesia of all places and got certified in Thailand. Fast forward a few years later and Jay was working as a Scuba instructor in Harbour Island, Bahamas where he would meet the odd G.O and they would t...

Hey everyone, today is a special day as it’s the one-year anniversary of My First Season! So let me officially welcome you to the second season of My First Season (see what I did there?) I called upon a special person to do a My First Season takeover, the amazing and current Vegas Golden Knights super-fan, Gabrielle Seidenberg! (wife of the Coney Island Striker-she’ll hate that I wrote that). Gaby...

My very special guest today has a career spanning 25 years as a professional skydiver, BASE jumper and Wingsuit pilot, He is one of the most experienced extreme sports athletes on the planet with over 13,000 jumps combined. His adventures have taken him around the globe with success in all areas including becoming a world champion, a world record holder and representing his native country ​of Aust...

My guest today and I have never worked together before, despite having a whopping 80 mutual friends on Facebook. Her first season was in Club Med Sandpiper of March of 2003 in the Mini Club. Originally from Chicago and now living in Atlanta, please help me welcome to MFS, Susan “Suzie” Dunford Dell! Suzie’s introduction to Club Med came via her mother, who was a travel agent, and Suzie went to her...

This is part three in the series, “Amazing Women Doing Amazing Things”. My guest today is a pop-culture geek with seventeen years in the travel industry as a Travel Consultant and Tour Director. She is the owner and operator of "The Geek Travel Agent". From Ottawa, Canada, please help me welcome, Erin Novodvorsky! Erin shares with us at what age she got bit by the travel bug and how she got the id...

My guest today was a Nurse G.O. in her first season in Club Med Sandpiper in May of 1997. She is from Connecticut, so please give a warm welcome to, Kendra Welch! As a nurse in Club Med, you can imagine they have seen it all and must have great stories to tell and Kendra does not disappoint! Kendra and a friend went to Club Med Cancun on vacation as G.M.s and it was there that she decided to apply...

My guest today was an Excursion G.O. in his first season in Club Med Rio Das Pedras, Brazil in February of 1998. I knew him as a Sailing G.O in Club Med Paradise Island during the Winter 2002/2003 season where we met. He was working in a travel agency in Rio de Janeiro when he applied to Club Med. He actually had his interview with the South American president of Club Med! (no pressure, right?). H...

My guest today and I worked together during the Winter 1994/1995 season in St. Lucia. She was right out of high school when she started her first season in Club Med Huatulco in October of 1988 as an au pair Hostess G.O. From Mexico City and now living in Norway (we get into that!), please help me welcome to the podcast, Diana! Diana spent roughly 17 years in Club Med and she has many amazing stori...

My guest and I worked together in Club Med Paradise Island in the 2002/2003 season, but his first season was in Club Med Itaparica, Brazil in Winter of 2000, where he was a Tennis G.O. Prior to joining Club Med, he had never played tennis before in his life (huh?!). Everyone, please help me welcome from Brazil and now living in California, Renato! You see, Renato was a ranked professional Squash p...

This is part two in the series of "Amazing Women Doing Amazing Things". My guest today got 1st place in the 2021 Almaty World Cup in freestyle aerial skiing, qualifying her to represent Canada in the Beijing Winter Olympics in February of 2022! Everyone, please help me welcome, Beijing Winter Olympics-bound, Marion Thénault! Marion is from Sherbrooke, Quebec and while she was and is on the freesty...

My guest today worked in Club Med Sandpiper in April of 1989 as a Bar G.O. for his first season. He was born in the States, raised in Toronto and now resides in Arizona. Please help me welcome to MFS, Scott Richmond! Before Club Med, Scott played club hockey at Ohio State and after graduation, he found himself bartending at a nightclub in Oakland, California. It was there that a fellow bartender t...

This is first in a series that I am calling, "Amazing Women Doing Amazing Things”. My guest today is the incredible Sarah Williams from England. Sarah Williams is an author, vlogger, motivational speaker, marathoner and ultra runner. Sarah is also the host and creator of the two time award winning “Tough Girl Podcast”, a podcast where she interviews inspirational female explorers, adventurers, ath...

I had the supreme pleasure of working with my next guest at Club Med Columbus Isle during the 1999/2000 season, but his journey began as a Landsports G.O. at Club Med Les Almadies in Senegal back in 1996. Please help me welcome Laurent “Tarzan” Fraix-Burnet! Born in Bordeaux, France, Tarzan left his home country at 18 to serve in the medical branch of the French army stationed in Senegal. His path...

My guest today and I worked together at Club Med Paradise Island in 2002 and 2003, where he served as Head of the Tennis team. I first met him back in 1997 at Columbus Isle, just as he was heading off to his very first season at Club Med Paradise Island as a Tennis G.O. I still remember meeting him at the bar in Columbus Isle that night. When he told me he was a Tennis G.O., I couldn’t help but la...

My guest today and I met during our first season together in Club Med Turks & Caicos in Summer of 1994. I was at the end of my season and she was starting her 94/95 season as a Boutique G.O. From California, please help me welcome Melissa Cuevas-McIntyre! Melissa has a very vivid account of her first season in Turks & Caicos and she shares her experience with us in great detail, including her favo...

I met today’s guest at Club Med Paradise Island in 2002–2003, where she was the resort photographer. But her Club Med story began years earlier, when she arrived at Club Med Copper Mountain in Colorado on vacation in March 1995. Before long, the Chef de Village, Carlos Castro, recruited her to become a Bar G.O. and the rest, as they say, is history. Originally from New York City and now living her...

My guest today and I worked together in Club Med Paradise Island in 2002/2003. His first season was in Club Med Punta Cana in Winter of 1999 as a Tennis G.O. From Montreal (yahoo!) please help me welcome, Peter Anthony! Peter started to learn tennis at age 12 and eventually became a ranked competitive junior tennis player in the province of Quebec. He was teaching tennis in Montreal when a fellow...