05/25/2025
Dear attendees of the ISS Traditional Powwow 2025,
The Indigenous Student Society would like to thank all of the people who attended our powwow this April. We are incredibly grateful for your support and patience throughout this process. We’re pleased to share that all honourarium payments have now been sent.
The success of our powwow would not have been possible without the support of the Indigenous community, Musqueam Nation, the First Nation’s House of Learning, the AMS and the University of British Columbia. This powwow brought us all together to gather, celebrate, share, honour and remember. We had a place to express culture with protocol, ceremony and community healing.
Firstly, we want to come to you in a good way and be transparent with you through this situation.
To start, we want to acknowledge the delays in distributing some honouraria following the powwow. We recognize that this caused frustration and hardship for some of our dancers and drum groups. As student organizers, we want to ensure you know that these delays did not reflect the deep respect and gratitude we hold for those who shared their gifts of knowledge, time and presence. We are deeply sorry for the stress this may have caused, and we will put expectations and systems in place moving forward to ensure this issue will not repeat itself.
This was the first powwow at UBC in years and was organized entirely by students. While we are proud of the cultural space we helped create and overjoyed by the demand for such an incredible event, we recognize some areas need to be strengthened, especially around financial logistics and communicating with our guests.
We are committed to building stronger internal systems, securing more upfront cash, and improving communication for future events. This is a learning journey, and we are carrying these lessons forward with humility and transparency. These systems will be in place ahead of time and clearly communicated to ensure things move smoothly looking forward.
We are grateful to those who have taken the time to share feedback with us, your honesty helps us grow. We ask anyone who participated in the powwow or was impacted by this experience to reach out, share your thoughts, or help us shape future events. We want to ensure this powwow continues in a good way, grounded in relationships and mutual respect and your knowledge and experience matter; please reach out.
In our early communications, we indicated that delays were due to slow processing by the AMS. After reviewing the situation, we've come to understand that reimbursements had not been fully submitted on our end, which contributed to the delay. As a student group still learning the logistics of hosting an event of this scale, we take responsibility for this oversight. We also acknowledge that our previous statements may have unintentionally misrepresented the situation, and we are committed to correcting that now.
All outstanding payments have now been processed and sent to recipients. If you haven’t received payment, please reach out to us directly at [email protected] so we can ensure no one has been missed.
We have much to learn with respect to standards and protocol in regards to powwows, but we approach with an open mind and ask those who are knowledgeable to lend their guiding hand if you are able.
Thank you all again for your patience and support. We hope to see you at future events. The ISS appreciates your understanding and kindness. In the future we will uphold our values in these relationships and rebuild the trust.
All my relations,
The Indigenous Student Society at UBC
