styles

NEWS photo Terry Peters
NO SLURPING at the table, please. West Vancouver etiquette instructor Daphne Wilson gives Catherine Bryan
a lesson in the correct way to use a soup spoon.

31 = Sunday, Octoher 4, 1987 - North Shore News

Ball
returns
to mall

PAGE 34

WV DUO TEACHES THE RIGHT STUFF
ind your
manners!

IT’S GETTING mighty
crowded in the urban fish
bowl.

By MICHAEL BECK
News Reporter

Harried commuters jostle cheek
by jowl, bumper to bumper, elbow
to elbow, scrambling and com-
peting for time, space and money.
In the rush, polite society is turfed
out the door.

Enter two West Vancouver
women of breeding with an eye for
detail and a vision of ideal
behavior, be it at the dinner table
or boardroom table. They see
manners as something more than
antiquated social embellishment.

Together, Lynn MacGillivray
and Daphne Wilson make up a
company called West Coast Eti-
quette. The company offers
courses in social behavior and a
focus on smoothing individual
rough edges in matters of social
correspondence, table manners,
correct attire, the art of conversa-
tion, restaurant etiquette, in-
troductions and business protocol.

Etiquette ins and outs are im-
parted locally at hotel seminars.

MacGillivray notes a new inter-
est in manners, especially from
Yuppies on the rise. ‘‘The seminars
seem to be appealing to younger
people, 25 to 40 years of age who
are in business and are working

their way up the corporate ladder. ©

They have the crystal, china, and
want to know how to use these
things.”’

She said the various rules of
proper social interaction imparted
at the sessions reach back to 16th
and 17th Century France when

etiquettes or accepted rules of
court behavior were publicly
posted.

The royal court has been replac-
ed with the inner sanctum of the
corporate behemoth. Wilson and
MacGillivray have developed a
corporate course to address an in-
creasing demand for polished per-
formance in the business world.

“The corporate course is the
same as our general course, but
with added areas including inter-
national customs and how one
should act at a board meeting,”
said Wilson, a veteran of 24 years
of public relations department ex-
perience at Expo 86.

Two major local companies have
expressed interest in having the
corporate course taught to their
junior executives.

In the broader scheme of things,
Wilson points to table manners as
an etiquette Achilles heel for most
people.

‘*We now go out to eat so much
more than before. The average
Canadian eats 1,000 meals a year.
The way one eats tends to show
whether a person is disorganized or
not,’’ she said.

With lifestyles wound up tighter
than ever for many, Wilson says
first. impressions made tend to
count for more as people spend
less time with each other.

“A lot of people just don’t care
about etiquette, but some people
say, ‘If there’s a right way or
wrong way to do something, |
might as well do it the right way,’”
she explained.

Wilson and MacGillivray offer a
taste of the tips passed on as part
See Know
Page 33

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