Advocacy
We have a total of 28 community social service organizations signed onto the There is a Better Way call to action. If your board has not signed on yet, please ask them to consider it.
We are working with a Duncan City Councillor to present the resolution for a Social Policy Framework to the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities (AVICC), and then hopefully on to the Union of BC municipalities (UBCM) conference next fall.
Leslie Welin drafted an excellent article on the Social Policy Framework (SPF) that was printed in the Parkville News, the Georgia Straight and a number of other community papers.
My presentation to the Federation of Community Social Services BC on Feb 21 went very well and generated lots of leads for follow up conversations.
Craig East and I presented the SPF to the full Surrey Board of Trade on February 25. It went well and we are waiting to hear if they will support our call.
The Burnaby Family Life board got an in depth look at the SPF on the same day as the Surrey Board of Trade. It was a lively conversation among friends. Great stuff.
I am presenting to the Burnaby Board of Trade social policy committee on the morning of March 27.
The Mayor of Kitimat and I had a second conversation about the SPF and I sent up some reference materials for her council. We will see if they take up the cause.
Vancouver Councillor Adriane Carr and I chatted about the SPF and she is now reviewing the materials.
Board level Skills & Connectivity
On March 13, E.D. Karla Marsh from the North Peace Community Resource Society let us know she has secured a sponsor for our first fly-in day-long board training, board connectivity and advocacy session in conjunction with Vantage Point. The session will be held Saturday May 3rd, from 1PM to 8PM, at the Quality Inn Northern Grand in Fort St. John.
The North Peace Savings and Credit Union is donating $5000 because the program fits their philosophy that giving a hand up is better than a hand out. Yay North Peace Savings! And yay Karla for approaching them! Now we have to make it an amazing day for the participants and clone it in for other parts of the province.
Kelowna Community Resources is also interested a training day. They are looking at pulling it together through Central Okanagan community boards in action. We will keep them informed as we develop the FSJ program.
Both Central Okanagan and 100 Mile House are planning major community events in the next month through Community Boards in Action and Victoria Boards Together is presenting a workshop on Fraud Revealed.
General BoardVoice activities
The BoardVoice website got 916 unique page views over the last month. Top viewed pages were:
- 86 Feb report from chair (it’s the photo!)
- 81 Big Idea: Collective Impact
- 68 SPF initiatives page
- 56 viewed 26 Agencies Sign Call for SPF
We continued the “Big Ideas” series with a video from an older TED Talks called The Way We Think About Charities Is Dead Wrong. Well worth a view.
On internal matters, BoardVoice is progressing towards a more independent infrastructure. We have negotiated our first direct contract for our Executive Coordinator (Doug Hayman’s fancy new title), and are in the middle of securing an agreement for administrative services from the Federation of Community Social Services BC.
That’s it for this report.
Please make sure you get space on your board to share our activities with them and ask for feedback and ideas. We want to hear from you!
And thanks for your ongoing support and encouragement.