Board Voice is delighted to announce that our organization’s long-serving co-chair and community champion Leslie Welin is our first honorary life member.
Leslie has long been committed to working with others to bring community-based social services together in finding innovative ways to meet the increasingly complex needs in community, and to build upon the strengths of people in the community.
In years past, she was part of the organizing committee of the local Community Boards in Action initiative in Duncan that brings board directors and senior staff together with business and local government sectors in dialogue about social and economic challenges, and opportunities facing citizens in the Cowichan region.
As a director of Board Voice from 2013 until stepping down from the board this past September, Leslie has been integral to our new Building Better Boards project. She also worked with communities across BC to produce There is a Better Way: A BC Framework for Wellbeing on behalf of Board Voice in 2017.
Leslie’s career in education and social services spans more than 30 years, in both Alberta and BC. During that time, Leslie’s roles included coach, teacher, counsellor, board member, professor, and community leader. She believes that everyone has strengths and gifts to bring to communities and in the value of lifelong learning.
Provincially, Leslie was part of a team that wrote the BC Foster Parent Education Curriculum, served on the BC Parent Visioning Working Group, and the Vancouver Island Child Welfare Advisory Committee. Leslie is Board Chair at Clements Centre for Families in Duncan.
Board Voice members voted to change our bylaws at our 2022 Annual General Meeting to add the categories of associate member and honorary life member. Once those additions were approved, Leslie was a natural choice as our first honorary life member. We so appreciate the support and leadership she has provided for Board Voice for many years. Thank you, Leslie!