Secretary Report
Submitted by Brendan McCoy
I will first introduce my rather modest professional credentials. I trained at Algonquin Collage as an Archive Technician after my History Degree, then I worked at the War museum for 3 years re-organizing their photo collection.
With the impeding closure of the Firehall OSCA will need to dispose of a substantial amount of files which are no longer of value. As Secretary it is clearly my responsabliity that this is done in a legal manner and that ducuments of value are not lost. I have been discussing this with Deirdre and John Calvert, in his role as head of the History Project, who has offered to help. We are more rushed than I would like, but the nature of the job has meant it was always put off to some other day. Now it must be done.
I have chosen a standard Record Retention and Disposal Schedule which I am asking the Board to adopt. It will help guide decisions as to what is "active", what should be disposed of and what should be kept in an OSCA "Archive". We may at some point wish to customize the schedule to OSCA's specifications.
I will be tabling the following resolution.
The OSCA Secretary being "the custodian of the seal of the Association and of all books, papers, records, correspondence, contracts or other documents belonging to the Association" shall follow the OSCA Record Retention and Disposal Schedule.
The schedule is attached.
Brendan McCoy
OSCA Record Retention and Disposal Schedule, passed February 17, 2009
Accounting Records
Accounts payable 7 years
Accounts receivable 7 years
Audit reports Permanent
Chart of accounts Permanent
Depreciation schedules Permanent
Expense records 7 years
Financial statements (annual) Permanent
Fixed asset purchases Permanent
General ledger Permanent
Inventory records 7 years
Loan payment schedules 7 years
Tax returns Permanent
Bank Records
Bank reconciliations 2 years
Bank statements 7 years
Cancelled checks 7 years
Electronic payment records 7 years
Corporate Records
Board minutes Permanent
Bylaws, Articles Permanent
Board Resolutions Permanent
Contracts - major Permanent
Contracts - minor Life + 4 years
Insurance policies Life + 4 years
Leases/mortgages Permanent
Bids, proposals Permanent
Membership lists Permanent
Official correspondence Permanent
Employee Records
Employee files (ex-employees) 7 years
Employment applications 3 years
Employment taxes 7 years
Payroll records 7 years
Committees
Annual reports Permanent
Official Correspondence Permanent
Renovation Committee
Submitted by Michael Jenkin
OSCA SWING SPACE
OSCA will rent the following spaces
SOUTHMINSTER
July and August 2009
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Exclusive use of Office Space with full access to the building
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Fellowship Hall: 8 am to 5:30 pm Monday to Friday
Maximum of 3 evenings 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm
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Ladies Parlour or Quilting Room:
8 am to 4 pm August 24 to September 4, 2009 (when Hopewell PS is closed)
May 1, 2009 to May 31, 2010 with the possibility of extension to June 30, 2010 excluding July and August 2009 which are as set out above
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Exclusive use of Office Space with full access to the building
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Fellowship Hall: 9 am to 6 pm Monday to Friday
9 am to 12:30 pm Saturdays
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Ladies Parlour Tuesday evenings 7 pm to 10 pm
COST: OSCA will pay the following for use of the space as listed above:
1. Office Space and Fellowship Hall: $32,500.00 for 13 months being $2,500.00 per month with an additional months rent if extension is needed to June 30, 2010. Heat and hydro included.
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Ladies Parlour or Quilting Room: $200.00 per week for August 24, 2009 to September 4, 2009.
Additional use of space for a maximum of 7 hours per week at $40.00 per hour, if needed
The following costs pertaining to Southminster have yet to be decided:
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Cleaning
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Snowclearing (Just our own entrance on Aylmer at Bank Street)
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Renovation of Office space - $2,000 approximately – City might pay
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Gas if we decide we want to use the gas stove
HOPEWELL PS
In addition to the space we now rent, Monday to Friday 6 pm to 10 pm, the following has been offered to us:
Summer
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small gym Monday to Friday 8 am to 5 pm
School year
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Saturdays from 8 am to 2 pm
COST: OSCA rents Hopewell PS for $6 an hour
OTHER COSTS:
- there will be moving costs which the City may pick up.
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Also, the City will store any equipment we are not taking to Southminster.
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The cost of moving phone and IT lines – again the City may pay
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Signage for Southminster
Web/IT committee
Submitted by John Calvert
- website revamp
- program guide / ereg
- budget
- communications plan
- maintenance
1) website revamp
a) refresh content
sections refreshed or nearly
- OSCA Board
- OSCA Board Committees: Firehall, OSWATCH, Website
- Community Services: nearly all pages
- History & People | History Project
- History & People | Land Use & Zoning
Content owners for several key areas of the website have either not been identified or have not provided revised content. We propose to begin removing the unclaimed content, including sections of Local Businesses and History & People (title is a misnomer, it is really community info), unless content owners step forward this month of February.
This does not apply to the section Program Information and Registration which we address in section (2).
b) new content management system
gather functional and technical requirements
- Chris Solar has undertaken to evaluate content management systems (CMSs). One promising candidate is Drupal, which several non-profits in Ottawa are using successfully. Our current system is woefully out of date
- still need to check other community associations websites, Glebe, OOE
- GNAG uses a custom solution from a local web consulting firm, cost between
$5K - $10K to build over several iterations and $2K of annual service fees.
Provides them with worry free solution, but is this too rich for our needs?
- board/staff/volunteer input required
timeline
- need to rework timeline to account for program guide / ereg considerations
- will need input from key stakeholders, including board, committee chairs, OSCAR, and program staff
2) program guide / ereg
- gathered some high level requirements and technical parameters for program guide & ereg needs
- need to better document go live parameters for web/IT volunteers (webmaster)
timeline
- staff are of different opinion whether to hold off until fall or proceed immediately
- need clarification on this point
3) budget
- have draft budget, very basic for current year as operational requirements will be reduced, with exception of website CMS and program guide requirements which are still TBD
- have refined list of assets, including services (ISP, domain registration, webhosting)
4) communications plan
no clear measure of website usage
- we are reviewing usage reports provided by webhost Primus and Google Analytics
no clear idea of residents' communication preferences
- it would benefit OSCA to investigate this
- options include at the basic end an online survey of members & residents
- at the more ambitious end a marketing/communications study or strategy
- the latter would likely cost money and would be part of a longer term strategic plan exercise
content submission
- keeping homepage fresh with key community events and news, e.g. Elee / West Coast fire pics, Winter Carnival pics
- constrained by antiquated CMS
5) maintenance
on an as needs basis
- backups of office computer: this is an urgent item as it seems no backups have been done for some time if ever. Once we have a stop gap full backup to CD/DVD we will investigate an automated solution such as online backups which is a good solution for our organizational structure
- sent follow-up enquiry to ISP Primus regarding their homepage logo acknowledge requirement
- sitemap indexing file
- update contacts with Primus
big thank you to Chris Solar and Rob Burr who continue their excellent hard work in handling the technical details of the website, events weekly and custom mailouts and discussion forums.
Membership Committee Report
Submitted by: David Law
Membership Contacts
In January and February 2009 paid part-time staff for OSCA contacted persons listed on the 2005-06 membership list (“the 2006 list”), and also some of those listed on the more recent 2008-09 membership list (“the 2009 list”). So far, I believe four (4) people have worked on this, at an agreed hourly rate of $14.00, over the course of about 50 hours (that’s approximately $ 700.00).
Instructions regarding the 2006 list were to use a script, by phone and/or email, to ask those former members if they wished to be reinstated, permanently and without cost so long as they meet residency requirements, as OSCA members. They were also asked to consent to receiving communications from OSCA. As for the 2009 list, I asked staff not to bother calling them.
Both lists were Excel spreadsheets. On the 2006 list, some individual entries contained two names at the same address. Where that occurred, an acceptance (verbal or by email) has been taken to include both individuals named at that household. This is a reasonable, if liberal, interpretation.
Most of the work was on the 2006 list. I think once they ran through the ’06 list, calls were made to about 40 people in the ’09 list.
Results
Justine is working out a spreadsheet, but I don’t have it yet. She gave me a verbal report this morning. Of the “entries” on the 2006 list, here are some basic numbers:
- Households contacted, who did not respond 191
- contacted, who accepted 275
- contacted, who declined 52
- not contacted – contact information incorrect / expired 74
- not contacted – no contract information at all 180
From the 275 households who said “yes”, Justine counts 353 individual names. Including those 353 as members, together with the 79 on our version of ‘09 list, gives us a total of 432 individuals who can be regarded as “members in good standing” as of midnight February 5, 2009, eligible to vote at the AGM.
Issues
Again, we stopped the contact effort on February 5th. There are at least two issues which the Board may want to consider:
- Authorizing the contact effort to continue, simply to add more members. Of particular concern is the group of 180 names for-whom we had no contact information, and the 74 for-whom we had incorrect contact information; presumably, there may be potential members in that crowd.
- the “grandfathering” issue. I understood the last BOD policy to mean that unless a person actually confirmed his/her wish to me a member by the deadline, they could not be considered “in good standing” as of midnight February 5, 2009.
It is conceivable that the BOD could re-visit that, deeming people to be “in good standing as of February 5, 2009” if, after that date, they tell us they wish to have their old memberships “extended” from 2006. Technically their membership would be uninterrupted to date, so we could consider them eligible to vote on May 5th.
Personally, I think the 254 households not contacted (due to no information) are worth another shot, but I would be disinclined to solicit them as members only to bar them from voting at the AGM in May.
My advice: re-start the member contact drive after the AGM. But others may think differently, and I await Board direction.
Summary
We have at least 432 individuals who:
- Meet the residency requirements;
- Have communicated an express wish to be members;
- Were therefore in good standing by February 5, 2009;
- Can therefore vote at the AGM;
- And who therefore should be notified of the AGM.
A new list, on Excel, will be finished by staff in the near future – certainly well in advance of the AGM.