OSCA Annual General Meeting–New Board Elected
We had a very successful AGM at Southminister United Church on May 5 with one of the largest turnouts of members in recent memory. Apart from the reports from executive members, committee chairs and Councillor Clive Doucet, there was a lively set of questions and debate on the Lansdowne Park development and on infill housing in the community. The report by Treasurer Steve Mennill outlined a very successful financial year for the association, where despite additional costs of renting space for programming at Southminister Church we still managed a modest surplus on programming activity, a trend which is continuing for this year as well. While copies of reports presented by executive members and committee chairs were circulated at the meeting, you can view them, including the Treasurer's report, on the OSCA website (see the "Highlights" story here). This was all followed by the election of the OSCA Board for 2010-2011. The new Board includes the following members:
John Calvert
Graham Deline
Michael Dobbin
Gwen Gall
Michael Jenkin
Isla Jordan
David Law
Brenda Lee
Donna Lordon
Brendan McCoy
Kendall McQueen
Steve Mennill
Geoff Murphy
Peter Reinecke
Jim Steel
Greg Strahl
Anna Sundin
Michaela Tokarski
There are two vacancies on the Board which can be filled during the year by the Board appointing members in good standing.
At the following Board meeting on May 17 the executive was elected for the year. I will be continuing as president, David Law as Vice-President, Greg Strahl as Secretary and Chair of the nominating committee, Steve Mennill as Treasurer and Chair of the Finance Committee and Anna Sundin as Chair of the Programme Committee. Other Committee chairs, include John Calvert for the Web Committee, Brendan McCoy as co-chair of OSWATCH, Brenda Lee for Special Events, and Gwen Gall for Library Liaison. The Board is still looking for a chair for ECOS, our environment committee.
On behalf of the Board I would like to take this opportunity to thank the following retiring Board members for their service to the community: Nerys Parry, Anne Marie Corbett, Michael Loewen, Jenny Heysom, Mohammad al-Asad, and Lai-Ling Lee.
Fire Hall Opens June 21!
City officials have told us that we will be able to move back into the Firehall on Monday, June 21. Crews are working weekdays and weekends to finish the project. We will only be running our " after four" program in the first week back, but summer camps will start the following week on June 28, followed by our regular programmes in September. Keep your eyes peeled for the August issue of OSCAR which will contain the new programme brochure.
There will likely be some shaking down required in the first couple of months of our return to the Firehall, but we hope to be well sorted out by September. It is likely there will be an official opening ceremony very late in June, with a community bash to celebrate sometime in the autumn. Details on these two events will be published in the next issue of the OSCAR. We are all anxious to get a look inside to see what all the facilities look like and see what the new programming possibilities look like.
While we will be leaving Southminister Church soon, I did want to publically thank the Church for their collaboration and partnership over the last year. They were very accommodating and cooperative and keen to be as supportive as possible to help out the community. It was in no small measure because of that spirit of partnership that we were able to make a success of our programmes during this challenging year.
Lansdowne Issues
Between now and the end of June we will also be busy on Lansdowne issues up to the Council vote on June 28. There are lots of issues coming to a head in a very short period of time: the design competition for the "front lawn"; the results of the new traffic study; the results of the peer review assessment of the two retail studies on the impact of the commercial development on Glebe and OOS merchants and so on. Public delegations will be heard on June 24 and 25 it appears, so there will be little time to assess the results of these studies before we present to Council.
In order to improve public engagement on the issue and provide people with the latest information on what the final Lansdowne proposal looks like, OSCA, Glebe Community Association and other community groups will be sponsoring a public meeting on June 17 in Salon "A" in the Stadium – more information on this meeting will be published on the website shortly.
One of the most worrying parts of this process is that the content and design of the retail and commercial component of the development keeps changing and there is no definitive view yet of what it will look like and what will be in it. There will be more on this important issue for us on in the next issue of OSCAR and on the website. Stay tuned!