Presidents
Report September 2010
Staff
Membership
Board of
Directors
My name is
Caroline Provost and I am currently the President of the Board of Directors
of the
Mount Pleasant Family Centre.
This past year was my third year on the Board, my first as President.
Needles to say I found it an exciting and interesting year. I strongly
believe I’m not the only one who feels this way about it. The Family Centre
has grown, keeps welcoming new families all year round and has also expanded
to include new projects in the last two years, more than doubling the annual
budget and increasing our staff team to more than 20.
We are extremely fortunate to have some wonderful and talented women on our
staff as well as on our Board and together we were able to plan and organize
a few key events that marked this previous year.
Allow me to briefly walk you through these past 12 months again.
At our AGM in September, we welcomed 5 new Board Members. As new President
it was my pleasure to welcome Sonia, Valeska, Shahira, Tracey and Sarah onto
our Board. It is always refreshing and amazing to see members of our
community volunteer their years of experience, their skills and their time
to our organization.
To celebrate the season, we held our annual Holiday Party on December 8th.
More then 200 families joined us to celebrate, I think we can call that a
big success.
At the beginning of the new year, Board and Staff members met for a
Strategic Planning Session, working together to update our plan for 2010 –
2012. As a result our priorities for the next two years are human resource
development and succession planning and financial stability.
After the somewhat special winter where our entire city was captivated by
the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games our fundraising efforts picked up
again in spring.
First of all we were able to realize our fundraising project, the Garden of
Giving.
May was Membership Month, an annual project to raise members’ awareness of
the difference buying an annual membership can make in supporting our daily
programs. For the first time this year we incorporated additional
fundraising into our annual Canada Day Party; something we felt we had to do
due a decrease in our core government funding. We therefore were very
pleased to see that on June 30th, more then 300 people, children
and caregivers joined us at this event and embraced the idea of adding some
fundraising to the traditional Canada Day Parade, arts and crafts and cake.
Whenever I said
‘we’, I meant the Management, Staff and Board of the Centre. I insist on
mentioning this because it is exactly because of the smooth co-operation
between all these people that this Family Centre is such a warm haven and a
nice place for so many children with their parents or caregivers everyday.
For their constant warm welcome into our Centre, for the always available
helping hand in trying to locate all shoes, socks and jackets and for their
fantastic work in guiding us all, new or familiar faces through the services
offered at our Centre as well as in our community, I would like to thank
Flora and Maria.
For taking the time to greet each and every one of us (with the correct
first names!) every time we open the door to the -often busy - upstairs
playroom, for offering us advice if we need it, for treating our families as
part of their own and for making us feel a little better every time we
leave, I would like to thank Maria-Luz, Ewa and Alma.
Thank you
Margaret and Ashima for making our satellite Kimount Program such a fun and
welcoming drop-in. We all know how challenging it can be to having to share
a room with other organizations but a lot of families enjoy having an
alternative place to go to on Mondays and Tuesdays.
For your
creative thinking and wonderful use of space and budget, for making the
Strongstart program at Nightingale Elementary such a success, special thanks
to Wendy and Clara.
Warm thanks as
well to Ophelia, who is always willing to help us and who also provided
childcare during our Board meetings.
Thank you
Mariam, Family Outreach Workers Heven, Isabel, Risako, Narsmeen and Wendy,
as well as interpreter assistants Kim, Betti and Gracie for your fantastic
work with the Circles of Care and Connection Program in reaching out to new
refugee families with small children in our community, for helping them find
their way around, for guiding them, being there for them and helping them
start a new life.
I’m very happy that discussions are underway to extend this project for
another year so we will be able to offer these services until at least the
end of 2011.
I also
especially want to thank Annette, our Financial Administrator. In a centre
where it’s all about families and people connections, money is not usually
the first thing on our mind. But as in every household, having a budget and
someone who keeps a close eye on it is very important. Thank you for taking
the financial health of our organization so seriously, for being so
diligent. On a more personal note, I thank you for being so patient with me,
for walking me through every report and every document that needed to be
signed and for providing the Board and myself the support we needed to
achieve our fundraising goals.
And last but
not least I would like to acknowledge Jean, our Executive Director.
Thank you so much for your patience, your guidance and your wonderful and
respectful leadership here at the Centre. It is a mystery to most how you
so gracefully combine your significantly grown role here as ED as well as
the lead of the 5 Family Places Partnership with your commitment to putting
our Centre on the map of our community, making it a resource for many
families.
A heartfelt thanks for the endless support and mentoring I have received
from you every day since I joined the Board and especially now in my role as
president.
Our staff and
volunteers are who make our centre what it is… a Home away from home. But
there would be no Centre without the continued
support of our major public funders. I would like to acknowledge
the Ministry of Children and Family Development, The Ministry of Advanced
Education and Labour Market Development, Immigration and Welcome BC Branch,
Public Health Canada, the Ministry of Education, the City of Vancouver, BC
Gaming, Human Resources and Development Canada, and Vancouver Coastal Health
(Smartfund).
This year we also received support for special projects from the United Way
of the Lower Mainland and Heritage Canada.
As ever we would also like to
gratefully acknowledge the ongoing support of the Vancouver Park Board.
At the Family Centre, we see ourselves as an integral part of the Early
Childhood Development Services network in Vancouver and within the Mount
Pleasant Community.
As administrative lead for the Five Family Places Partnership we have
continued to work together on collaborative initiatives. This year the
Partnership has completed work on a plan for sustainability and marketing of
the ‘stand-alone’ Vancouver family places.
Over the year we have again been supported by our community partners –
Community Health Nurses, Elaine Jay and Elaine Choi, Speech Pathologist
Keeley Cotton, the vision and dental screening teams, the Vancouver Public Library
with a special thanks to D’Arcy Stainton for his always wonderful storytime,
the Vancouver School Board and Nightingale Elementary School. Our program is
also regularly enhanced by visits from the Westcoast Child Care Resource
Centre Mobile Toy Lending Library – thank you!
Successful partnerships with Parent Support Circles, Mama Renew, and the
Adler School of Professional Psychology have also continued this year.
We could not do
what we do without the support of individual volunteers. I would like to
take a few minutes to mention some of them. A special Thank You…
To Anne
Saint-Louis,
one of our former Board members who continues to support us by donating her
design skills to help us finalize our newsletters.
To Vince Ficetola for appearing as ‘special guest’ at our Holiday Party.
To artist Jason
Barz, who volunteered his time and skills to paint the garden of Giving.
To all the
bakers for showing up with the most delicious cakes and therefore supporting
our Canada Day Fundraiser Party.
Several special
events this year were greatly enhanced by our young ’alumni’ team ever
willing to come back and lend a hand. Thank you all.
In the daily
drop-in we have also welcomed several volunteers throughout the year: Karen,
Janice, Tracey, Karen and Ben.
We have been very pleased with the support
and input from Alli and Lisa from UBC School of Medicine, practicum student
Spomenka and practicum graduate Akeiko who has happily returned to help
whenever we ask.
And of course we have also very much valued the contributions of our parent
connectors: Diane, Xavier, Leone, Louise and Bernadette.
Lastly, I would
like to thank our 5 outgoing Board members this year; Melodie, Tracy,
Graziana, Rossana and Sonia. Together you dedicated a total of 13 years of
volunteering to our organization. I want to thank you all so much and wish
you all the best for the future.
And for those Board members that will continue on for another term: Karen,
Sarah, Shahira, Tracey and Valeska. I look forward to another fantastic year
working with you all.
As we move
forward into this year there is no doubt that we will be facing some
challenges. We will have to work around the 5.2% funding cut in our MCFD
contract and we have to date no information about possible increases in
other government funding sources. But we have determined that our
programming will not suffer as a result; the incoming board will make fund-
and awareness-raising a priority.
A very positive
note hereby is that we have already this year received very generous
donations from Destination Auto and the City of Vancouver Olympic Legacy.
I can assure
you that your board is committed to doing our very best to maintain the
quality of programming and to furthering the valuable work of Mount Pleasant
Family Centre.
Thank you!
