2018-11-24 Youth Project Extraordinary General Meeting

Halifax Youth Project Extraordinary General Meeting

November 24, 2018, Glitter Bean Café, Spring Garden Road, Halifax

Transcription by Wayves Magazine

Items which got snapping/ applause are highlighted. (“snapping” means snapping fingers, equivalent to applause in the Spoken Word community.)

 

1. Setting Up

Setting up a giant easel - 4’ x 8’. It will become a graphic document of the evening.

The “front” of the room with the mics is the bay window. There’s a small banner up there with … what look like phrases collected from a brainstorming session.

Although the meeting announcement told us to get here early to register so we could vote, the registration didn't start until shortly after the official meeting start time.

Moving tables out to make room for more chairs.

2 mics at the front of the room. 1 piece of blank easel paper taped to the wall behind them. ASL interpreter is ready.

The acoustics here are terrible and people chattering before the meeting is cacophony. People will have to be vewwy vewwy quiet during the meeting.

45 people sitting, 20 people standing.

Gathering at front of room. Opening windows as it’s now about 30* in here.

Fifty-three people were counted at a later vote.

 

2. Introductions

Kim Sweeney, chair of Youth Project Board: K’we, welolaq. Acknowledging that we are gathered on unceded Mi’kmaq territory. Thinking about colonization and queer identities, and how the two cannot be talked about separately, and holding hope for using the space for those multiplicities. To ground us for this meeting.

My co-host: my lovely Riannan. Is a white, queer trans woman involved in the YP since 2016 and many projects. She is now ready to take on a larger more hands-on role with the YP.

The lovely Kim. Kim is a queer single parent. And queer rights lawyer. She helped found Dalhousie’s sexual violence phone line and the Radical Parenting Council. And cares for 176 plants in her home.

Ellie McNeil, also our sound enginer, co-owner at the Glitter Bean. Works with the YP camps, education.

Alice is a queer disabled white settler canadian. She/her. Works with youth with a intersectional approach. Areal circus show.

Rosie Porter is a lifelong resident of Halifax. 2nd year on the YP board. Has been and is on several other boards.

Hailing from Cape Breton near the Lick-a-chick, Lyle Quinn does fundraising, donor relations.

Frank: facilitator, educator, for most of their life. Works at South House. Epitomizes every meme you’ve heard about Scorpios.

Not here: Aiden?? Is a student at Dal , and will be graduating with an environment degree.

Not here: Emily is our other Youth Member , co-chair of the Youth Board and member for four years..

Not here: Steven: The wish-granting manager and volunteer coordinator of the Make-A-Wish foundation. Degree in psychology and gerontology with St Thomas U.

Youth Board:

???. Dre, Xander, (unintelligible)

We have some staff: Bria, community engagement coordinator. Heather B, ; Gabriel, educator; Heather C, interim office manager; Madonna, Cape Breton coordinator.

This is a terrifying and exciting time for the YP.

Housekeeping: Shane & Jessica will be doing ASL.

We also have Active Listening. If things are too intense and you need to take a break, we have an area on the other side of the cafe with colouring books and crafts if you need to exit this space. Carmella is the Active Listening coordinator. Carmella: Thumbs down if you need someone to talk to. Thumbs up if you’re OK and just want to chill by yourself.

What are we here to talk about? There are lots of people here. Everybody has busy lives. It’s great to see people taking an interest. With so many people here we’re going to stick to the agenda here. We’ll save q & comments til the end. So you’ll be entertained.

Governing Principles: shout out what you need in this space. Go. (laughter) From around the room:

  • How about not talking over people? Yeah! One diva, one mic!
  • Be respectful.
  • Try to support others in the space
  • Centering of youth voices
  • Speaking from your own experience.
  • Validate each others experiences
  • Being aware of how much space you’re taking up (time space, not physical space)
  • Centering your own needs in the space. If you need to get up, stretch, have a snack, do it.
  • Being aware of potential triggers for people
  • Respect Youth Project Bylaws

Reviewing the agenda. At the end there’ll be procedural stuff - ratifying boardmembers, reviewing

Q: about the agenda. “Confirm new directors” what’s that? A: we lost some boardmembers so we need more. Between AGMs we are allowed to replace directors, so we’ll be presenting those folks to you and hoping that you vote them in, and we’ll be giving others who have applied to be on the board, to speak. There are three people, Riannan, Frank, & Kelly have joined us already. That got reviewed and voted on by both boards and they’ve been serving on the board for the last three months.

Q: So the board has Appointed three people. But in terms of new people, that would normally be Special Business and the agenda was not posted until two days ago. I have an issue with that being on the agenda. A: We did post that we would be electing new boardmembers and posted the application form, more than 30 days ago. It’s important that we get enough boardmembers to function.

After the meeting, everyone 25 and older please clear out because we will be having a Youth Closed meeting to debrief about what went on tonight.

 

3. Results of Joint Visioning Session

Oliver from the Youth Board: Using the words and graphics from the banner behind us.

Mo is using the giant easel to make a visual recording of this meeting which we’ll keep at the YP.

Visioning Session: what’s important to us? Drop in. Transformers. Connect the dots. We’re here for the Youth. Saves lives. Very lucky to have the physical building. Growth that’s happened over 25 years and how the Youth Board has gotten stronger. Improving the programming. Friends. How to use the space better. How generally we’ve all come to be involved to give back to the youth things that we didn’t have. Barriers:

(front banner comes off revealing one behind covered with neon green post-its)

BARRIERS: We wrote stickynotes and then clustered them into themes.

  • Diversity representation: YP is very white. We want to try to work on to make people of colour feel welcome
  • Accessibility. Building. Stairs. Need ramp.
  • Ages of people: mostly for middle school-high school 13-19. Try things for younger. And older, not above 25 though, realizing they have different needs.
  • Board and Staff Capacity: we’ve been growing which is great and amazing, and we can do more programming and workshops but… we are growing beyond our means. We need to hire more staff, and clarify job descriptions. Overwork and burnout is what caused us to stop all programming.
  • Regional connection in Cape Breton and the Valley: the commnicaiton can improve.
  • More volunteer training; communication with them.
  • Evaluation, accountabilty & safety. Being accountable to youth, our support people, each other, staff to board, board to staff. There have been broken trust and strange power dynamics going on and that’s something that we really need to heal and repair (applause)
  • Who are we not partnering with? More accessible to BIPOC youth? Right behind Uniacke Square but never did outreach to them.
  • Policy & Structure: we’re operating under very old bylaws, 2002, we really hope to do some work on those. Operating under bylaws older than the youth we serve is a problem because the issues that youth are facing are so different over those 16 years.

We hope that gives you a glimpse of the issues we’ve been tackling and that this is the first of many meetings. We’ll be doing a lot of community engagement.

Q: Its great that you’re doing that. There are a lot of words up there that are quite powerful. Eg. Roles And Powers. White Supremacy. A: the post-it words came from the people in the workshop. The titles, that you see there…. The Youth Project is upholding principles of White Supremacy and we need to make the space more accessible to BIPOC (snapping) the titles were clustered. Roles, Power & Trust. We have a power structure of the Board, the Exec Director, and the staff. That doesn’t work. That puts too much pressure on one person and disconnecting the groups above and below. We’d like to change from a hierarchial power structure to more lateral. There’s been an erosion of trust between all parties - board, youth, staff, community. We’re starting to heal that. The words of these topics are powerful because these issues are powerful.

Q: why did so many boardmembers leave? A: We’ve had five boardmembers leave and they left for very different reasons. I’m not at liberty to speak for people’s personal circumstances.

Q: “White Supremacy” ?? It’s … loaded. Did they mean… white dominant or … supremacy? A: I’m not a person of colour so I can’t speak to that experience. White people dominating culture is a form of supremacy (applause)

 

4. Survey Results

Heather Chamberlain, interim Office Manager. Survey reflects / mirrors the board visioning that you’ve just been looking at. But, it’s important to keep repeating this. This falls amidst substantial restructuring. We asked for crucial feedback. We got 200 surveys returned. Ultimately you are community has told us that YP is essential. We are heatened by people’s comments, criticisms and engagement.

I’ve condensed a few items. Please hold your questions.

70% have also accessed YP programs or the space. That felt incredible that that many people were invested. The participant stats… you could pick multiple selections. 40% were youth < 25yo. 86% were members of the LGBTQ* community. 36% were self id’d as trans. 4.4% were african nova scotians. 7.8% were indigenous. We’re not doing a good job of catering to the most marginalized. 2.9% are recent Canadians. 26% disabled or neuro diverse. Many living in rural communities.

Priorities:

  1. Physical accessibilty. Building a ramp seems possible. 48%
  2. Relationship building & programming for BIPOC youth. 45%
  3. Staff retention 38%
  4. Transparency 35%
  5. More opportunities for community input 33%
  6. Younger youth, political advocacy, fundraising.

Reoccurring themes

  • Racism. Repeatedly. Lack of representation, white supremacist policies, cultural relevance, lack of targeted programming
  • Accessibility - physical, distance, outreach, underserved populations
  • “Not queer enough.” Many non binary gender diverse did not feel that there was enough programming for them and that the entiire organization is binar-ized. ACE, asexual, in particular.
  • Mental health. A gap in YP programming in all ways. This was unsurprisingly loud in the survey
  • Transparency.
  • Expansion has been slow and uneven.

Q: My understanding is that the survey was online, were there any other options? A: Kim’s going to answer this (laughter). Kim: No. We’ll do better next time. (Frank at back: this is just one of many many many community feedback mechanisms we’ll be rolling out every six months, forever.)

Q: I had a question about the percentages. The 2.9% that were new canadians? Would that be the fault of the youth project board, or the community? And there’s a fair bit of homophobia within that community. It seems like the percentages don’t tell a good story. And that they skew the reality. A: Over 200 people participated. So e.g. 40% of 200 who participated. In the case of the 2.9% recent migrants… that may not mean much, but 4.4% of black folks, and 7.x% of indigenous, there’s lots to be done here. Carmella: I’m not involved with the youth project board but I am interested in having a conversation. I am thinking… as a first generation iranian immigrnt, I feel like it’s not the fault of the new immigrant community to be settling in, but also to be accessing support, through the incredible and beautiful outreach board (snapping) one being rainbow refugees, and ISANS. It’s really crucial to think of the responsibility of community organizations to offer a welcoming space. It’s reflective of a need to do this. (applause.)

Q: To me it is deeply disturbing as someone who has a background in research and surveys that this survey allowed people to fill it out multiple times. It means that none of the numbers or conclusions can be trusted. It’s possible that no one did that - but we don’t know. We need to keep this in mind. As we filled out the survey, I thought, “whoever designed this is digging for dirt. They are trying to find trouble. It was deeply deeply disturbing that anyone woudl do this and makes me question the motives of the people who designed this.

Chair: I‘m ging to ave you stop this.

Audience: No no no no no.

Q Cont: the number of students who are of african nova scotian descent is roughly 8% . So whle 4% is nothing to brag about, it’s not zero and five years ago the YP would have gotten zero. Progress needs to be made, but

My question is: Why was the survey taken on? (applause)

A: I think we’re all feeling defensive and it’s OK to have hard feelings and it’s OK to want to make the YP better. At the beginning we talked about trying to be respectful to each other. It’s important to ask the questions. We’re all working towards a better space. It’s important to think of this as we make comments. It’s totally valid to be angry and hold feelings in crunchy tense ways and we can all work together to center. (applause)

A: While the survey could have been filled out more than once, the only other option was to make it non-anonymous and we felt that anonymity was better. It was not designed by the YP. It was designed by someone who works for an NGO in Halifax. I don’t feel comfortable revealing the name of the person with the aggression in the room.

Q: Recentering on our agenda. I have another question. As a former youth, former volunteer, who has seen the YP at work, I’d like to thank you. This could have crashed and burned, I want to thank you for all your work of having that not happen. I want to see this thing flourish as it has int he past (applause)

A: About the survey: this is not the end of the community engagement. It was the first step. We posted the links to it as far and wide as possible (even though there wasn’t a paper copy) . What we’ve gathered is not the end, it’s just moving forward. The trends reflect the themes that the Board identified on their own without having seen the survey data. The themes are present in the broader society. Every organization is dealing with exactly the same issues (applause.) We’re taking a very intentional moment to communicate with you, and the survey was part of that.


Q: Was there anything positive that came out of the survey? We’ve heard a lot of negativity.

A: Thank you. When things are bad we tend to grab onto things that are hard and heavy. There were a lot of suggestions. Everyone said, “I love the youth project, it is integral. It’s important. “


Q: did that come from questions, or did they come from comments? So there were no questions on how well the YP was working?

A: There were some questions about that yes. They had mixed results. Very few people put NA as their response to their experience with the YP.

Q: Accessibility. Ramp. I know that house. It’s not about the front door. Has the board looked at moving spaces?

A: Yes, it is much more than just a ramp. We’re talking about a move.

Q: I’ve heard the word “Crisis” several times. I run an NGO and when I hear the word “Crisis” think, bankruptcy losing all of your staff, or some other imminent demise. I don’t understand which it is.

A: The second one. We lost all our staff. Well, a lot of them. In September we had a strategic planning meeting when we couldn’t plan. We had one full time person, and one part time person, and then Madonna running the CB office, and we realized that we couldn’t run things. So we decided to shut down for the month of October and started a restructuring process. Losing that many staff is indicative of bigger problems. Why do we have such high turnover.


Q: So, money’s OK? A: Yes. And people are still accessing.

Q: Why is there a staff retention problem? A: We have a Barriers Map. One reason is burnout and overmaxing at capacity. We’ve grown at an astounding rate and we haven’t grown with the staff. Staff Gabriel: I work part time. I’m sure that lots of people have seen the news articles that have come out, some better than others. The timeline is: we suspended programming when Kate was here acting as ED, to look at capacity So the restructuring process happened before Kate was on leave. So these things interrelate , but they started separately. I’ve seen many staff come and go, many of the issues coming and going, supporting people of colour has caused people to come and go, separate from issues with Kate, so it’s important to have that context.

A: I’m the only staff member that Gabriel is working with. I’m the last one left. We have a lot of great new staff who have come in . To let you know: we are working with dept of Education to provide 500 hours of in-school presentations . (snapping) we do more than that every year. I work with the GSAs. Some years I am on the road most of the time working with GSAS. We’ve been doing really great work (loud applause) But from a staff perspective it was too much and we didn’t know how to make things work. Madonna was single-handedly running Cape Breton. But how do we continue doing this? With the GSAs and the lawyers and doctors and police … especially the police who need support… education. We’re at capacity and we can’t do this. When we started looking at this there were even more problems. For example there are no BIPOC folks in any of the programs. I’m not saying the YP is a terrible horrible place, that these words might hint at. We want to continue to do work, we want to do it more effectively, we need to work , not run around with our heads cut off. (applause.)

Q: Please re-read the guidelines and principles so that everyone respects them? (re-reads)

 

5. Reasons you are here tonight

Please turn to the person next to you and discuss why you’re here tonight (applause after each point.)

  • Going to camp for the first time helped them realize they were trans
  • I’m a person that, when I came out as transgender, someone came to my school and I was greatly helped and then I got to help, and I want to see that work continue
  • Living somewhere where there was no outreach, we should continue to outreach to other people.
  • The YP literally saved my life and it is the most important place. It’s always been home, and I want it to continue int he future, and for others to feel that it’s there home.I’m here because I care.
  • My name is J. Roy I came out as transgender at 27 and someone talked to me and suggested I could help youth and find myself. I worked at the camps, and I have my own space , and my own shop in Sackville that’s named after Leanne. It really really needs to center youth going forward.
  • My name is Hope. she/her. I was a participating YP member and was summer events coordinator/student. To echo these stories, the YP emerged during my high school years as a paradise. The YP became what allows me to be here today and defines who I am in the space today. When I worked there, I got to be more involved. Being in Halifax opened my eyes and let me see the YP’s presence here and all over NS. what’s being highlighted is trouble in that paradise. I know it’s facing a lot of problems. I bussed down here from Sackville NB. our voices are what are needed and here I am.
  • It’s not just because I’m the Chair. I care deeply about the YP. I have a child who is trans. I’ve encountered so many things with them and I know there will be a lot more to come. I know for all the youth , this space has to exist. I’m here as a volunteer doing my best, and we’re all doing our best.

 

6. What Advice Do You Have For Us?

...in the strategic planning process.

Everyone has written on big red cards. There was applause at the end of every Advice so it’s not highlighted.

  • Q: Why are we here? I truly value all of the folks who spoke up, the passion and commitment and would like to affirm my admiration for the valuable work that they’re doing. I also respect and value the work done by Kate Schewen and I also hold that value and work.To have this conversation without that, without recognizing Kate’s absence, is a problem. (applause) A: The individual shared that having these conversations is difficult and Kate’s absence is an elephant in the room. There’s a number of reasons we’ve chosen not to speak about it. Part of it is respecting Kate’s privacy,and part of it is that the YP is much bigger than one person. It serves no purpose to talk about that situation. So we’re keeping it focussed on the project and the youth. Bria: Because you mentioned Kate. Kate was there when we started talking about that restructuring. All of those problems were talked about when she was there, and she will be there with us as we continue on. (applause)

Advice: Since one person was mentioned very negatively in the media. She was being investigated. That was quite loaded. No one’s mentioned tonight that she’s been exonerated. I love the YP, but it’s gone along just fine without me for years. The organization has taken a HUGE public relations hit. You have got a lot of work to move forward with the public. I just want to sit that on top of the elephant.

Advice: I want to add to that comment. Kate’s not here, and there are a lot of voices. And why isn’t she here. Why couldn’t it wait until she was reinstated? Why was the meeting planned when she wouldn’t be here? Then when she was exonerated, why was this then continued when that very important voice was not here?

Response: This meeting was called when we identified that we were in a crisis, over a month ago. Speaking on behalf of the board. We all expected Kate would be back for this meeting, it’s been over a month. When it got closer to the date and we realized that wasn’t going to happen, we’d already started the process, and we felt that as more time went by people would be disengaging more and more. Again this is not the only community engagement session. Yes, the YP has been going along fine without community involvement, but underneath, our structures, policies haven’t been evolving. This crisis was inevitable. Inside the staff and youth were suffering. Yes there are joyous moments with the YP. But right now we have to lesen the harms that are happening to people who try to access the services.

Yes, Kate’s voice isn’t here, but there will be many more meetings and Kate is going to be a part of that.

Advice:

  • Getting a plan to re-open the space. We all want to be able to move back into our home.
  • Re-evaluation of the space is important. Maybe a new home would work
  • A dedicated volunteer coordinator. The army of queer adults that can help us. We’ll never have enough staff to do everything. To have a volunteer coordinator would let us utilize this volunteer energy and make them feel like they’re still integral to the organization. (applause)

Response: We have been open again in November, at about 75%. The rest of the programs we’re revamping. And we have a new volunteer coordinator, their name is Magda.

Advice: All of the presence of non-youths in the room really hinders the voices of the youths. Most people here are aged-out youth or middle-aged people. So we’re not getting any space. The fact that the youth are not speaking up really says something (applause)

Advice: I’m old. But it’s unfortunate that the youth aren’t speaking up. But you said you wanted to talk to the african-nova scotians and the immigrants and people of other cultures. And you won’t talk to us. The elderly.

(someone runs from the room wailing.)

Response: You’re here. You feel welcome, you feel safe. But those others do not feel safe and we need to make it an intentional priority. That takes effort. (applause)

Advice: I’m all about solutions that fit the problem. I’ve seen a lot of dancing around the problem in this meeting. This is all great, this is beautiful and important. But when I hear crisis, that means there needs to be an immediate and thoughtful response. There’s been a media crisis which you need to deal with this. You need a way to deal with the current public relations crisis. I heard there wasn’t an issue with funding, and then I heard there was a burnout issue. Those two things don’t make sense. I’ve been working with an NGO and we agreed to pay people what they’re worth. Maybe you can retain people better if you pay them better. Can we zone in on these problems. (applause.) Deal with the PR problem, deal with burnout. Then start working on the intersections.

Response: there’s been no mention of sexual misconduct. That’s not… I

Advice: That’s in the paper. That’s what people understood from the newspaper.

Response: But that’s the current context. That’s the current assumption. That’s why we hired an investigator who found that those conclusions were unfounded.

Advice: We came up with a couple things. Focussing on those little steps on the way. Among all the other things we need to, we need to celebrate our accomplishments and validate the great work that we’ve done. Also, center the current youth to understand the current needs. When we’re having larger meetings if we can sit in a circle and relate in a better way. And outreach. There’s all sorts of ways we can grow and we need dedicated persons to do that.

Advice: I’m Raphael. I’m a YP client. I’d like to acknowledge all the amazing things they’ve done. But we need to talk about moving forward. We need to amplify trans … (applause) How can we make our spaces more accessible , that we have these issues that go down to how things work, how are people being paid, what is the structure. We need to consider transfeminine youth and POC youth and we need to talk about that. (applause)

Advice: I’m at a liberal arts college. Being a trans feminine person who used to access the YP. It is an intersectional failure, that is failing to approach a situation without looking at all the different parts of the problem. Think about the binder program. Think about the gaf program. That’s accessing trans youth. That’s addressing some of the youth, very specific people. But a big part of the problem with the demographic is that we haven’t been looking at ways . of having small achievable goals. In terms of accessibility, having spaces and events outside of the YP where it’s accessible. The gafs and binders are a great support and we can look at other communities to see what they need. (applause)

Advice: We spoke about the youth board and how youth voices need to be centered and need to be involved in the decision making process. We need to reach out to the communities, rural communities which have no representation on the Youth Board.

Thank you for that feedback.

 

7. Board Appointments

Affirmation of New Directors

We are now planning to appoint the new directors as interim directors.

Q: Bylaws: don’t you have to be a member for 10 days to vote?

A: This has never been followed. We don’t have a book of members. The practice has been, whomever showed up to the AGM, got to vote. We got all of you to sign something today so we feel that makes you members.

I’d like someone to make a motion to ratify the new board members.

Moved. Seconded.

Q: Request for discussion. Can we get some information about the new boardmembers?

A: Well, we read their bios at the beginning of the meeting. But sure. (re-introductions)

Q: is there anyone on the board who doesn’t identify as caucasian? A: Kim: yes. Me.

Q: Is there anything you really want to change? A: yes, the 2002 bylaws really scare me. A: Yes. here’s my dream: two words: gay. Scouts. A: yes. Changing the space to make it accessible. Paying the staff what they deserve.

Q: For the existing Board: for the new boardmembers have we explored any conflicts of interest? A: yes. We’ve asked that on our application forms. A: yes, I have a relationship with one of the staff. Who is it? (laughter- there’s only one staff member) Q: Why are we making so many jokes about a very very serious situation? A: we’re using levity. Q: That also disempowers people who have serious questions. A: as a youth we also use humour to regain power.

Q: do any of you have a background in public relations? A: I have done a little. A: I’ve done a little too. A: we’re currently looking for a treasurer too. And PR.

Q: I have a concern. You flagged a big conflict of interest issue for me and one that is part of the big issue you’re currently having. I’m not saying I won’t support this, but It’s not just a matter of not being involved with decision making. The relationship between board and staff is pretty tight and it’s important to have clarity there. Some boards do not allow relationships between board and staff. You are going to have to tread very carefully with that one. A: Yes. we will be looking at that very carefully. A: To touch on that general thing, speaking as a queer youth on the Eastern Shore who had very few people to date… this is not a sob story… in a community as small as Nova Scotia, if it wouldn’t be a romantic relationship, it would be something. You would be friends with the staffmembers, or closely acquainted with members of the Youth Board. Personal connection is almost inevitable, it’s worth noting. Q: That reality makes it even *more* important to declare and work around the conflict. In small communities it’s very difficult to work around breakups and interpersonal relationships between staff and board.

Q: Are there any bylaws or policies about this? A: Remember they’ve been working together before and there hasn’t been a problem.

Q: It’s not about the people, it’s about the policy. Q: adn it’s not about how they work together when they’re together. Q: It’s about public perception around how people perceive the capacity of YP in a climate of needing to repair your public perception and what risk you’re willing to take as a board and we as members. As a member I might disagree with that. When we’re creating space and we’re not talking about individual people, we’re talking about policy.

Q: I look forward to this board/staff reform policy along with all of the other policies.

Motion that we vote separately on the three people.. Seconded. Passed.

Motion to elect Rihannan interim. Seconded. Passed.

Discussion about what “Astention* means.

Motion to elect Kelly interim. Seconded. Passed.

Motion to elect Frank interim. Seconded. Ayes: 29. Nays: 11, Abstentions: 13.

 

8. Adjournment

It’s now 8:00pm. Should we consider these people tonight? If we don’t we’ll appoint them in an interim position and present them for election at the AGM. We have three applications for the remaining two spaces.

Q: My suggestion is that, it’s late, and we should that and other unresolved topics that we had tonight, at a later date.

Q: When is the AGM? A: Generally in June.

Q: The Board needs a minimum? A: Yes, we have the minimum.

Q: Suggestion: i’m not comfortable with extending the meeting. I’m not comfortable with you guys just appointing them until June. Can you wait to appoint them til the AGM? A: Not really, we need those people working on the Board and doing things.

Motion that we adjourn and let the Board pick the other two spots. Seconded.

Q: this is a vision and planning session. There are more planned, you say? A: Yes.

Discussion of how discussions and voting works.

Chair: I agree that we’ve had a dissolution of trust. Change begets growing pains. I welcome those pains because it means we’ll come out of this better and stronger. If the community doesn’t have the trust in the board to elect new directors, we can have another EGM. That’s a lot of energy and resources, but we can do it.

Q: I’m here on a Saturday night. I have no reason to trust or distrust this board, I don’t know any of you. I’m here because i want to help. If bringing some security or stability to the board is possible, that’s what you need.

Motion: Let’s do another meeting. Adding to a Visioning Session we will further discuss voting in the interim board members. Discussion: it has to be entitled an EGM with proper notification.

Q: how about putting out Robert’s Rules of Order? A: Yes.

Q: What is a realistic timeline for you to achieve this? A: January.

Q: There was a bunch of conversations about visioning meetings in the future. This is a lot to do another EGM.

Motion Seconded. Passed.

Motion to Adjourn. Seconded.

Question: Youth meeting after this? Yes.

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