Good afternoon and welcome once again to the MWCA AGM for 2018.
Once a year for the past 4 years I have had the privilege of coming before you, my friends and neighbours, and discuss the status of the Manordale-Woodvale Community Association. It is a humbling experience for me. Unlike in previous years we do not have our normal distinguished guests. The Councillor and the representative from Parks and recreation were both unavailable to attend. Alana Saikaly is here as the represenative from the councillor’s office. Alana is a true friend to this association and has helped us on many occasions. So the true distinguished guests here today are you our friends and neighbours and thus the reason for our Guest Speaker’s topic — “Community”.
Some may be asking why the 2 empty chairs at the head table so let me explain. One is to represent any newcomers that wish to join the executive this year. The second is to recognize those that are no longer with us. Jane Benco, a dear friend to many on the executive and past secretary of the association, lost her battle to cancer late last year and we wish to remember her. As well, 2 other members have moved on to new challenges in their lives. We wish both Laurie and Larry every success in their future endeavours!
Each year, the executive of the MWCA gets together and plans out the activities for the year ahead for the community that we all love. We try to have activities and events that encourage all of you to come out and spend time with your neighbours. We try to keep you informed of what is going on in the area and of any important announcements from City Hall. We work with the City Councillor and his amazing staff and members of the Parks and Recreation Department to improve this building and park and rink that surrounds it. We are working with the city currently to have new boards installed for the rink before the skating season starts. I am happy to report that this is now completed! We worked with the councillor’s office to have acoustic tiles installed in this room and a defibrillator put in the building in case of emergency.
When the tornado hit earlier this fall, we worked with the Salvation Army and many other neighbours and friends to reach out to those in need and serve them a hot meal and give them a place where they could meet and forget about their troubles for a short period of time. During the city elections, that we just had, I had the opportunity to go door to door on behalf of 2 candidates in the election, one for city council and one for school board trustee. And although only one of them won manordale-Woodvale is a better place today because they took time out of their lives to run for public office and get to know our community better.
I have gotten to know many of you over the last few years and one of my goals as I learned more about you and this community was to make the MWCA the focal point of this community and this building to be the hub with the spokes going out in many directions but always coming back to here. Over the next year, we are going to reach out to various schools in the area so that their is a more direct line of communication with them. Our goal is to let all high school students know that they can get their volunteer hours through us. As well, if they like to skate and are looking for a part time job they can become a rink rat at our rink.
As a result of the tornado we will looking at ways to improve this building so in case of a natural disaster this facility can be set up fairly quickly as one of the locations that those in need can go to. We will be looking at ways that we can communicate to you in times of need and in turn we hope to be able to communicate your needs to those in authority that can help.
We will continue to be event driven but we will do our best to expand what we do so that we can become the Voice of Manordale. We hope to be the place where people go to find out what is happening in their community – whether it be a church bazaar, a play or concert at a local school, an information session being held by the city councillor, the Ottawa police, public health or another community oriented organization. We will continue to update our Facebook Page, our website and our bulletin board. We will post notices when possible in the community building and shops and businesses in the area. We will, when possible, reach out to our adjoining community associations in Trend Arlington and Tanglewood so that our neighbours know what we are doing and in turn will encourage them to do the same. However, for any of this to be successful we need your help and support. We need you to join our Facebook page and share our notifications so that more people will become aware of who we are and what we do. We need you to visit our web page and send us your comments and concerns. Most importantly we need more of you to join us around the executive table and let us know what you are thinking.
We live in a very active and vibrant community, we hold more events than most other community associations. This building is rented out more often than any other community building in the area. We are here to serve you, what we do we do for you and thank you for all the support that you give us! Please feel free to reach to either myself or the rest of the executive if you have a question or concern that you think we can help you with.
In closing, I wish to thank my fellow members of the executive for their hard work and dedication to this community. Their help and support makes my job that much easier to do. I wish to thank the members of this community that came out and supported their friends, neighbours and total strangers in the aftermath of the tornado. Finally, I wish to announce that the MWCA is taking up a collection to support those that have been affected by the tornado. We are giving an initial donation of $200.00 and will, also, match any donations from the community up to $200.00. Thank you in advance for your donations.
