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Royal Canadian Mounted Police
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MEMBERSHIP AND COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEES
Dave LeBLANC
DIRECTOR’S REPORT
2009/2010
At the Annual General Meeting in Whitehorse it was decided to join the Membership and Communications committees into one and to increase participation by inviting Division Presidents to sit on the committee. There were a number of Division President’s interested at the time and we committed to following this up over the summer and into the fall of 2009. A crucial element to us in Manitoba was Howard Kearley, a life member of this Division who devoted himself to increasing our membership and provided tremendous time and effort to assist other divisions and National in developing our goals. Howard passed away during the summer and is missed.
I was able to recruit a cross section of members from BC to Nova Scotia and we began the process of defining what needed to be done, culminating with a Video Conference in November, just prior to a Board of Director’s meeting with the Commissioner. We formulated a list of things we wished to both clarify and bring to this meeting and from there be able to carry forward. At the forefront was continued development of our Website, which has greatly expanded and continues to improve our communications efforts. During this time Bill Maxwell, National Secretary, resigned and Alex Geddes stepped in as a replacement. Alex moved onto this committee and has been a welcomed addition. After our meeting with the Commissioner, Alex took on several tasks including following up with policy centers to update the retirement package provided exiting members as well as attempting to amend the retirement form to allow the Vet’s Association access to the names of consenting members leaving the force.
A number of things, including Haiti and the Olympics, have hampered our discussions however; we continue to press forward on these issues. We have decided as a committee to wait until after the AGM in Regina, for decisions on the By-law redraft and other resolutions and then approach the final discussions with the Policy centers to have forms and policy changed. This is a very important time for us as an organization and if we are to move ahead it is imperative that we get it right or a close as we can because we all know how long it will take to do it again.
President Power challenged our committee to come up with an award or recognition for the Individual or Division that demonstrates exemplary efforts in recruiting new members for the Association. I will be presenting a suggestion at our BOD videoconference in April and we may have something in place for the AGM in Regina, or at least be able to expand on this at that time. I would like to thank the members of the committee, Andy Anderson, Doug Langevin, Rick Morris, Alex Geddes, Bryan Neville and George Savage for their assistance this past year. Extra thanks goes out to Bryan Neville our Webmaster, who has truly gone beyond in expanding our Website and ensuring Divisions are connected and on line.