Minutes of AGM 2 November 2015

Attendees:

• John Sankey, President
• Christine Johnson, Vice President
• Peter Foulger, Treasurer
• Fred McLennan, Past President
• Sue McCarthy, Newsletter Editor
• Riley Brockington, Councillor
• Marilyn Koch
• Glenn MacCrimmon
• Ijeoma Udechukwu
• Adele Seguin
• Dan Kaplansky
• Bernie Geiger
• Al Gullon
• Alan Asselstine
• Dorothy Gamage
• Aija Auzina
• Brian Wade
• Denyse Baizana
• James Mihaychuk
• Sana Abu Barhem
• Brent Scollie
• Dominic Lozada

John Sankey and Aija Auzina asked for minor amendments to the agenda.

Motion: Approve the Agenda. Moved: John Sankey, Seconded: Marilyn Koch. All were in favour.

Motion: Approve the October 5 meeting minutes. Moved: Brian Wade, Seconded: Denyse Baizana. All were in favour.

Councillor's Report:
Councillor Riley Brockington presented the Councillor's Report. Some additional concerns and opinions were raised:

• some pathways, such as the one between Twyford St. and the Metro mall, were not being kept plowed during the winter
• some surfaces in Owl Park are not adequate for wheelchair access
• lights out on paths going to the parkway
• delivery of books from the Ottawa Public Library to the Hunt Club area appears to be less than satisfactory (generally slow), regardless of the book lockers in the community centre for this purpose
• there are still parking and speeding issues on Paul Anka, north and south of Uplands

Councillor Brockington presented John Sankey with a Certificate of Recognition, signed by Mayor Jim Watson and Councillor Brockington, in appreciation of Mr. Sankey's service as President of the HCCO from 2007-2015 along with all other support he has given to the Hunt Club community.
Christine Johnson also recognized Mr. Sankey's contributions to the community on behalf of the HCCO executive.

President's Report:
Christine Johnson presented the President's Report.

• At this time last year, several amendments were made to our HCCO constitution. I'd like to encourage all members to go online and read it at this link: http://hunt-club.ncf.ca/constitution.html If you have any suggested changes to make, this will be a yearly agenda item following the AGM meeting.
• Education Director, Vanessa Sutton initiated a series of Education Talks hosted by the HCCO. The following topics were presented from January to June 2015: Youth Mental Health, Aging With Dignity, Greenspaces in our Community, Voter Participation. We purchased an Optoma Home Theatre Projector for use at these Public Education presentations and for meeting presentations as needed.
• Pedestrian safety on Paul Anka Drive and McCarthy Road was discussed and thanks to Councillor Brockington's support, we now have speed sticks installed on PAD in between McCarthy Road and Hunt Club Road.
• We participated in two Safety Audits at the Airport Parkway Pedestrian Bridge, led by Councillor Brockington, to address a number of safety concerns. We will continue to monitor this situation for both pedestrians and cyclists.
• We now have shared space on the bulletin board here in the community centre, just beside the south end entrance to the gym. This is a great place for us to post our newsletter and any other ads to which we would like to alert community members.
• Hunt Club Creek has now been officially recognized as such, thanks to ongoing efforts by John Sankey.
• We have continued to actively take on the stewardship of our local parks, specifically Uplands Hunt Club Creek and Paul Landry Park. The HCCO leads the clean-up of these parks officially twice a year as part of the Ottawa Cleaning the Capital spring and fall campaigns. We would like to identify a lead volunteer for each of the five other parks in our community to have a more coordinated approach: Owl, Cahill, Uplands/Riverside, Riverwood and McCarthy.
• We have members who are closely monitoring the extension of the O-Train to the Airport and Bowesville Road in Riverside South, specifically as pertains to cyclist/pedestrian pathways.
• We have moved forward on our Community Garden initiative; had a public education talk just prior to this meeting and are looking to establish a committed sub-committee to lead this initiative (choosing a site, applying for available funds). We need help with this portfolio.
• Although a small group of us has met in this past year to see if we could get a Performers' Night kicked off in our community, it hasn't yet happened. We'll need to identify whether there is sufficient interest in this possible initiative. We need help with this portfolio.
• Paul Landry Park Revisioning Project:
  • After the removal of the contaminated ash trees (and others) in February, the community galvanized around our efforts to revision the park.
  • Two meetings were held (April and September) to discuss options for this park then to vote on them. Option 4 won the vote by a landslide (to have the EP area rezoned to O1C so that the entire park can be redeveloped as a park, including new play structure equipment).
  • Resident interest is high and the May litter pick up was exceptionally well attended
  • A small group continues to do a monthly litter pick up on the first Saturday of the month
  • We have twice met with City Staff and Councillor Brockington, who is supportive of our efforts
  • There is currently somewhat of an interface problem between two City departments: Forestry and Parks / Riley is working hard to help resolve differences of opinions
  • Riley has set up a meeting this week with a staff member from Parks to start looking at play structure equipment from which we can choose
  • We plan to apply for a grant from the City's 'Paint It Up' program to have children work with a local artist to paint a mural on two of the fences facing each other at the East end of the park
  • We will also be applying for grant funds available for community projects from DesjardinsCP.
  • We need help with this portfolio.
• Our 'Hunt Club: My Community' quarterly news bulletin will have completed its 3rd year at the end of this December's issue. Thank you to Sue McCarthy, our Editor for the last three issues, and John Sankey in his role as layout master for all three years. We now have a secure group of advertisers only having to seek out two new ones per issue. Since its inception the number of volunteers distributing our newsletter has grown from 4 to 35. We hope to recruit another 20 volunteers this year. We need help with this portfolio.
• We partnered with the SEOCHC (South East Ottawa Community Health Centre) and the Hunt Club/Riverside Community Centre to jointly co-host this year's Fall Community Festival, on September 12th, which proved to be a resounding success. It got folks out from all over the community and accurately reflected our diverse community. Next year's community date has already been chosen: We need help with this portfolio.
• We held our first Annual Hunt Club Garage Sale in June, under the leadership of Linda King and Anne We need help with this portfolio.
• Sue McCarthy and Christine Johnson attended the Mayor's Forum on Sponsoring Syrian Refugees in October to find out information required should there we an interest in pursuing a sponsorship as a community group, or otherwise supporting a family who will be coming to Ottawa via a government sponsorship. We need help with this portfolio.
• In October, we co-sponsored and hosted (along with four other community associations in the Ottawa South riding) an All-candidates meeting for the Federal election.

Point of Order: Move the HCCO elections agenda item to be next, given the time left for the meeting. Put forth by: John Sankey. Accepted.

Elections, chaired by John Sankey, retiring president:
Sue McCarthy nominated Christine Johnson for President, Seconded by Marilyn Koch.
Fred McLennan moved to close the nominations for President, Seconded by Al Gullon. Christine Johnson is now President by acclamation. John Sankey is now Past President.
All current Directors, Peter Brimacombe, Peter Foulger, Marilyn Koch, Vanessa Sutton, agreed to carry on for another year as Directors.
Other HCCO members who agreed to stand as Directors are Fred McLellan, Ijeoma Udechukwu, Sue McCarthy, Piero Narducci and Wynnie Zhao.
Aija Auzina nominated Brian Wade for Director, Seconded by Sue McCarthy.
Dan Kaplansky moved to close the nominations for Directors, Seconded by Brent Scollie
All Directors are (re)elected by acclamation. We have the full complement of ten directors allowed as per our constitution.

Treasurer's Report:
Peter Foulger presented the Treasurer's report. The finances are in good shape.

Paul Landry Park Cleanup:
Christine Johnson announced another cleanup day for the park this Saturday, November 7th, since the weather is so fine.

Syrian Refugee Sponsorship:
Dominic Lozada gave a talk on sponsoring one or more Syrian refugee families, saying that this would be a great humanitarian thing for the community to get involved in, and volunteers are needed to get and keep this going. Sana Abu Barhem immediately gave her support. A discussion followed concerning the costs involved and the fund-raising effort required. Christine Johnson suggested that a committee be struck for this, and perhaps have representatives from Refugee613.ca involved in a mini-forum.

New Business:
Aija Auzina advocated for a Cycling and Walking Safety Focus Group / Committee, to help get and keep people walking and cycling out there safely, and also suggested including an Environmental subcommittee. John Sankey mentioned that there were already people working on the environmental aspects of the community, but not for cycling and walking.

Motion: Establish a Cycling and Walking Safety Committee. Moved: John Sankey, Seconded: Brent Scollie. All were in favour.

Motion: Establish a committee for Environmental issues. Moved: Brian Wade, Seconded: ?. 16 for, 2 opposed; carried.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:55 p.m.

Next Meeting: Monday December 7 at 7:00pm.