Thursday November 27, 2008
11:00 am ET Board Meeting

Boardroom
300-279 Laurier Ave W
Ottawa, ON

Present:
David Mackenzie
Pat Kerwin
David Illman-White
Phyllis Dietrich
Jesse Brady
Anne Scotton
Erin Armstrong

On the Phone:
Dick Proctor

1. Adoption of Agenda

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2. Minutes of Dec 1 2009 Board Meeting
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3.  Correspondence

Letter from Bilbo Poynter thanking us once again for the grant

Dr. Vincent Lam who is going to the be the author of the next Tommy Douglas biography - this project is supported by Shirley Douglas and is part of the Extraordinary Canadians series being completed by Penguin Books

4. President's Report

David wanted to thank all the Board Members who took part in the phoning of members to renew memberships.

Jesse has offered to take on the communications lead for the Foundation..

Jess has also shown interest in taking on the role of Vice President.
Motion to nominate and accept Jesse Brady as one of the Vice President's of the Foundation.  
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Motion to distribute the membership list of un-renewed members to members of the Board for individual phonings.
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5. Secretary's Report
Anne reviewed her interview with Dr. Vincent Lam including the social democracy movement of the last 80 years in Canada.

Expects launch of the book late 2010  or early 2011

There was talk about investigating the assistance of one of the book launches as 2011 will be the DCF's 40th Anniversary.

Membership #'s -  281
125 of those had to be renewed -- the recent phone drive renewed several members but in the mean time we have lost a few more members as they have had to rethink their donation $'s due to the economic situation we find ourselves in.

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6. Treasurer's Report

Pat reviewed the current YTD Financial Statements and the 2009 Financial Statements which are still in draft format - the final statements will be presented to the AGM in the fall.

Tessa and Pat had met with Frank Charette at ScoitaMcleod and adjusted our investment directions to hopefully help with the tough times were are facing.

Pat reviewed the current ScotiaMcleod statement as of April 30, 2010.

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7. Scholarship Report
Need to research the history of all the scholarships (Pat)

All have been handed out for the year.

Erin brought up that next week was going to the be the 9th Anniversary of Beverlee Bell's passing.

Doug mentioned that Erin’s family has been working very hard to raise additional funds for the DCF to continue to support the Beverlee Bell scholarship which is well received at Carleton University.

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8. 2010 Grant Discussion

Discussion about disbursement quotas and the upcoming changes to the legislation.

Pat’s recommendation is to hold until later in the year before dispensing any more grants in order to allow the investments to recover.

David Mackenzie supported Pat’s directions.

Pat discussed the 3rd DVD project – overall project costs anticipated at $25,000.

It was suggested to go to Historica for a grant since this project is about the War Measures Act enacted in 1970.

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9. Investment Statement Discussion

It was brought up at the August 2009 AGM in Halifax that we should review our investment portfolio as it pertains to what it is invested in.

Tessa, Pat, Phyllis, Kevin and David I-W met to discuss a policy proposal put together by Tessa.  We contacted SHARE for advice on the policy and they indicated that having Tessa on this committee was a huge plus.

The proposed policy from the committee was discussed.

Motion to accept policy as presented
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10. Other Business

Next Meeting – Thursday November 18th, 2010 – 11 am ET followed by AGM at 2 pm ET

Conventions – 2011 will have CLC Convention in May and Federal NDP in June – to be followed up on

Jesse spoke about Communications and our need to have a better strategy for communicating with our members promoting education and research in social democracy.  We need to build up our profile through email newsletters, our web site, op-eds, etc.

Jesse is going to prepare a Communications plan to be implemented in the near future.

Anne suggested turning the yearly President’s report into an “Annual Report” which would be more extensive covering off everything we have been doing, including the scholarship recipients, etc

Doug mentioned that we do have an e-newsletter database that is just waiting to be used.

Anne brought up not to forget about the Tommy Douglas biography launch with Vincent Lam and suggested that she could contact the publisher to get more information.

David Illman-White also brought up doing a Faith and Social Justice event, potentially inviting Bill Blaikie to come speak at the event.  David Mackenzie said he would follow up with Bill about this suggestion.

Doug also mentioned that Shirley Douglas has been working with the Museum of Civilization giving them items to add to their Tommy Douglas collection.  We’re going to send them our two DVD’s and one of the two original DCF banners.

Motion to adjourn at 12:30 pm ET

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