Douglas-Coldwell Foundation Board Meeting
May 5, 2005
Ottawa, ON.

Present:
Tessa Hebb, Pat Kerwin, Kealey Cummings, Marion Dewar, Fraser Green, Doug Massey

By Phone:
Anne Scotton

Regrets:
Robert Needham, David Mackenzie, David Woodbury, Ted Jackson, Lynn Williams, Joy Langan, Howard Pawley, Jill Marzetti, Allan Blakeney

Meeting called to order by Tessa Hebb at 11:00 a.m.

1. M/S/C Approval of agenda

2. M/S/C Minutes from previous meeting approved.
available online at www.dcf.ca

3. President's Report

Tessa Hebb welcomed new administrative assistant, Doug Massey. It is great to have him onboard. Doug also works here at NDP Federal office. Doug has strong bookkeeping skills, web and organizational skills which have greatly helped for a smooth transition from Audrey Moey. Doug has also brought our new office together. We have a full set up with a new computer and bookkeeping software . We are also now paying rent since we have a full office assigned to us.
Tessa was also very pleased to welcome Pat Kerwin as our new Treasurer.

4. New Projects Report

Ted Jackson has sent his regrets and could not make it today.
However Tessa and Ted have reviewed all the requests received to date and make the following recommendations to the Board. These requests were also tabled to the recent Officers with their recommendations given.

Request for Grants:
1. Students Taking Actions in Chiapas
Young students working cross border with local group in Chiapas - interesting project but not recommending at this time due to our funding limits.

2. Theatre Direct Canada request “the Demonstration”
a nice project - certainly within our mandate
Unfortunately not going to be recommending due to our funding limits.

3. CCPA - looking for support for their 25th dinner - funding request of $2,000
not recommending - fundraising event - will encourage all Board Members to attend.

4. Maquila Solidarity Network - Anti Sweatshop campaign
have funded them $25,000 over the last three to four years
Although a great cause - we are not recommending due to our funding limits.

5. Ottawa: Our Diversity City
This project follows up our discussions a year ago to seek projects from the multicultural community in addition to those projects engaging young people in social democratic activity. It is from the Catholic Immigration Centre, is a very strong project, hosting a series of roundtable discussions on multicultural issues in Ottawa. They have already held a few sessions and they were very successful.
They are asking us to either sponsor a roundtable in the fall or help with publication of materials when the project is completed. They are seeking a grant of $5,000 for each project.
The New projects Committee and Officers recommend that we sponsor one of the events, and have the DCF be present with materials.

To date in 2005 we have disbursed $ 15,500 in grants as well as additional money in on-going scholarships, as a result we are close to our maximum grant distribution for 2005.

M/S/C the DCF provide a grant of $5,000 for Ottawa: Our Diversity City to host the Labour Roundtable in the September 2005. That this be the only additional grant we make before Nov. 2005.

We will inform the remaining 5 projects that while extremely worthwhile, unfortunately we have allocated all our funds for 2005.

New Business
Pat Kerwin suggested we look into a fundraising project capitalizing on the Greatest Canadian - a Tommy Douglas DVD of speeches. He feels the Foundation is not well known and we need to take action on media releases. He would like to see us doing news releases on things we are doing i.e. sending notices to the CALM network including our contact details, as well as NDP newspapers and magazines across the country..

It was suggested that the Officers get a proposal to the Board within the next month or so. This may well be a time when we have to spend a little money to make money. The Officers will investigate these ideas and bring forward a budget for Board approval.

Scholarship Update

University of Regina has been given out regularly -- $1500 given at the beginning and $1500 at the end of each scholarship.
UofT - Woodsworth College again has been given out regularly - with wonderful scholarship recipients who send letters of thanks.
Carleton University - has been giving out the Kalman Kaplansky scholarship. Beverlee Bell scholarship needs to be publicized better - maybe a poster put up.

President's note: on follow up with Carleton University in th summer of 2005 I learned that both the Kaplansky Scholarship and the Beverlee Bell Scholarship have been awarded in each of the last two years. Our confusion in thinking they had not been awarded was that Carleton University had failed to invoice us for the scholarships. As of Sept. 2005 they have now done so.

Membership:

Doug Massey made the membership report on behalf of Anne Scotton. He reported that the Board members appeal to their own donor lists has been very successful. There were 35 members at the end of last year. In May of 2005 we have 52 paid members, with 12 people to renew. We have added many things to assist us with membership processing - forms are available online - also people can donate by Visa or Mastercard through our secure web page - we've also added the convenience of letting people pay monthly by Visa or Mastercard - due to the costs associated with setting up monthly chequing donations - it's not recommended at this time. In 1985 there was about 450 members - people have mentioned that the "old timers" have passed on but there are "new timers" and new "old timers" that we can find to bring membership numbers up again.

Nominating Committee

Pat Kerwin has agreed to join the Board as Treasurer. Alexa McDonough has been asked to join the Board of the DCF, we are awaiting her response.
New Nominations:
Frank Saptel - with the Machinists union and previously with the Ontario NDP
Ian Capstick - Communications Officer for NDP Caucus Services
Diane Alexopoulos - Director of Development - Canada's NDP.

Officers recommendation is Frank Saptel - to assist with donation and membership drive. Frank would also bring diversity to the Board.

M/S/C Frank Saptel be asked to join the Board as a new member. Ian and Diane be encouraged to continue their interest in the DCF.

M/S/C Board Meeting adjourned at 12:05.

Next meeting: November 29th 11 pm NDP Federal Office Boardroom, Ottawa, ON