Report from the 2016 AGM
On September 28, 2016 BCITS held its AGM at the Pearson Centre. I am happy to report that the membership of the Board remains unchanged. If you have not done so in the past, you can meet our board members here.
In her report to the membership, our Chair Christine Gordon gave a heart felt reflection on the sad loss of two of BCITS’s founding members, Simon Cox and Jeanette Andersen. She reminded us of the invaluable contributions made by each of them.
Without Jeanette’s support there may never been a Provincial Respiratory Outreach Program (PROP). Her steady optimism, kindness and openness were vital to keep the campaign to establish PROP going.
Simon, a deeply caring leader who steered BCITS through some stressful times, facilitated the bringing together of the PROP and the TIL (Technology for Independent Living) program. To honour his legacy and lifelong commitment to innovation, TIL’s annual student design competition, which was so dear to his heart, will be renamed “The Simon Cox Design Competition”.
The Board reaffirmed its commitment to complete an ongoing Strategic Planning process in the next few months to ensure a solid future for TIL.
BCITS has always been a peer driven organization. This past year we had two peers on the staff`: Nancy Lear in the role of the Peer Support Facilitator and Mark Stockbrocks who worked with TIL. We will continue exploring ways to have peers on our staff team and welcome the ongoing guidance from our membership who shape and direct our programming.
Our annual fund raising event that took place on September 15th, saw BCITS partner for the 4th time with the Kinsmen to co-host a golf tournament. After a fun day of golfing, participants enjoyed a dinner hosted by Mark Madryga from Global BC and Jim Watson from the Kinsmen.
The Board has decided to take a different direction with our fundraiser next year and is hoping to have an event in which our membership can participate more fully. At this stage we don’t know what the event will be but watch this space for any future announcements. As our relationship with the Kinsmen remains strong we do hope they will continue to be on board for our new, future fundraising events.
I would like to finish this summary about our AGM by thanking the Board. Our Board members are a team of hard working, committed individuals. Last year they were involved with strategic planning; financial planning and reviewing; attending working groups and committees on programming initiatives; helping with fundraising and fundraising ideas and more. I look forward to continuing working with them in the year ahead.
