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WCHS Annual General Meeting
September 19, 2003
Topics:
A. Report from the President
B. Treasurer's Report
C. Election of Officers
A.
Report
From the President
During the past 15 months since the
election of this Board in June 2002, our Society has become re-focused
and re-vitalized. Many new
projects have become reality and the outgoing Board is as proud of those changes
as of the fact that we have managed to accomplish them while still
maintaining affordable membership fees.
This Board has overseen substantial changes in areas of
finances, membership, and Public Education, all of which will be
discussed separately. The
result has been to make the Board more fiscally responsible, more
consistent, and more streamlined, with increased delegation to
committees. As a result, this Board has had more freedom to look forward to investigate
and develop future projects.
Some of the major achievements
of the 2002 - 2003 Board are:
The What is
Homeopathy? brochure was revised about a year ago with input from over a dozen
homeopaths. Since the release of the new version, 15,000 copies have been printed, over 10,000 of which have been
distributed to members across the country.
The Directory of
Member Practitioners is being updated twice a year – in
February and September – so that the public has access to up-to-date
information on homeopathic treatment available in their communities.
A printed version of our newsletter – now named Homeopathy
Now – has been revived. The
Board responded to member interest for a hardcopy newsletter by
developing a creative way to fund the production costs and to reduce
postage rates.
A new website was brought online a year ago,
as the previous service provider had become too expensive.
January 2003 saw the most number of page hits ever, but it is
interesting to note that the number of individual visits continues to
steadily increase.
Regular e-mail bulletins have kept members
up-to-date with news and announcements concerning the homeopathic
community in Canada.
The range and number of Membership benefits and Retail
Supporters has increased considerably in the past year.
Public exposure to homeopathy has increased dramatically through public talks and
lectures and participation in health-related shows and conferences.
A Scholarship Fund
<click
here> has been established, which will ease the burden on future students
preparing for a career in homeopathy.
We encourage all members to contribute to this fund.
We also need input from a broad range of members about how the
fund’s capital will be managed and how its proceeds will be
distributed.
For the first time in nearly 3 years, the Society undertook two
ambitious fundraising projects
<click
here>:
one is the raffle to be held later tonight and the other is a
silent auction in conjunction with the HANP’s annual conference to be
held in Vancouver at the end of October.
A less positive development to report has been the withdrawal of WCHS
from the
Canadian
Coalition for Homeopathic Medicine (CCHM)
<click
here>. The reasons were several but primarily it was due to the fact
that there did not appear to be any future for the CCHM under its
current leadership. The
Board still believes that an economic sector study would be beneficial
for the credibility of homeopathy, but the circumstances would have to
be substantially different to justify further involvement.
This Board has also set in motion several projects that we hope
will come to fruition in the next year:
1. Charitable Status
For the last 6 or 7 years,
successive Boards have promised to re-apply for charitable status.
This involves much more than simply filling out the
application forms. A great
deal of supporting documentation and a re-examination of our
Constitution and By-laws will be required before this process is
concluded. The end result,
though, will be a tax break to our members and donors, which we expect
will result in an
increase of contributions and gifts in kind.
2. Homeopathy Awareness Week
WCHS plans to celebrate a week-long public and media awareness
blitz in communities across the country next June. We invite all members to participate in some way:
- speak to a group about homeopathy
- offer homeopathic advice at a natural health
store or pharmacy
- participate in a health-related event or forum
- encourage your local print, radio, and
television media to feature homeopathy in their health coverage
We
hope to involve practitioners, schools, retail supporters,
advertisers, and
other organizations across Canada. All events will be co-ordinated
on the website, with links to the individuals and businesses involved.
3. Extended Medical Coverage Plan
We are investigating an optional
Extended Medical Plan for our members that would provide a menu of
services such as dental, glasses, chiropractic, naturopathic, and (of
course!) homeopathic treatment. This
will have 3 goals:
- to provide extended medical coverage for those
members who need it
- to assist members who wish to visit qualified homeopaths
- to indicate to insurance companies that homeopathy
is a viable and cost effective form of treatment
4. Community Building
Events such as this AGM provide an
opportunity for people interested in homeopathy to start building a
network among like-minded people.
This can only be good for homeopathy in general.
The outgoing Board hopes that similar opportunities will be scheduled
regularly throughout the next year, perhaps in conjunction with talks by
leading homeopaths, perhaps in ways we have not yet even considered.
As our term of office comes to an end, this Board wants to encourage members to become more actively
involved in the Society. We hope
that you will choose
one of our projects and make a commitment to help out.
There are 4 committee projects that the Board has identified as a
priority for the coming year:
- Membership
- Fundraising
- Newsletter
- Public Relations
Join a committee.
Work with others towards a common goal and see it through to a
successful completion. You
will
find that it will be a rewarding experience on many levels.
And for those of you who like to
see the larger picture and welcome the opportunity to make decisions
that will influence the future of this Society and homeopathy in
general, I personally welcome you to stand for a position on the next Board.
Thank-you.
Jo Twiss
President, West Coast Homeopathic Society
B. Treasurer’s Report
The year 2002 brought a few changes to the WCHS financial situation,
the main one being a change of the year-end date from May 31st to
December 31st, to reflect better the timeline and relationship between
our revenues and expenses. This
is why the current financial statement covers only 6 months, from June
1st to December 31st, and why there appears to be a negative balance of
<$2,132.01>. The shortened
fiscal year is missing most of our revenue for 2002, the bulk of which was
collected between January and June.
Other improvements to the financial status of our Society were brought
about by Jo Twiss, who was Treasurer until last March.
She clarified our books, mostly through dropping the hand written
journal and adopting typed synopsis, revenue, and monthly income
statements. She also
produced an operating budget for 2003, for the first time in WCHS
history. This budget will
help the Board to make decisions in regards to spending and to make
changes when necessary. She
was able to produce this budget with the help of Judy Chorney, who
estimated how much she could produce in revenues fairly accurately.
We’ll have more on this story next year.
Notable numbers in the financial statement include:
- Petty Cash is not an asset anymore, it’s been officially erased
from our records.
- Bank Charges refer to monthly fees charged to our account by
Toronto Dominion Bank, but as of March we have switched to a
commercial account for community groups at HSBC: they don’t charge
fees and even pay interest (a few pennies every month!)
- the Sector Study expenses are nil because we are not members of
the CCHM anymore. The
President has discussed this in her report.
At the end of the year in 2002, our books and bank
account held a balance of $2,627.52.
The Financial Statement produced by the accountant Ken Aiken follows on
the next 2 pages.
I would like to take questions on my report and on the Financial
Statement now.
Thank you.
Treasurer
C. Election of Officers
Members elected to the 2003
- 2004 Board of Directors are as follows:
President:
Jo Twiss
Vice-President:
Marc Archambault
Treasurer:
Nathalie
Desrochers Allen
Executive
Secretary: Elena
Cecchetto
Directors:
Tania Bouchon
Tammy Colleton
Bonnie Pennell
PLEASE NOTE: Members may request a copy of the
Statement of Accounts approved by the membership at the AGM by
contacting Judy Chorney at homeopathy@wchs.info.
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