General Meeting – 27 February 2014

GREENSPACE ALLIANCE OF CANADA’S CAPITAL

Greenspace Watch

General Meeting

February 27, 2014

Hintonburg Community Centre

1064 Wellington Street West

K1Y 2Y3

MINUTES

Members present: Erwin Dreessen (chair), Jason Kania, Elina Elnione (note taker), Juan Pedro Unger, David McNicoll

Regrets: Sol Shuster, Amy Kempster, Ian Whyte, Nicole DesRoches

The meeting commenced at 7:25 p.m.

1. Adoption of agenda

Agenda adopted as proposed.

2. Administration items

a. Minutes of January 30, 2013

Elina moved, seconded by Jason, to approve the Minutes of January 30 as circulated. Approved.

b. Action items from the Minutes

List serve – in progress.

Research proposal to OETN – the Steering Committee announced that the research proposal was accepted but would not be completed until the end of 2014. However, they will see if it can be done sooner. Research proposal suggests investigating how other Ontario municipalities deal with country lot estates.

March 10 presentation at NCENN – Juan agreed to do the promotional presentation about the Greenspace Alliance.

NCC Urban Lands Master Plan – on hold.

c. Membership report

We are still looking for a suitable candidate to fill the Membership Chair position.

d. 2014 Annual General Meeting

Date – it was agreed that the AGM will be held on May 29th.

Speaker – it was agreed that Regie Alam would be invited as a guest speaker who is a Geomatics Analyst. Erwin will finalize the invitation.

Nominations – Erwin, Jason and Juan intend to continue to fulfill their positions also next year. Elina is planning to step down from the board. Erwin will canvass the others.

e. Summer meeting dates

It was agreed that GA meetings will be held as usual – in the 4th Thursday of each month, respectively – 24th of July and 28th of August.

3. MEC capacity grant application

a. French web content

Proposals received for professional translation show it is too costly.  We will need to continue relying on volunteers.

b. Guideline for content creation

We received a proposal to write a guide to web content creation by non-technical volunteers for $1,400.

c. Tools to simplify letter-writing and membership management

We just received a proposal to create a tool for letter writing campaigns, and a dashboard for membership management.

d. Communication and Membership development

Two companies have provided a proposal for strategies to improve communication and member engagement. The first proposal was made by Freshwater Alliance and the second proposal by Blueprint Public Relations.

Assuming positive evaluation of the proposal just received, the MEC application will be finalized in the first week of March.

4. Road through Stony Swamp – Part II Order request

On February 27th the second draft of Part II Order Request is in circulation to board members. This needs to be finalized by March 2nd. The request is to order reconsideration of the Fallowfield Road option or, in the alternative, to order more comprehensive mitigation measures to protect Stony Swamp.

Juan will draft a media release.

5. Former Rockcliffe Airbase Community Design Plan

Al Crosby has drafted a letter regarding CDP. The letter will be sent out in the first week of March. Comments should be sent to Al Crosby.

6. Municipal Election 2014

Erwin reported on a meeting with FCA and Ecology Ottawa on February 19th. Some of the proposals for action were: formulation of a community platform, identifying good candidates, and preparing a training session after the election.

7. Request for endorsement from Ottawa Water Study Action Group

The action group wants to reduce the consumption of plastic water bottles. The campaign calls on city officials to ban the distribution of bottles water in all city-owned buildings and at city-sponsored events. The use of municipal tap water is promoted as the best alternative. Elina moved, seconded by Jason to endorse the campaign. Agreed.

8. Brief reports

a. NCENNetwork meeting of February 10 – Topic: Crowd funding

The speaker of the crowd funding event was Paul Dombowsky who is the founder of the innovative crowd engagement platform Ideavibes.

b. FCA meeting of February 10

FCA committed to write a letter to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing to object to the Cavanagh deal.

9. Other business

a. Ottawa Bird Count

Adam Smith from Ottawa Bird Count is seeking for opportunities to collaborate. Sol will talk to him in the first week of March.

b. Schedule K

Schedule K – Environmental Constraints map from The Official Plan has been updated. We saw no grounds for intervening.

9. Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 9:02 p.m.

 

Next meeting will be at the Hintonburg CC on Thursday, March 27, 2014, starting at 7:15 p.m.