Apr 14, 2011Hillhurst-Sunnyside Community Association – Executive Director’s Report
As always, I would like to start off by saying that it continues to be a privilege to be able to serve the Hillhurst-Sunnyside Community Association as its Executive Director. In the sixty four years since our incorporation as a Society, the Hillhurst-Sunnyside Community Association has built up a network of programs and services that continue to expand and evolve in order to meet the needs of the growing community around us. I am indeed truly honoured to have the opportunity to play a key role in the continuing development of these programs and services.
I must say that I am very proud of the work that we accomplished in 2010 and what we’ve already been able to do in the first quarter of 2011. We have much on the horizon, and I will certainly speak to some of these developments at the end of my report. First I would like to provide a synopsis of 2010 for the benefit of those members who have recently joined our Association and who may not be aware of HSCA’s many undertakings over the past year.
At the 2010 Annual General Meeting, I reported to the membership that I was committed to an ambitious agenda for the Association with an emphasis on four core areas: Program Capacity, Human Resource Development, HSCA’s Financial Health, and Facility Life Cycle Management. In retrospect, I don’t think I realized what a challenge running a complex association like ours can be. It is only because of the heroic efforts of staff and volunteers that we were able to pull it all off. I am very grateful to all of our staff, our many volunteers and to our Board of Directors, for the seemingly endless amount of work that you have all contributed in order to assist me in meeting these objectives.
2010 was a remarkable year in terms of programming and program development. First and Foremost, we went through a thorough Multi-Year Review of our Family and Community Support Services programming with our partners at FCSS Calgary. I am pleased to report that HSCA has secured another three years of funding for our Community Assistance for Seniors Services programs (Lawn Care, Snow Removal and Housekeeping) and our Community Outreach & Development program. In total, this support from FCSS amounts to more than $132,000 each year in order to fund programs aimed at supporting individuals and families in our community, namely seniors, single parents and newcomers to the community. We’ve also had a very good year in OOSC, as we are now within striking distance of becoming an accredited Out-of-School Care program.
I’m also happy to report that we’ve made progress in our Human Resource Development Plan. At our Board Strategic Planning workshop held on October 15, 2010, our Board made a commitment to become and ‘Employer of Choice’ in the nonprofit sector for an organization of our size. The first step in this process was to increase our employer contributions to our Sun Life Supplemental Health Benefits Plan. Given that as a registered charity and nonprofit organization we have very limited resources to pay employees salaries that are competitive in the labour market, we saw this one action as an achievable on the road to becoming an Employer of Choice in the nonprofit sector.
We’ve also begun the monumental task of reviewing and revising our internal personnel policies. As any HR professional will tell you, this is no small feat; however, we believe that the efforts put in to this process will yield incredibly positive results. We have at our disposal a number of resources including legislation-tested sample policy statements. It has been said that effective personnel policies is simply good risk management. It is my hope that once we have completed this task, employees of HSCA will have a better understanding of their employment relationship with HSCA and the benefits available to them, but also, through this process the association will be better protected from risk associated with having out-of-date or non-existent areas of personnel policy.
At the last AGM I also discussed HSCA’s financial position, and the imperative need to turn our financial position around. For your recollection, we finished 2009 in a deficit position of -$39,217. In 2010, we finished the year in a deficit position of -$26,520. This means that we’ve closed the gap by more than $12,000. Also, this deficit needs to be considered in context. This deficit is in fact structural as opposed to operational, which is to say that it is caused by the rate of depreciation on our primary asset – the aging community centre – and not because of an operational shortfall in revenues vs. expenses. In other words, we brought in more revenue in 2010 than we spent in actual expenses (wages, salaries, general repairs and maintenance, etc.), however, because our assets depreciated by $98,000 we are required (by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) to demonstrate a loss of $26,520. Should anyone require more detail on our Association’s financial position, I would be more than happy to meet with you to discuss it.
Lastly, at AGM 2010, I made a commitment that we would undertake more than $200,000 worth of repairs and enhancements on the centre by November 1 of 2009. While the roof didn’t end up being completed until Boxing Day (due in large part to the weather), I am pleased to be able to report that we were successful in completing all of our capital projects planned for 2010, despite the unfortunate setback of not receiving any support from the provincially-funded Community Facility Enhancement Program. All in all, we replaced a 100 gallon hot water tank and recirculation lines (a project worth $20,000), we replaced an automated person lift (a $24,000 project), and the entire BUR Roof on the centre, a project that in the end cost HSCA about $205,000 including ancillary expenses.
Of course, while I didn’t address them in my report at the last AGM, I feel I would be remiss now if I didn’t comment on our incredibly successful profit centres here at HSCA. Our rental business is currently flourishing as we are beginning to see signs of recovery from the recession of 2009. We implemented a new web-based booking system that has made the process of booking the hall far less painstaking, for both our staff and for centre patrons. The HSCA Flea Market had a banner year in 2010 by exceeding its net revenue from 2009 by more than $21,000! Similarly, the HSCA Farmers’ Market had an exceptional year, increasing its revenue by almost $8,000. I am very proud every time someone comments to me on how much they love the HSCA Flea Market or the HSCA Farmers’ Market. I believe that between these two events, HSCA has been successful in building up a very marketable brand. I’m sure that the 1,900 people who are now ‘friends’ with HSCA on the social networking site Facebook must agree that we are worth following. No other community association in Calgary has a comparable web presence to that of HSCA.
I also have to take a moment to once again thank our out-going volunteer Soccer Program coordinator Gabriela Orban, and all the other volunteers who made the 2010 soccer season a big success. Gabriela has stepped down from that very demanding position and HSCA staff members are now scrambling to fill the void that has been left by her absence. Besides this, HSCA is going to have another exciting year of soccer in 2011!
Sadly, I have to report that we did suffer a serious loss near the end of the year in 2010 as our long-serving Accountant, Diane Leonard passed away on December 1, 2010 . Diane was a tremendous asset to the organization as she worked tirelessly to ensure the Association’s finances were in good order. She was a mentor and a source of support for me in my transition into the role of Executive Director, and her presence is still missed here on a daily basis.
In January we were fortunate enough to find someone who was willing to attempt to fill Diane’s shoes. Mr. Cal Volk has joined our team as Financial Controller and he is already making big contributions to our operations. Cal comes to us with a considerable amount of background as a financial controller in both the private and nonprofit sectors. Most recently Cal was employed in the private sector, although he says he is quite happy to be back serving in an organization like HSCA.
And that more or less sums up the year that was 2010. In 2011 we are looking forward to a number of projects that we are sure will breath even more life into the centre and into the community. First and Foremost, we will be building a new playground here at the centre in partnership with Foresters International and KaBOOM! an American Non-profit that works with Communities to build playgrounds for children. I encourage you all to spread the word that HSCA is working to revitalize the existing playground located on our lease site (adjacent to the community centre), that the design day is April 20, and that the Playground Build day will be on June 18, 2011!
We will also be moving forward on a couple of other projects that will help to improve the aesthetic appeal and overall functionality of our community centre. The long-awaited HSCA Community Mural Project is currently underway and will be unveiled on May 25th which happens to coincide with the opening day of our Farmers’ Market. And lastly, the Kensington Community First Garden will begin its work on the grounds here starting on June 1st. There can be no doubt that these three projects happening simultaneously will bring an incredible amount of energy and vitality to our centre and to the community as a whole.
I will conclude by saying again that it is an honour and a privilege to serve as Executive Director of this Community Association and I am very happy to be playing a part in Calgary’s growing community movement. As I consider myself to be a student of community development and community organizing, I openly invite any feedback or suggestions that you might have for me, whether you’re a member of the association, a staff member here the HSCA, or someone who is simply curious about getting more involved.
All the best and hope to see you around the neighbourhood!
Sincerely,
James Michi
Executive Director
Hillhurst-Sunnyside Community Association
403-283-0554 ext. 221
hsca_exec@msn.com
2010 Year End Report Highlights for Community Assistance For Seniors
Submitted by Debbie Olson
One of the major challenges in 2010 was completing the Multi-Year review, budget and new funding application for the next 3 years for FCSS as well as sending out the FCSS surveys around social isolation, positive social ties and bridging social capital. These processes were time consuming but now the program should be fairly stable for the next three years in terms of funding.
There were some challenges around staffing, but this is an ongoing situation and not out of the norm in terms of finding and keeping staff for the program. The seniors are generally very understanding and patient when we are looking for staff to meet their needs.
Yard work and Snow Removal (42 Yard Work and 49 Snow Removal clients)
Yard work and snow removal continue to bring challenges to the table each year. There were a few individuals that we were not able to help for snow removal for the 2010 – 2011 season as a result of staffing problems which occur from time to time. The new back pack blowers that were purchased last year with New Horizons for Seniors grant money were a major help to workers both for fall clean up and for the snow removal. The workers found the equipment helped them to do the work quicker and in some cases with less strain on the back when it came to removing the snow. The backpacks were easy to transport and while they did not totally eliminate shoveling they helped a lot. I would like to be able to find a way to purchase a couple more of these for the program in the future.
Housekeeping (84 clients)
The housekeeping staff did well during the 2010 year with only a few clients having to wait for new cleaners. We continued to have three volunteers who help with housekeeping which helps with staffing wages. Not a lot of changes occurred. Some updates around the training continue to occur and in the fall we had a staff meeting with the housekeeping staff which went very well. Staff were able to connect with each other and raise any concerns or questions they had around the program, cleaning or general concerns or questions around their clients. Response from the staff was positive and as a result this is a procedure that will be implemented at least twice a year for the workers.
Handy Person Support
The Handy Person program continues to go well. Although the program is working on an as need basis (seniors call when they need help) we appear to be meeting their needs. The program has not been able to do more in-home evaluations for seniors, but we will try to implement that this year. The funding was carried over to the 2012 year through the generosity of the funders.
Evaluation
The yearly evaluation for the CAFS programs continues to indicate that the seniors believe the services they receive from the program help them to remain in their homes longer. While the responses appear to indicated that most of the seniors feel connected and know who to call for information there continue to be some services that the clients would like to see occur in the program, mainly around transportation. Fees continue to be seen as manageable and seniors continue to state that remaining in their home is of major importance to them because of independence, familiarity of surroundings and knowledge of the community, to name just a few.
Networking and Advocating
I continue to be as involved as possible in networking opportunities with others around senior’s issues and concerns. As our population of seniors changes over the coming years, it is important to find out how the services and supports being provided are working for all seniors. It may be necessary to adjust some of the programs as the senior cohort changes and connecting with other service providers or groups working with seniors is an important way to address some of these changes.
Expectations in 2011
I hope to explore the possibility of setting up a volunteer driving program for seniors in our community in 2011. Would also like to be able to spend time on the website and putting in information for seniors and caregivers, but this can be very time consuming and will be dependent on the amount of time I am able to access during the day. Also will need to find time to review and update the Policy and Procedures manual for CAFS, training manuals and the CAFS program manual.
2010 Outreach Highlights:
Submitted by Elizabeth Chong
Practice English for Newcomers (PENC) continues with an average of 5 to 8 students each week with three facilitators: Bill Corbett, Chuck Churchill, and Sunny Shuang.
The current class consists of students from Argentina, China, Japan, the Phillipines, and Mexico.
The HSCA Book Club which “chartered” on March 13, 2008 is still facilitated by Martin Watson who has been instrumental in arranging for visits from local authors, as well as getting out a reading list months in advance.
Tutoring arranged for elementary and junior high students. There are 2 tutors (Vivianne Leung and Jodi Hornung) with 2 students enrolled.
Computer help offered by 2 volunteers: Jacky Law and Steve Branter. Help consists of one-on-one “hands on” lessons using the public computers at the Centre along with the clients laptop, or “in home” technical assistance mostly to the seniors.
The Stay ‘n’ Play group continues to meet on Tuesdays and Fridays from 10 am to noon. This group fluctuates from 3 to 13 some mornings.
Continuing partnership with Kids Up Front Foundation (KUFF) – in 2010, HSCA received 530 tickets valued at $21,433.95 for various events around the city.
At Christmas, five families were adopted. Curves at Northmount adopted one family, and a local Book Club, Belfry Gastrohouse, and some Hillhurst residents adopted the other families
The Community Kitchen program continues to operate successfully. The group consists of two developmentally disabled clients with their workers who help them, one Hillhurst resident, one Dalhousie resident, and a staff member.
We are a depot for the Good Food Box, and access Spinz-A-Round .
The Clothing Distribution Day continues to be a success and the attendance has increased from 100 to 200 approx. During the year donations are taken to the Mustard Seed but the remaining items from the CDD are picked up by the Drop In Centre.
The Chartered Accountants of Alberta continue to offer their volunteers for our Tax Clinics and in 2010 they did two clinics and a total of 60 returns. There were also community volunteers who did 6 other returns.
From September to December 2010, we were honoured to have a Practicum Student from the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary. Sarah Winstanley worked with all the coordinators and learned an enormous amount about community outreach and development as she successfully met her learning objectives.
Marketing and Events Highlights of 2010
by Sara Hughes, Marketing & Events Coordinator
Farmers Market Revitalization: Huge success!!
Probably the biggest highlight of 2010 would be the Farmers Market resurgence. When I first started here, I was thrown into it without knowing anything about Farmers Markets. But the marketing campaign went great, and the quality of our vendors travelled fast and the market became one of the most successful markets HSCA has ever seen!! Word of mouth and Facebook and our great “branding” of posters, helped the success of the HSFM! We had a great market manager in Jordan Brown and a volunteer task force that made it possible for the HSFM to be as successful as it was.
Toboggan Peninsula/ HSCA Presents
We decided to promote local bands and have a 3 day mini music festival where we had one night of world music, one night of indie rock, and one night of punk music. The reception was great, and we had lots of comments about people wanting us to start throwing more concerts at HSCA. We are throwing a few more HSCA Presents, with the next one being on July 16th with some rock/punk bands touring through Calgary. We hopefully will have another world/folk night in the fall as that was very popular.
EZ Facility!
Implementing EZ Facility was a huge highlight because our old system, Point & Book, was not serving our needs. Now with EZ Facility we can easily add dates, see late payments, bill invoices, etc. We can also easily look up contacts, see when they paid and how they paid, and we no longer have to write confirmations on paper, they are all in the system, never to be lost!
Rentals
Rentals has been steady, especially in the gym. For the other rooms, the months varied from being solidly booked, to the summer months when barely anyone want to rent a hall with no windows (Social Hall) which is understandable. The Hearth room is definitely the room that is most rented, as it is affordable, has great lighting, is cozy, and has a kitchen and fireplace. The Tyler Room is steady with meetings and the fact that it’s the cheapest room to rent in the facility makes it appealing to many groups. It was recently painted bright yellow and orange which has only added to its popularity.
Facebook and Twitter
This has been our greatest marketing tool yet! For all the events, we can offer our renters free advertising, promote all of our programs, promote rental days, etc. When I started, I needed to restart up a HSCA facebook page from scratch, and now we are at nearly 2000 friends! HSCA also makes use of the social networking site Twitter, and it has proven to be another valuable resource to draw folks to our website.
Year End Report for 2010
Richard Kavanagh – Facility Coordinator
We have been very busy in 2010 with the roof replacement and other projects. The project was prolonged due to the fact that we were waiting to hear back about grant funding (CFEP) that ultimately didn’t come through. By the time we informed Peddie Roofing that we wanted to pursue the project; they weren’t able to give us a start date before the end of September. Then they had to deal with a shortage of staff and of course the weather! But the roof did finally get finished and we won’t have to discuss roofs for at least the next 20 years.
We had originally planned to repave the parking lot (some of you may have noticed the lake in the parking lot) but we realized that there were other items of even greater concern inside the building: the automated ‘person-lift’ was starting to have mechanical problems and the 100 gallon hot water tank was starting to show signs of fatigue. We needed to be able to make accessible the second floor of our centre and we simply could risk the prospect of the hot water tank busting, so we altered our City of Calgary Capital Conservation grant in order to address these items instead of the parking lot.
Because we focused on these projects, we are able to say that our facility is still 100% accessible and we don’t need to worry about a lake in our gym – just the lake in the parking lot..
The floor scrubber (locally known as the Tom Cat) was like an old car, we never knew whether or not to keep it and to just keep repairing it or to donate it to the Kidney Foundation and just get a new one. I am pleased that we did get the new and improved floor scrubber – it is impossible to keep a 20,000 sq/ft facility clean without one.
Our major guide for all of these projects is something called the Facility Life Cycle Study. In addition to the major capital upgrades mentioned above, the study also indicated that we needed to replace 4 windows in the Hearth room as the panels were starting to separate and condensation was starting to get inside.
The month of December is always a busy month, and with this year with the Holidays on the weekend, we had a shorter number of days to complete our list of jobs. I am happy that we did manage to clean and apply a finish to the floors in the Hearth and the Social Hall. The gym floor took us 3 days to strip the old finish, wash and refinish it. We applied 3 coats of sealer to the floor.
We also shampooed the upstairs office carpets which made the staff very happy. The Gym and Social Hall walls were re-painted, along with most of the doors in the building.
My colleagues in facility and I take great pride in this centre and we are pleased when people comment on how clean and organized it is.
Year End Report 2010 – OOSC – March 2011
As always OOSC has been a wonderful place to work in 2010. Here are just some of the happenings, taking place throughout the program:
Highlights 2010
- Again the Drama Club surpassed all expectations, with two major performances throughout the year. Our spring show ‘A Place called Peace’ was possibly the most controversial of all Camie’s plays and certainly set the spine tingling for a majority of the audience. Then for Christmas the children performed ‘The Giving Game’, a production concerning video games and how they can control our lives, another topic very close to our hearts.
- Despite some major changes to our staffing throughout the 2010 year, we now have our most productive team ever in OOSC. All our staff are supportive, enthusiastic and want to make childcare a career choice, rather than using it as a job until something better comes along.
Camie and Rachel both left us for a short while during the year and both returned with a new perspective eager to pursue childcare in OOSC as their chosen career choice.
Camie then studied to obtain her level 3 and took on the position as joint program director, sharing the responsibilities of the program while allowing some of the chores to be split and some fresh ideas and perspectives to develop.
- Sun Fun 2010 was a very successful program, although it proved to be a major learning curve for the staff. Again we followed the idea of themes with two of the OOSC team taking on the challenge of planning and organizing the programming. Our numbers were significantly greater than in previous years, which led to a number of organizational challenges which will have to be rectified for the 2011 program.
- Our license officer returned in October and gave us a clean operating license for the next three years, pending no major issues or non-compliances. This proves a relief for the program both physically and financially.
- During the 2010 year we really began working hard towards the accreditation process. With the help of an accreditation advisor and major organizational input from Camie, we are gradually progressing and are currently preparing for our site visit. This has involved reorganizing much of the program as well as reviewing and reworking the majority of our policies and procedures,
Where we’re at now – January – 28th March 2011.
- Currently we’re waiting to hear back concerning the date of our accreditation site visit. Apparently there is a waiting list of around 12 months, which should give us enough time to complete our policies and get all our documentation into place.
- All our staff now have their level 1 childcare and want to move ahead and study for their level 2 with a view to making childcare their career choice and not simply an interim position.
- We recently started taking children from St John’s School of Fine Arts on Kensington Road. This is actually working really well and we hope to enroll a few more as time goes on. We are also hoping to expand our services to St Pious, in fall 2011 as one of their school buses drop off outside the HSCA.
- January intake has risen for the first time ever. This is due mainly to the influx of new children from the Brenda Strafford building across the street. Hopefully this will continue, although it does bring with it another diverse series of issues.
- Apparently we have become the drop-in program for all the schools in the area on PD/Non-School Days. Throughout Spring Break, summer and a number of the more common non-school days we seem to gain a large percentage drop-in rate from community parents needing care for their children. This has been particularly evident for both Christmas and for Spring Break and suggests our methods of advertising locally work.
- Rehearsals for the summer drama production are now well underway. This is called “Ugly” and is as always one of the best kept secrets in OOSC. Due to be performed sometime near the end of June, we can only wait to see what it’s about.
Aspirations for the Future
- To further increase our quality of staffing while maintaining an enthusiastic, supportive, hard-working team.
- To become accredited and thereby one of the best Out of School Care Programs within Calgary.
- To maintain a safe, fun program where our children actually want to be!!!
Tania Denton/Camie Chanasyk
HSCA – OOSC
28th March 2011
FRONT OFFICE – REVIEW of 2010
Jennifer McKay
Memberships
We have begun to see an impact from the Membership Incentives Program that Sara and I spearheaded in the winter of 2010. Six local businesses currently participate in this program by offering a discount (of their choosing) to patrons with an HSCA Membership card. Coupling these incentives with the newly lowered Membership prices has greatly increased our Membership numbers. Our total number of Memberships for 2010 was 453. Only three Months in to 2011, and we already have 393 Members, with more people joining everyday! We have had a lot of positive feedback about the lowered prices and the new incentives from residents and non residents alike.
Membership Prices 2010: Senior: $5; Individual $20; Family $35
Membership Prices 2011: Senior: $5; Individual $10; Family $20
Membership Incentives 2011:
Swizzlesticks Salon & Spa: 15% discount on all services at the Salon & Spa.
Gratitude Café: Free upgrade to soup and salad with the purchase of a Grilled 3 Cheese Sandwich.
Higher Ground Café: 15% off Global Vegetarian Night dinners. Wed from 5:30-9:30 PM.
Sunnyside Natural Market: 10% off your purchase. (Not including case discounts).
Kensington Art Supply: 10% off all regular priced merchandise.
A Little More Interesting: 10% off all regular priced merchandise.
Parking Passes
We have seen a decrease in parking pass sales since the construction project has ended at the Brenda Strafford Centre. We are sold out of Yearly passes (as usual), but have seen the decrease primarily in the area of Daily and Monthly parking passes. We are currently brainstorming ways to advertise our parking as a viable option for people working in the downtown core or in the Hillhurst-Sunnyside area. We have very competitive rates, are centrally located and have quick access to the Sunnyside C-Train station, which we believe to be a big asset to commuters.
Community Garden
Spring is on its way and is bringing with it the 2011 Gardening season. The Sunnyside Garden kicks off their season with a meeting on April 12th. All thirty-two plots have been rented, with two new gardeners joining this season. Because of the high level of community interest in the project, an initiative to start a second garden, The Kensington Community First Garden (KCFG) is underway. With hopes to have the garden up and running on the HSCA property by this summer, the KCFG garden committee has already amassed several dozen volunteers and plan to break ground with a Dig Day in May. Additionally, Swizzlesticks Salon & Spa, who partners with us in the Membership Incentives program, has chosen the kCFG to be one of the two recipients of the yearly, month-long environmental funding drive. Their goal is to raise $20,000. The gardeners are understandably very excited about this prospect!
Art
Art classes are in full swing! Sam Baillie has taken over one of Mary Leigh Doyle’s long running classes, and now teaches back to back courses on Tuesdays. The morning class has six students and the afternoon class has ten. Mary Leigh is teaching two courses on Fridays. The morning class has ten students and the afternoon has twelve. From what I can see, all classes are going well and Sam is doing a remarkable job filling Mary Leigh’s (big!) shoes. Mary Leigh will also be teaching a short, six week spring session this year. The course will run from Friday, May 13th to June 17th and will be offered as a morning or afternoon option.
Badminton
Drop-in Badminton is going very well. The participants are always kind and courteous to our staff and this center. They play three times a week: Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, from 9:15 until noon. The drop-in fees are $3 for a member and $5 for a non-member. Attendance varies from week to week, but on average we take in $20-$60 a session from drop in fees.
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