Human Rights Committee Meeting
MINUTES - June 22, 2010
Attendees:
Timothy Hunt - President
Garth Caron - Vice-President
Joe Kelly - Member
Dale Mariancz - Member (AGR 30046)
Raj Hari - PSAC RO Staff
Regrets: Evelyn Egger - Treasurer
Meeting was called to order at 5:30pm.
Project Mobility – CalgaryHandiBus
Marni Halwas – Calgary HandiBus Fund Raising Representative was invited to attend our meeting to kick off the 2010 “Project Mobility”, Marni’s information for the foundation included the following:
- Each bus that is purchased, at a cost of $90K each, is shipped to Montrealto have the adaptations completed.
- Each bus that is purchased in Calgaryis shipped to Montrealto have the bus completed, this at a cost of $90,000.00 each
- CHB is annually funded from the city of Calgaryfor its operations budget only – to the tune of $12 million. All monies to purchase buses must be raised by the company.
- Funding from the city is “12” million dollars with the remainder of the funding coming in from donations (personal and business donors)
- The Handi-Buses are driven by Calgary Transit bus drivers and the fleet is serviced also by Calgary Transit through the City of Calgary
- On-going fund raising events are done throughout the year, the next being the “Rides n Rods” happening at the end of July (25th)
An awareness campaign will be worked on by both our committee and Ms. Halwas for a “did-you-know” campaign that we can use to inform our members across the city. Our committee then talked with Marni about what was happening in the Federal government with regards to the Treasury Board Parking and how the government was trying to eliminate the free parking at certain larger federal buildings for cost cutting measures. The committee talked about the following with regards to this troubling development:
- An estimated 100 PSAC members in Calgaryare currently at risk of loosing their parking and would most likely have to utilize the services of the CHB and Access Calgary
A letter from the CHB on the impact that this would cause on their services if the T.B. went ahead with thisendeavour. The human element of the Persons With Disabilities will be majorly affected by this decision.
Election of Vice President
Elections for the position of Vice President for the HRC will be done tonight, the announcement was sent out through the Calgary Regional Office over a month ago, Brother Hunt passed the chair to the Calgary Regional Officer Brother Hari for the election to continue. No nominations were not sent into the Regional Office, therefore nominations were requested from the floor, the following were the results:
Brother Garth Caron was nominated by Brother Hunt and seconded by Sister Kelly. No other nominations came forward from the floor and Brother Caron was asked if he wanted his name to stand for the nomination, his answer was ‘yes’ and Brother Hari declared his nomination as accepted and announced his acclimation,
Congratulations Brother Caron!
Mustard Seed – Wrap Up
Brother Hunt offered the results of the two month project and how it was received by the HRC, it was a complete success with the following results:
There were three sponsored dinners (Jan ?, Feb 02nd and 23rd) with volunteers numbering 15, 18 & 31 respectfully for each of the dinners, each evening has approximately 425 dinners served and many volunteer stations open (not a usual occurrence as there are only six staff working at any given time)
Monies raised totaled $3,100 and were presented to the Mustard Seed in early March, the monies came from the Social Justice Fund and the components from Southern Alberta
It was noted that the charity was very impressed by the caliber of our volunteers and offered that we as a group could return at any time and be warmly received
Calendar of events
Brother Hunt asked that any dates for any HRC event be brought to the next meeting so that we could get a calendar of events set up so that any of our members could be aware or celebrate them as they happen during the year, this item will be tabled to the next meeting (Sister Kelly volunteered to work on draft calendar for the next meeting).
Labour Day Calgary District Labour Council Barbeque 2010 (2nd Annual)
There will be a $200.00 donation from each of the three committees (AC, HRC & RWC) again this year. Sister Ablitt will be our contact for arranging what food item we will be donating (last year we did condiments, cheese & onions) this year and where we will be setting up the table for our PSAC booth. Also, making sure we have some volunteers for the booth and get the information out to the members of where and when to meet.
United Way Campaign
Our HRC have found out that the Calgary HandiBus is not listed as one of the United Wayagencies. Our committee finds this quite odd and would like to find out how we could get our members to donate to a worthwhile cause through the “Members” donations, Sister Kelly will get more information and we will discuss this further at the next meeting.
Seeing no further items on the agenda and the committee has no round table items to discuss the meeting was adjourned.
Meeting was adjourned at 7:30pm.
Date of the next meeting will be Tuesday August 31st at the Calgary Regional Office at 5:30pmwith a dinner being provided for committee members.