Northern Alberta RWC Mtg Minutes - Oct 13 2016

In Attendance:

• Charmaine Nelson - Chair
• Darlene Lewis - Vice Chair
• Dragana Ristivojevic - Secretary
• Gulnar Dhalwani
• Patty Jessome
• Karoline Klug - A/Regional PSAC Rep
Regrets:
• Kim Haynes - Treasurer
• Chelsea Keys
• Deborah Basaraba
• Lorelei Noble
• Kim Cardinal
• 7.1 Call to Order: Meeting was called to order by Charmaine at 5:36 pm. Charmaine welcomed everyone to the meeting and thanked us for attending tonight’s meeting despite the weather watch.
• 7.2 Agenda: Additions were made to the agenda and all were in agreement.
• 7.3 Approval of Previous Minutes: Previous minutes of August 25, 2016 and September 15, 2016 were accepted. Delay in these meetings were due to minor revisions.
• 7.4 Follow Up on Previous Business:
• 7.4a. Update for Tools for School – Charmaine went to the school and met Travis (teacher). A cheque of $2,400.00 was given to the school as the school received a better deal in purchasing supplies. Our donation to the school helped in the purchase of a cow eye for a science project. Travis wants us at the school where a presentation will be given in front of the students. We will need to request LWOP for 2 hours for six sisters to be at the school where we would interact with students. A preferable day for the sisters would be a Thursday. A formal invitation should be extended to Marianne Hladun so she can be present at this presentation. She will be in Edmonton on November 25 & 25, 2016. A group photo at the school should be taken with the school’s permission so we could send the photo to our Bargaining Team. A reminder that thank you letters need to be sent to all the Locals that donated to Tools for School. Karoline suggested that we need to table the request for donations for Tools for School in January, 2017 meeting along with a list of all projects that the Committee wants to do in 2017. Nina and Karoline will compile a list of all locals in Edmonton. Suggestion was made that we should reserve 5 minutes at each of our meetings to personally call the Local President of each Local and invite them to our meetings and to request a donation to Tools for School in helping us make this event successful.
• 7.4b.Community Garden:
  1. i. The school is very interested in the garden box that Kim Cardinal suggested. We need to figure out how to drop Kim’s garden box to the school.
  2. ii.Travis indicated they have the lumber to construct more garden beds. These beds will be constructed by their own Student’s Club at the school.
  3. iii.This will be discussed at our next meeting on how to support the school with plants, seeds and possibly our volunteer time.
  4. 7.4c. Women’s Seminar: Discussions on the planning of the Conference are as follows: The seminar will be held at the Chateau Lacombe where they have 2 rooms available for us (one room to hold the main event and the other to be a Safe Room). The main room will hold 6 round tables, a head table to seat the panelists and buffet tables. It will have soft seating with comfortable sofas and chairs along with hi-top tables. The projected cost for Saturday will be approximately $1,600.00. This includes two coffee breaks and lunch. No coffee will be available prior to the start of the Seminar on Saturday. There will be no dinner offered on Saturday night. PSAC will be celebrating their 50th anniversary on November 17, 2016. We can celebrate the anniversary by serving an anniversary cake along with coffee. Prior to the Seminar on Sunday, coffee will be available to all. Lunch will be provided on Sunday. Breakfast will be paid only to the guests. The cost of parking will be $5.00/day for both Saturday and Sunday. We need an audio-visual equipment for one-day. The head table will have microphones for the panelists for Saturday. On Sunday, the PSAC will be bringing in their own microphone.
     • i. Speakers. Hailee, Executive Director of LEAF (Women’s Education and Action Fund) requires more information from us. Jan Reimer confirmed yes. Jan would be able to speak on domestic violence. Maria Fitzpatrick confirmed yes and is waiting for an official invitation. Maria could speak on legislation. Monique Methot still needs to be asked. Monique could provide our sisters the tools that they could take back to work where we could identify the signs. Karoline and Nina will reconnect with all the speakers on a conference call as each speaker will have approximately 15 minutes to present to the sisters on a specific topic. As a backup speaker, Gulnar will connect with Harriett Tinka who could possibly speak on economic empowerment.
     • ii.Purchases. Gulnar will not be available to demonstrate how to decorate the candles with Henna. Nina and Karoline will be visiting the stores that sell Henna supplies. We could have patterns to help our sisters when they are decorating their own candles.
     • iii.Updates. Gulnar suggested that she could pre-decorate the candles herself or at our November’s meeting she could show us how to do Henna so we have some knowledge prior to our seminar in order to help our sisters. Gloria Kelly the Prairie Regional Council Rep should be sent a formal invitation.
     • iv.Call Out Letter. We will require a poster which should be posted on Union boards at our workplaces. Genevieve will be sending this poster on October 19, 2016. A call out-letter will be sent out where the guests will need to indicate their requirements and the deadline for them to respond is November 16, 2016. We need to confirm with the hotel the total number of people by November 30, 2016.
     • v.USGE Swag. Patty started to request items for the Seminar. Nina suggested a canvas bag that reads “Northern Alberta Regional Seminar”. This bag would hold a candle. The approximate cost is $15.00/bag for 40 people. Nina will draft a letter for silent auction items.
     • 7.5 New Business:
       • a. Planning for Dec 6th Vigil. Darlene will call the City Hall where we could hold our candle vigil.
       • b. RWC Prairie Region Convention. Discussed the delegate parameters and who we want to see to attend this convention.
       • c. Remembrance Day – Deborah Basaraba and Darlene Lewis will be laying the wreath at the Butterdome. Dragana will be the back up. Genevieve will be purchasing a wreath on behalf of the Women’s Committee.
       • 7.6 Signing Authority: Was done on September 15, 2016. Charmaine Nelson, Darlene Lewis and Kim Haynes now have signing authority.
       • 7.7 Future Scheduled Meetings: - Thursday November 10, 2016; and - Thursday December 15, 2016
       • 7.8 Treasurer’s Report: No Financial Report was presented to the Committee.
       • 7.9 Round Table:
         • - The AGM for the Regional Women’s Committee will be held on Thursday December 08, 2016 at 5:30 pm. Elections to select 2017 executive members and to hold an election to send a delegate to the 2017 Prairie Region Convention.
         • - It was suggested at our AGM in December, 2016, we make January, 2017 a planning garden.
         • - A facilitated discussion workshop will be available to each committee. Everyone is welcomed to attend. This will either be a ½ day or a full day of “Mini-Planning” which will help the committee on how to plan a budget, how to action and promote events. To help make this workshop successful, is to bring your ideas to this workshop whether the committee wants to do separate events throughout the year or to pick a theme for example childcare and what events could the committee do around that theme.

           Next scheduled Meeting: Thursday November 10, 2016 Meeting Adjourned at 7:45 pm.