St. Ann's Bay Development Association

Meeting of 19 September 2017

Present: Loreto Doyle, Barbara Longva, Anne-Claude Pépin, Paul Weinberg

Regrets: Yvonne van der Zanden, Jitka Zgola

1. Call to order
2. Approve agenda
3. Approve minutes of the meeting of 30 May 2017 (moved: Loreto; seconded: Paul; carried.)
4. Financial Report (Anne-Claude)
   • As at 19 September 2017:
     
     

     Balance:	$10,565.37
     	7,262.46		allocated to Time Bank project
     	833.32		allocated to web site coordinator (Jay Rawding)
     Net:	$ 2,469.59		unrestricted assets

   • Since our last meeting of 30 May 2017, the following cheques were issued:
     
     

     $	231.12		Web site hosting fees for years 2016 and 2017
     	1,666.64		Jay Rawding, web site coordinator payments
     	500.00		Lisa Finney, final payment, business listings coordinator contract
     	50.00		Honorarium for Bev Brett for history page on community web site
     	2,600.00		Patsy Leblanc, Time Bank coordinator first payment
     	216.67		Patsy Leblanc, travel expenses
     	113.37		Patsy Leblanc, admin/office expenses
     	100.00		Donation to Seawall Trail Association, AGM presentation
     	125.00		Cabot Shores, food for March AGM
     	60.00		SABUC Tea Room rental for March AGM

   • Motion: to approve the financial report as read (moved: Anne-Claude; seconded: Loreto; carried.)
5. Committee Reports
   • Community Web Site Committee
   • Following a recruitment notice in the Events sheet, Mel Sweetnam came forward to join the Web Site Committee. Daniel Maguire was also recruited as a new member. Anne-Claude resigned as Chair of the Committee, and Mel assumed that role. The committee will work under the terms of reference set out in Appendix I.
   • The newly built Web Site Committee met for the first time on September 16, and put the following questions and recommendations forward for SABDA's consideration:
   • Provide clarification as to the purpose/target audiences of the web site.
   • SABDA's response:
   • SABDA continues to wish for the web site to be a tool that fosters a sense of community for current residents, invites potential newcomers, and serves tourists; we view these objects as tightly interrelated. The web site supports a vibrant community, and offers an online presence to those business owners and community groups who are not comfortable or interested in having their own. If the web site is used as a day-to-day online resource to residents (e.g., Events sheet; share-a-ride; buy-and-sell; services; etc.), its search engine rankings improve, making it (and our community) more visible to the Internet. Because many businesses in the community are tourism-related, and our community is rich in social activities and organisations, ensuring that as many of these as possible are included on line showcases the region as a place worth visiting or living in. The wider reach (through web searches) benefits every business in the community.
   • Action: Anne-Claude will relay this information to the Committee.
   • The Committee recommends building social media literacy in the community via workshops.
   • SABDA's response:
   • SABDA supports this, and has done such workshops in the past in partnership with Tom Wilson, Victoria County Director of Tourism, who provides such workshops for free. The Committee should try that avenue. Another good contact is Lori Burke at the Centre for Craft and Design; the Centre occasionally sponsors such workshops for its members (many, if not most, of our artisans are members). Update: The Centre offers its training to any artist or artisan, even non-members.
   • Action: Loreto will connect with Lori Burke at the Centre for Craft to investigate this option.
   • SABDA also discussed the LaMPSS Workplace Education programme offered by the provincial government. Programmes can be custom-built to any content we want to deliver, although they need to be 40 hours long, and are available only to those who are employed or who own businesses.
   • At this time, no money was allocated to the Committee to do a workshop until they investigate the options proposed by SABDA.
   • Secure medium- to longer-term funding for the web site and other social media platform initiatives by awarding a contract of up to $2,500 to someone to compile a comprehensive inventory of funding sources for social media initiatives in Nova Scotia.
   • SABDA's response:
   • SABDA recognises the need to secure long-term funding for the web site, but our current funds balance is $2,469.69. We think that this money should rather be kept on hand to have matching funds for an actual grant submission.
   • Action: Loreto will investigate the appropriateness of getting someone from ACOA (Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency) to meet with the Committee—or to do an open public session—to discuss any opportunities for social media/web site initiatives.
   • We discussed the possibility of interesting the MBA programme at CBU in creating a student project in this vein.
   • Action: Anne-Claude will report back to the Committee. No money was approved to pursue this recommendation.
   • The Committee would like to extend Jay Rawding’s web site coordinator contract to the end of March 2018 to undertake urgent/high-priority site maintenance until more funding is secured. The amount requested is $500.
   • Time Bank Committee
   • The Time Bank Committee was struck in May 2017, and includes Jitka Zgola, Anne-Claude Pépin, Ruth Schneider, and Jay Rawding.
   • A Coordinator was contracted following a request for expressions of interest in the Events sheet, to which we had four respondents, and interviewed three. The successful candidate was Patsy Leblanc, who started as Coordinator in June.
   • To date, there are 63 memberships and 153 hours of help exchanged. An orientation session was organised, and a Community Connections sub-committee was recently formed including Minerva MacInnis, Marion Thompson, Mary Ann Wilson, Nancy Smith, and Diane Grant.
   • A funding proposal was submitted to the New Horizons Grant Programme ($24,575 total) to expand on the Time Bank concept. We expect to hear whether the application is successful in January 2018.
   • Political Action Committee
   • Englishtown Ferry:
   • Loreto received usage and revenue numbers from TIR this spring, and distributed them to the board in June. While there are inconsistencies in the numbers provided—they were delivered at different times as annual or monthly totals that don't agree with each other—the trend is pretty clear: since the 2015 fare increases, off-season usage is generally down, and summer usage is steady-state. Given that 2016 was a banner year for tourism, steady state in summer probably indicates a downward percentage trend—we're capturing fewer tourists for the ferry ride.
   • Last May, Council expected to hear from the Province how it intended to work with the outcome of the engineering study done at Englishtown regarding the potential for a bridge. The study seemed to indicate that a bridge would, over the expected life of a bridge or the current ferry (estimated at 75 years), be considerably more affordable. The province had an election in May, and SABDA has not heard since whether Council has received this information.
   • Action: Anne-Claude will ask Merrill if he knows anything about the bridge study status.
   • Re-use Shed at Baddeck Transfer Station:
   • Back in December 2016, we were assured that the ongoing updates at the Baddeck depot would include a re-use shed, where still-usable items could be disposed for exchange. The update schedule was over 2 years, and the shed was expected to be included in the latter part of the work, or 2017.
   • At the Council meeting of August 14, 2017, which took place at the fire hall in Indian Brook, the re-use shed came up as a suggestion from a citizen in attendance at the meeting. The Council minutes note that "investigation is being presently undertaken with providing some type of facility for this purpose."
   • Further discussion at the Council meeting indicated that the idea might be acted upon, depending on the outcome of the investigation, but that the concept is complex. A time line of one or two years for possible implementation was suggested. This unfortunately sounds like the idea has not been moving forward as previously suggested, and that we're back to square one.
   • Transportation Committee
   • County Transit Strategy:
   • Perla MacLeod, Councillor for Middle River, has been trying to organise a meeting of interested Councillors and citizen groups for several months. Councillors Merrill MacInnis and Fraser Patterson, as well as Loreto, Jitka, and representatives of other County communities, are expected to attend. The meeting has been postponed several times, but is still in the works. Until we actually meet, we won't know what Council intends to do with its Transit Strategy and Implementation Plan.
   • New Tourism Committee
   • It's been such a busy summer that it was felt the timing was not right to engage people to join the Tourism Committee that was created at our last meeting. Loreto will start contacting people now. Tom Wilson has proposed a meeting with our Committee in October, to discuss the County's new Tourism Strategy.
6. New Business
7. Jitka Zgola has resigned as Chair of SABDA, and from the Board. Anne-Claude and Loreto also indicated they may not re-offer at our next AGM in 2018. There are currently 4 board members, and there is an urgent need to recruit to carry on all the wonderful programmes that SABDA is leading.
8. Action: Anne-Claude will prepare an Events sheet notice to recruit new members.
9. Next Meeting
10. Tuesday 16 January at 18:30 hrs, in the Health Centre meeting room.
11. Meeting Adjourned (moved: Loreto; seconded: Barb)

Appendix I: Terms of Reference
Shores of St Ann’s Web Site Committee

Membership

• Three to five members from the St Ann’s Bay community.
• The strong preference is for an odd number of members to maximize the opportunity for majority voting (i.e., no deadlocks).
• Any member not physically in attendance at two consecutive meetings shall be deemed to have resigned from the committee.
• The Chair and other members are appointed annually, for the subsequent calendar year, through a majority vote by other committee members at the September 15 meeting.

Chair

• Is a member of the committee, and shall rotate on a year-to-year basis (i.e., no-one shall serve as Chair continuously for longer than one calendar year, though s/he may resume the Chair after any one calendar-year gap).
• Reports to, and takes direction from, the SABDA Chair.

Quorum

• A minimum of three members (one of which shall be the Chair) for voting purposes.

Meetings

• Quarterly in person on the following dates at a committee member's residence, or other facility identified by the Chair:
• January 15; March 15; June 15; September 15 (these dates may be adjusted at Chair's sole discretion to accommodate holidays or other considerations).
• At Chairs sole discretion, ad hoc meetings and/or votes on committee business may also be held in person or by teleconference or by e-mail.

Responsibilities

• Chair:
• Calls all meetings, and communicates details to members.
• Calls all votes and, in the absence of committee consensus on any matter, has authority to make a final decision.
• Responsible for supervising the work of the administrators of relevant social media platforms (web site, Instagram, other) and for determining which design/content matters need to be brought to the committee, and which shall be left to the administrator's discretion.
• Reports to SABDA on committee outputs/outcomes and next steps.
• Members:
• Attend all meetings called by the Chair (in person and/or virtually).
• Contribute practical, feasible, constructive ideas regarding the best use of social media platforms, community engagement, marketing and funding opportunities, and related matters.

Remuneration

• Advisory Committee members are volunteers, and there is no remuneration for time spent on committee business, travel expenses for meetings, etc.

Committee Mandate

• [will update once relevant info is received from SABDA]

Committee Members

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