President’s Report
Annual General Meeting – June 8, 2010
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Morden/Winkler
This past year has been a success for our agency. We’ve managed to come through fiscally in solid shape and taken what started as a bleak outlook and managed the agency with a much tighter belt than we’ve ever done before and increased our revenues to bring us from a projected deficit larger than ever in our history to actually operating in the black. This is a powerful transition and one that will do nothing but enable us to further help children in greater ways. All this and we navigated the sometimes tricky water of a full agency accreditation audit and have passed this with full approval on all levels. Laura deserves the most profound of accolades for spearheading these things. We’re truly blessed as an agency to have her working with us and appreciate her steadiness deeply. While last year was one of more board involvement than we’ve typically had to give – this year was one where we were confident enough to let her often stand on her own. She’s done a great, great job.
It was also a year of some change as well. Ashleigh joined our team last year and did a spectacular job while she was with us. We’ll miss her energy and professionalism but she has moved on to other opportunities and we wish her the best in her future. To replace her we’ve had Kevin join the team and we want to extend a very real welcome out to Kevin and hope that he continues to work with us at Big Brothers for years to come. He’s fit in well and has reportedly done an excellent job at transitioning into his new roll.
We’ve still got significant challenges ahead. One of our main goals is to bring our financial position to a place where there is less annual stress to achieve certain fiscal levels and move into a place where we have a more steady income. We are exploring a number of initiatives to do this. Moving forward we’ve got a very real need for an increase in the volunteer base. Male mentors top this list for sure as we’ve still got a significant waiting list of boys who are not being serviced. This will never be acceptable. One of our challenges right now is in obtaining volunteers for the periodic fundraising or agency initiatives. We do need Bigs but we also need a base of people who can be contacted who will be willing to occasionally help out in singular ways. The needs are great and we very much need all of your help. Please spread the word and help us make these connections.
In addition to this we’re actively recruiting a number of new board members as we’re about to say goodbye to several of our long standing members who have served for years. We have to say goodbye to Myrna Hildebrand and Betty Unrau as they’ve served their terms in office and must move on for now to board work with our agency. Lorraine Gerbrandt will also be timing out in March of this coming year. Each of these ladies has served with their hearts, money and sweat for years and also deserve the deepest thanks and accolades we can give. Your involvement has made a difference in the lives of children.
This coming year will be a successful and a year of growth. I believe we’ll serve more children than ever before and continue in a proactive way to develop as an agency to serve in even greater ways.
Jeremy D. Ward - President