Allan's Notes
From the June 14 Board Meeting
Applications Roll In For Solar and Energy
Savings Program
Five community leagues – Ritchie, McLeod, Evansdale,
Riverbend and West Jasper Sherwood – have decided to invest in the EFCL’s Solar
and Energy Savings Program. The pilot
project will see each league get a 1.2 kw (five panel) solar energy system, an
information display monitor, an energy and carbon audit and a chance to take
part in a provincial energy retrofit grant program.
The EFCL, which along with the City of Edmonton is
subsidizing the cost of the program, has spots for seven leagues to take
part. Each league is required to provide
a cheque for $6,000, along with some league contacts and basic information
about their hall. If more than seven
leagues apply by the July 3 deadline, a draw will be held on July 4.
In related news, the federation decided to enter its own
office building in the program, at a cost of $14,000. The EFCL negotiated this arrangement with the
suppliers separate from the league program, so that it wouldn’t impact the
amount of subsidy money available.
EFCL Explores Opportunities With Indigenous
Games
The Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues is working on a
partnership proposal with the organizers of the Alberta Indigenous Games, which
is set for Aug. 5-9, 2013.
The plan focuses on the recruitment of volunteer coaches, to
help run team sports such as soccer, softball, volleyball, basketball, ball
hockey, lacrosse and canoeing, as well as coaches for individual sports like
golf, archery and athletics.
The coaches would prepare the athletes for a month or two
prior to the games, which will be held in Edmonton, St. Albert, Leduc and
Enoch. All participants on Edmonton
teams in the games would need to have a community league membership in order to
participate. Participants, largely with
the help of their coaches, would then be introduced to community league and
other community-based programs after the Games.
Games co-chairman Allan Ross and Edmonton Public School
Board consultant Dawn Marie Marchand pitched the proposal to the board at its
meeting Thursday night.
They expect to see between 2,000 and 3,000 participants,
aged 12-18, take part in the Games. They
will include people from First Nation, Metis and Innuit backgrounds.
The EFCL plans to hold meetings with interested sports
organizations to help get this project off the ground.
Infrastructure Assessment Program Winding Down
Community leagues have until December 31 of this year to
apply to the EFCL for infrastructure assessment funding, according to decision
reached by the board on Thursday night.
After that date, all remaining funds in the program will be
redirected to other federation projects.
The infrastructure assessment funding is available to any
league that needs to do work that wasn’t covered in the basic hall assessment
that was completed by Stantec or Williams Engineering in the past couple of
years. Sample projects are geotechnical
reviews, to determine the integrity of the hall foundation, as well as investigations
to locate and determine the degree of hazard presented by asbestos in the hall.
The EFCL is willing to cover 80% of the cost of the review,
on projects up to $20.000. Leagues are
expected to obtain three quotes for the work before applying to the federation
for funding.
Applications should be sent directly to the EFCL executive
director, Allan Bolstad.
Presenters Sought for League’s Alive Conference
EFCL
Board members were asked to bring forward the names of community league
executives who would be willing to make a presentation at the federation’s
conference on Nov. 3. Confirmed topics
at the conference are as follows:
Consensus Building, Board Governance Basics, Developing Policy, Bylaws, Role of
the President, Role of the Treasurer, Connecting with your Community, Road to
Accountability, Use of Gaming Proceeds, Volunteer Engagement and Recruitment,
Social Media, Building Operations, Crime Prevention, Community Gardening.
Online System For Membership Card Distribution
Well Accepted
The
EFCL has yet to receive any complaints from Leagues or customers about the online
sale of membership cards. We have also yet
to notice any cases of people trying to take advantage of leagues with very low
membership fees.
Requests far outweigh submissions to the
Supplier Marketplace
We have
only had three submissions so far from Community Leagues for our Supplier
Marketplace. We do get a lot of leagues
interested in finding a recommended supplier – 1,260 visits that page in May
alone - so we need to promote this service to our Leagues and continually
remind them to submit suppliers.
Living Local Arts and Heritage Program (Year
Two) Launched
The
EFCL launched the second year of its Living Local Arts and Heritage
Program.
The program is open to any league that wants to hire local artists to do a
project that showcases
