EFCL Board Package Dec. 2011 - District B Report

Best of the Season District B:

As you may have noticed from the emails there is plenty happening this month. The EFCL board meeting this month will be abbreviated due to the board taking a little time to celebrate the holidays together.

This month I attended the playground funding meeting, the living local meeting, the EFCL outdoor rink committee meeting and the City Council budget meetings to name a few.

Download the December 2010 EFCL Board package here

New Capital and Operating Funds for Leagues
First the GOOD NEWS. City Council passed the EFCL budget request for $1.5 million in community league capital funding next year and they also passed our request for increased operating money. The criteria for the capital funds are being developed and we will know more soon. As you will recall this increase in budget came directly as a result of negotiations for a new Tripartite Agreement. The capital funds are half of what we asked for, but a welcome initiative to start cleaning up some of the infrastructure problems in community leagues and possibly building new facilities as well. The money will be gobbled up very quickly since there is a backlog of needed projects. The Planning Committee has created some specific "asks" in this regard. Please see section 6.1 on page 13 of the board package for details. If you have input please let me know.

EFCL/EMHA Hockey - Outdoor Rink Committee
As I reported in a separate email I have joined this new committee that cam about as a consequence of the problems with hockey registrations experienced this year. As Allan reports in the board package the EMHA is saying membership requirement in leagues is in their bylaws and there is a 50-50 chance a vote at the EMHA would remove that requirement. However, for us in the northeast that is only part of the story. The Northeast Zone also has this requirement in its bylaws as well and President, Lorraine Jex advised me last week that they have no intention of removing this requirement. This is why I am working with the EFCL/EMHA committee to support the creation of NEW EFCL/EMHA programs to promote the use of rinks and perhaps even shinny hockey in the communities. This should be positioned as a new program and not a replacement for the relationship we have with hockey in the northeast including membership in leagues.

Dates to remember:

EFCL Trade Show: 

Saturday January 22nd 9AM-4PM - Blatchford hanger, Fort Edmonton Park Free parking, food and beverages 9 Featured presentations booths, entertainment, and free parking as well as easy access on the #4 bus.

6.1 Attracting Families to Mature Neighbourhoods - at last month's meeting the board past a motion to ask Edmonton City Council to undertake measures that help mature neighbourhoods retain and attract families with children. This includes infill housing standards that are attractive to families and the development of a strategy to retain existing schools. This month a motions is coming before the board to add some detail to these ideas.

See the board package for more details. As always if you have any questions, comments or input you would like me to take forward please let me know.

Playground Meeting at the EFCL with MLA Thomas Lukasuk

Hi Folks, I attended the meeting about playground funding on November 22 at the EFCL. MLA Thomas Lukaszuk was there along with half a dozen folks from the City and a gaggle of community league folks including Troy from Belle Rive in our area.

There were wide ranging discussions. Mr. Lukaszuk explained that he feels playgrounds are costing a lot more in Edmonton than in places like Spruce Grove. He also said that the more expensive playgrounds that are built the fewer neighbourhoods will get playgrounds. He said the pot of money is limited from the province. He explained that the provincial money is divided four ways: 1) Edmonton; 2) Calgary; 3) Small Towns; 4) Rural Alberta. He did not say if it was done on a per person, or per capita basis.

The group talked about the use of volunteers in the building of playgrounds and the City seemed to say they would refrain from discouraging communities from using volunteers.

The group also talked about expectations in building playgrounds and managing them. There was some discussion about how suppliers tend to ramp up the sense that we need to buy everything under the sun for each playground and that sometimes overlooked are the less expensive features that are less focused on hardware and more focused on activities and use of the park.

After the meeting the EFCL asked the City to also look at the cost of drainage requirements to see if that can be managed better to reduce the cost to leagues building playgrounds.

Most of the city funding is geared to "neighbourhoods" which is fair for community leagues that have more than one neighbourhood in their community. There is one gap this principle – apparently district parks such as Poplar Park in Belle Rive do not qualify for NPDP funds that are geared to neighbourhoods. Some of our city representatives promised to look into what fund could be used to support playgrounds in district parks like Poplar Park.

When asked about how decisions are made about provincial funding for community leagues undertaking park projects.  Mr. Lukaszuk reiterated that funds are limited, but did not elaborate on how funds are dispersed. However, Mr. Lukaszuk did say that there is nothing that should prevent groups from applying for casino funds to assist in funding playgrounds. I did indicate that we heard community folks were getting a lot of grief about this from gaming, so I would suggest taking your applications to your MLA and give them copies when you submit them. He suggested getting you project pre-approved by gaming and to get your MLA involved if you have problems.

It was very worthwhile to get community, city and provincial folks all in the same room!

EFCL-EMHA Hockey Committee Launched

New EFCL Hockey Committee News

Here is a quick update on the hockey situation. I have joined a committee to discuss a new relationship between the Edmonton Minor Hockey Association (EMHA) and the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues (EFCL).

See these notes from the first meeting on November 22, 2010. We had a second meeting today (on December 6, 2010).

The committee arose as a result of wide-spread problems that occurred during hockey registration this year in some parts of the city.

The idea is to establish a new relationship between the two organizations and possibly to run programs together at the community level.

Today, Shirley from Belvedere stepped forward and joined the committee as someone who looks after a rink and is interested in programs. See the attached document for a list of the other participants.

Committee Objectives:

1)    To increase the utilization of outdoor rinks in Edmonton.
2)    To increase the number of people playing hockey
3)    To provide more opportunities for people to develop their hockey skills.
4)    To bring people together in neighborhoods, to help them develop friendships and feel good about the area in which they live.

At today's meeting we talked about programs to bring community scale hockey back into communities, the idea of a winter rink day and the idea of talking about improving use of rinks and participation in learn to skate and hockey related activities.

I also spoke with Lorraine Jex last week and she confirmed that the North Zone is very committed to retaining the relationship between communities in the northeast and hockey and the requirement for memberships. I also stressed that many folks in the Northeast would like to see these new programs developed as "new initiatives" between the EMHA and the EFCL and not as replacements for the requirement for community league memberships.

The EFCL/EMHA committee is talking about hosting an event in January to get community folks together to discuss ideas for improving participation and possibly even promoting informal shinny hockey in leagues. Watch for details, but the meeting will likely be held on Saturday January 29, 2010 early!

EFCL Board Package Nov. 2011 - District B Report

EFCL District B Report
David Dodge, District B Rep.
November 9, 2010

Download the EFCL November, 2010 Board Package

Highlights from the EFCL Nov Board Package

6.1 – City Budget Presentation Allan Bolstad, Executive Director

That the EFCL invite three community leagues and a couple of area councils to participate in the Dec. 1 budget presentation to Edmonton City Council.

6.2 - Attracting Families to Mature Neighbourhoods

That the EFCL ask Edmonton City Council to undertake measures that help mature neighborhoods retain and attract families with children.

That these measures include, but not be limited to: A) The development of infill housing standards that are attractive to families with

children. B) The development of a strategy to retain existing schools.

6.3 - Design of New Schools Allan Bolstad, Executive Director

That the EFCL, in conjunction with the Edmonton YMCA, request a meeting with the Minister of Education to discuss the inclusion of community space in new schools.

6.4 - EMHA/EFCL Outdoor Ice Committee Allan Bolstad, Executive Director

That the board identify two representatives to sit on the EMHA/EFCL Outdoor Ice Committee.

Report:

The Edmonton Minor Hockey Association (EMHA) would like to put together an outdoor ice committee, in conjunction with the EFCL, to make better use of community league rinks.

Following our discussion at an informal meeting on Sept. 27, the EMHA would like to flesh out a plan whereby all hockey registrants would pay into an outdoor rink program fund.            It was suggested that either five or ten dollars per player would be dedicated to this fund, which would produce $40,000 - $80,000 per year, depending on the fee that is selected.

The outdoor program could feature elements like learn-to-skate and power skating lessons, hockey skills clinics, hockey skills competitions and mini-hockey tournaments. It would require some staffing to get it established and coordinate the activities.

The committee would be charged with fleshing out the program and bringing a proposal to the EHMA. The hockey association would have to hold a formal vote before the fee could be implemented.

It would helpful if the EFCL could provide a couple of people to sit on this committee, in addition to staff. If no board members are interested, we could put out a call for representatives from the leagues.

6.5 - Grants to New Leagues Allan Bolstad, Executive Director

That the EFCL ask the city to authorize the payment of operating grants to new community leagues that are incorporated at the time of the grant application process.

Report:

The Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues would like to see new leagues receive an operating grant from the city as soon as possible.

6.6 - Planning Committee Governance EFCL Planning Committee

That the EFCL Governance Committee consider options to broaden community league involvement in the EFCL Planning and Development Committee.

Report

The current structure of the EFCL Planning and Development Committee provides for an elected representative from each district. Some elected district reps attend regularly; others are not able to do so. Some districts have not been able to find a volunteer willing to serve on the committee; others have had frequent turnover in their rep.

8.1 – Executive Director‘s Report Allan Bolstad, Executive Director

1. Non-Profit Sector Consultations with Culture and Community Spirit Minister

The EFCL took an active role, once again, in the second round table discussion on non-profit operations, chaired by Culture and Community Spirit Minister Lindsay Blackett, on Oct.20.

3. Meeting with New City Councillors

The recent election saw two new people elected to city council – Dave Loken in Ward 3 and Kerry Diotte in Ward 11. Dave Loken is the former business agent for the Coalition of Civic Unions and is quite familiar with community league activities. He and his wife have been part of an informal group attempting to get a community league started in their neighborhood of Griesbach in north Edmonton.

Kerry Diotte is a former Edmonton Sun civic affairs columnist who wrote dozens of columns about waste- ful spending at city hall and used that as the focus of his recent election campaign.

EFCL Vice-President and District B director David Dodge has a meeting with Dave Loken on Nov. 4 and planned to discuss both Ward and EFCL issues. He was given a copy of our Living Local pamphlet to pass along to Councillor Loken.

A) Aquatic User Committee Meeting October 13, 2010

The Aquatic User Committee met on October 13, to discuss the Aquatic Allocation Process for the new Terwillegar Community Recreation Centre. Terwillegar Recreation Centre is scheduled to open at the end of this year. The swim programs are starting in January, 2011. The City is in the process of booking time for various aquatic user groups. The EFCL through e-mails, e-News, and Newsletter has asked the leagues to book their pool time. We have about six requests so far. The EFCL once again requests leagues interested in the new facility to book their swim time now. Most of the leagues prefer time between 4-7 P.M. on Sundays. The City proposed time for community swim is from 5 – 7 P.M. on Sundays. The EFCL hopes that the two hours time slot would work for most of the leagues. Please note that allocation is based on sharing cost among user leagues. A league wanting to book the whole pool for itself may contact the City. Leagues interested to have more information or to send booking request can contact Shahriyar at 780-437-2913, e-mail Shahriyar.khan@efcl.org or Gina Holowach Senior Booking Coordinator at Gina.Holowach@edmonton.ca

8.4 - Community Planning Advisor’s Report Bev Zubot, Community Planning Advisor

1. Row Housing Zone Negotiations Continue

2. The Planning Committee Gives Initial Feedback On The Draft Medium Scale Residential Infill Overlay For Mature Neighbourhoods

3. Planning and Consultation Process For Rezoning Large Residential Infill for Mature

Neighbourhoods

4. Nov 3rd Meeting re Improving Early Land Development Consultations

8.5 - Marketing Director‘s Report Michael Janz, Marketing Director

1. Living Local campaign

Meetings will be held on Thursday, November 25 at 930-1130AM at the Edmonton Room of the Stanley Milner Library and 6-9PM at the EFCL office,.

2. EFCL Tradeshow

Blatchford Hanger, Fort Edmonton Park Free Admission, Free Parking Jan 22nd 2010 9AM-4PM Space is limited.

Questions or RSVP: Michael.janz@efcl.org

10.1 – Presidents‘ Dinner Allan Bolstad, Executive Director

We‘re pleased to report that our Presidents‘ Dinner is fully subscribed.

Mayor Stephen Mandel has agreed to bring greetings and other members of council are beginning to confirm their attendance.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m., dinner is at 7:00 p.m. and the program is set for 8:00 p.m. The Don Berner Trio will be playing during dinner and then joined by a singer and horn player for the dance afterward.

10.4 – Playground Meeting Allan Bolstad, Executive Director

The EFCL – in conjunction with Castle Downs MLA Thomas Lukaszuk – is hosting a meeting to review the costs of building a playground and associated facilities like spray decks.

Community leagues representatives and city representatives have all been invited to attend. We are most interested in hearing from people that recently built a playground or are in the project planning stages and have some cost-cutting suggestions to make.

The meeting will begin with dinner at 5:30 p.m., Monday, Nov. 22 at the EFCL office (7103-105 Street).

Please let Joanne Booth at (780) 437-2913 or at Joanne.Booth@EFCL.org know if you are able to attend.

City of Edmonton Renewable Energy Task Force - What's that?

Hi Community Leagues


First, congratulations to Dave Loken, Ed Gibbons, Tony Caterina and Kim Krushell on their successful election campaigns! These are our four councillors from the region. Welcome "back" to three of you and a special welcome to Dave Loken, the new councillor on the block.


Don't forget the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues RGM is Monday October 25! Get the meeting package here. Come on down and join in the conversation about hockey memberships, get updates on current topics and have your say!
Duggan Community League, Address:  3728 – 106 Street
Dinner for RSVP’ed guests at 5:30, Registration until 6:30
Meeting begins at 6:30 Monday, Oct. 25, 2010.

Renewable Energy Task Force

A very interesting thing happened to me in my community league work over the last few months. Not long after members of Area Council 17 were peppering Edmonton City Councillor Ed Gibbons with questions about why the City does not have more solar panels installed, one of my colleagues, Renewable Energy expert Tim Weis invited me to a special meeting of the City of Edmonton Renewable Energy Task force.

The special meeting was to hear California renewable energy guru Paul Gipe make a presentation about using feed-in-tariffs to encourage growth in clean energy sources. I did a short video interview with him after his presentation. Gipe was promoting feed-in-tariffs as the key policy that has successfully secured half of the new renewable energy projects in the world.

The City of Edmonton ran a very small solar-electric pilot program to test interest in solar energy and their small $200,000 program was oversubscribed within days! The program resulted in 29 new solar systems being installed in Edmonton increasing our solar energy supply by 100%. This last statistic is pretty sad really, since it confirms we have only taken very tiny, baby steps towards developing clean sources of energy. But it does give a strong indication of interest by the public in getting in volved with renewable energy. Enmax is working on a program to put 8,000 small solar systems on the roofs of their customers. Watch for this next year.

There is no question the public is interested in renewable energy. I know this because of surveys that confirm that the public sees renewable energy and energy efficiency as the two key things we need to do to create a new green energy economy, to tackle climate change and to transform our relatively dirty energy supply into a clean energy supply over time.

The moral of the story is after attending the meeting I was invited to the next meeting of the City of Edmonton Renewable Energy Task force and I am now representing the EFCL and community leagues on the City of Edmonton's Renewable Energy Task force.

I attended the fourth meeting of the task force today and the topic was transportation.

This seemed like a good way to combine my interest in energy issues and my volunteer work in communities. The committee is a very interesting mix of folks and includes a lot of expertise.

I will be looking for ways to share information with community folks and eventually we will propose a meeting for community folks on these topics.

Today the topic was transportation and I learned all sorts of interesting things. I learned that Edmonton is one of the most car-oriented cities in Canada. I still think Calgary must be worse, but so it goes.

The City of Edmonton is currently working on significant expansion of the LRT to reduce emissions and roadway congestion. Apparently LRT ridership is now 94,000 per day, up 26% since adding just two stations to the line!

Environmentally this is interesting for other reasons. LRT runs on electricity and quite efficiently. Just this week I also noticed a sign at the new local school. The sign indicated an electric car charging station at the new school in my neighbourhood.


There is a sign and a plug-in for electric vehicles. I was thinking that electric vehicles are one of those technologies that is still not mature enough. But it seems electric vehicles are coming on stream in a variety of forms: electric vehicles (EV) and as plug-in-hybrids. Apparently even in Alberta where 60-70% of our electricity still comes from dirty sources like coal, the EV car produces 30% fewer emissions than a conventional gas car, according to experts on the task force.

The topic of the task force is of course renewable energy. The connection to cars and LRT is obvious. Electric is more efficient, and if you supply the power for the cars from renewable sources of energy then you have one very clean system.

One other fascinating fact came from a presentation by Godo Stoyke of Carbon Busters. He told us Amsterdam decided to invest heavily in cycling to encourage people to use bikes instead of cars. The program was so successful more than three times as many people use bicycles now in Amsterdam. And here's the crux: apparently there has been no increase in bike accidents with three times as many riders. Apparently the more bicycle riders you have the safer it is!


The last little factoid comes from Belgium. When the City of Hasslet was desperate for new transportation solutions and broke financially, they decided to try something radical. Instead of building multi-million dollar roads, they invested something like $5 million to provide all citizens with free transit service. Ridership went up 700% immediately and ten years after ridership is still up 1,100% thus saving the City millions of dollars on roads and other costs.


The City of Edmonton Renewable Energy Task Force is collecting information at this stage and will be making recommendations to City Council about a year from now.


If you have any questions let me know.

EFCL Board Package Oct. 2011 - District B Report

EFCL District B Report
October 14, 2010

The big news is that the Edmonton Minor Hockey Association (EMHA) has decided that they will no longer sell or require membership in a community league to play hockey. There will be discussion about this at the upcoming EFCL RGM. The EMHA has indicated they may be interested in collecting a fee to support hockey programs or facilities in communities, but the days of requiring memberships are over. There are approximately 4,000 community league members who play hockey. (see item 10.4 in the board package).

UPCOMING

EFCL RGM is October 25, 2010 at Duggan Hall – Don't miss it. Hockey memberships will be discussed and much more.

President’s Dinner – November 12, in honour of the terrific contributions of Community League Presidents in Edmonton the EFCL is hosting an appreciation event on November 12, 2010.

FROM THE OCTOBER 14, BOARD PACKAGE – Download it here

6.1 EFCL Policy Manual – the EFCL hired a summer student lawyer to gather up and organize its policies into a one-stop collection of all EFCL policies. It will be available for download soon.

6.2 Direct Deposits for Community Leagues – set up direct deposit FROM the EFCL to make it really easy and efficient to receive deposits from the EFCL for membership revenue.

6.4 LRT Alignment Notice – the EFCL is asking the City to provide one month notice from the time the plans for the new LRT alignment are released before the matter is considered at council on Dec. 8, 2010 to give community folks time to provide input.

6.6 Casino Report – the provinces report on casinos is out and it recommends changes that would see Edmonton casino funds go down. However, the minister has not accepted the report and has sent it back for review. The risk is still there, but the report is under review now and the status quo will apply for a while yet.

8.1 Complete the Quilt – Community League Day was a tremendous success, with 91 leagues participating this year! Your league will now have a chance to contribute to the Community League quilt that was created for the 2010 Community League. This is your chance to join the 43 leagues who have already created sections for the quilt celebrating their communities. Watch for news in the EFCL newsletter.

8.3 Executive Director’s Report – (Allan Bolstad)

CL Capital and Operating grants proposal – as a direct result of the Tripartite licence negotiations and a report by the EFCL about the Community League infrastructure deficit out there (leagues that need halls and other families fixed or built) we made a joint proposed with Community Services to the Community Services Committee for the following:

• $3 million in a new Community League (CL) capital projects fund
• $1.35 million in additional funds for (CL) operating grants

This proposal was reduced by the City to the following:

• $1.5 million for CL Capital Projects
• $700,000 for increases in CL operating grants

In addition the proposed has moved from the “funded” column to the “unfunded” column which means this allocation is in serious competition with many, many other projects for a limited pot of $6.9 million.
Please urge your councillors to support these desperately needed increases for community leagues across the city. One community league hall was recently found to be in nearly condemned condition – this fund is really needed to prevent facilities from becoming a big mess.

Tripartite License Agreement Negotiations – work continues on this front. Dwayne Robertson (President of ACES) and I got together to review the proposal on our own before the last meeting of the committee and then continued our line-by-line review of the licence with the Tripartite Committee.

• it will take at least three meetings (we’ve had two) to go through the agreement clause by clause
• there is some legal jargon still in the agreement – we have been trying to reduce jargon and we are pushing hard for an agreement community leagues can understand – this is an uphill battle
• we are making good headway on many points
• we are still trying to get the City to reduce its involvement in small projects to cut down on red tape and reduce the hassle for the City too
• the role of the EFCL is being reduced dramatically from the original agreement to an appropriate role as a backstop for leagues

Living Local Symposium – the EFCL is proposing to hold a symposium with the City to discuss what living local means and how we can support community concerns that activities and reasonable facilities are located close in their communities

• the symposium to could take place as early as spring or next Fall

8.4 Community Development Officer’s Report  – there is some very interesting work going on here on cultural integration, REACH, joint use and many other topics. Please read this section of the board package if you are interested in these topics.

Pool Allocation Meetings

Pool Allocation Meeting with Area Councils - EFCL attended a meeting with Area council 1,2, 17 and Clareview representatives to deal with a number of issues surrounding the Pool allocation process. Contrary to the notes in the board package the outcome was this (I sought a correction at the meeting):

• Leagues in the NE will receive agreement letters and not long contracts for rental periods
• Recognition for the contributions of Area Councils to the development of pools is being considered
• prices for pool rentals for our region have gone down
• the model we use in the NE is being replicated in other parts of the city

EFCL Pool Allocation Meeting – many people attended this meeting from all over the city

• the model we use in the NE is being used in other parts of the city
• the city is going to come back at some point with some sort of City-wide offering for Community Leagues – leagues asked for this and the City seemed quite interested – we will see.

8.5 Planning Report – the planning committee is very busy, here are a few highlights:

• Family Friendly Housing Workshop – well attended
• Vision for what row housing should look like
• Feedback sought on
• Medium scale residential overlay
• RA8 – 6 storey high-rise higher floor/area ratios
• Large site zoning process
• Transit-oriented development guidelines
• EFCL organizes Nov. 3 meeting between community leagues, city and developers about pre-application process

10.4 Edmonton Minor Hockey Association has decided that the days of requiring community league memberships for hockey players are over.

Hope to see you at the RGM at Duggan Hall on Monday, October 25 at 5:30 pm. Dinner is included!

EFCL Community League Day 2010

More than 90 community leagues hosted events across Edmonton today! Ten community leagues in in District B held events today.
Belvedere held their 6th annual Membership BBQ event.  They had a great turn-out, and sold almost 100 memberships today!
Rosslyn Community League held a big bin garbage event and sale and sold memberships at a sale price today and had a great turn-out too.
I visited Rosslyn, Glengarry, Northmount, Lago Lindo and Belvedere communities today and saw events going on also at Kilkenny and Killareney. Steele Heights is hosting a movie night this evening and I will be attending Killkenny's 50th Anniversary as well. Congratulations Killarney!
Flickr slide show of Community Day in District B
The EFCL has already booked the 3rd Saturday in September as Community League Day for 2011!
See you then.