January 2012 EFCL Board Package

The Fire and Ice sculture was a dramatic installation at
Ice on Whyte this year. The event was held at Strathcona
Community League in Old Strathcona. A very cool event!
Photo David Dodge (click photo to enlarge)

January EFCL Board Package Highlights

Download the EFCL January 2012 Board Package

I have already reported on the the highlights of the January board package in my January 3 blog entry! The bigs news was that the Community League Infrastructure Program funding was increased to $3 million for 2012 - deadline for 2012 applications in March 1. We also received confirmation that the entire $1.5 million made available in 2011 was awarded to Community League projects around the city. We also heard that 153 of 154 community leagues have signed or are in the process of signing the Tripartite Agreement.  Each of these has or will receive the 2011 operating grant that increased 40% last year.



Here is news on a couple of more items.


4.3 Solar Panels, Covered Dome Rinks coming to a league new you?


The EFCL has applied to repurpose funds provided to the EFCL to do infrastructure assessments in community leagues. In 2009 we helped 20 leagues do infrastructure assessments, but problems securing matching provincial funds stalled the program and the City of Edmonton stepped forward and did infrastructure assessments of all league buildings as part of our work renegotiating the Tripartite Agreement.


The EFCL has come up with a couple of innovative infrastructure programs and and we have asked to city to repurpose $242,000 in funds to support the proposed Community Solar and Energy Conservation Program, the Community League Rink Roof Pilot project and the EFCL 100th Anniversary Project. 


We have made proposals to the City's environment department and EPCOR seeking their support for the solar and energy conservation program. The idea is simple: put a small solar system on a community league building, do a comprehensive energy audit of the building and install and electronic LED message board in the foyer of the community to report on energy production about one third of the time and to promote community programs the rest of the time. If all goes well the cost could be as low as $4,000 for a league to get more than $20,000 in benefits. The leagues we have presented the idea to were quite excited about it.


The other idea is to use some of the money as seed money to conduct a couple of pilot projects to install dome covers over rinks at community leagues to extend the season of the rink, keep the snow off the rink and to create a covered outdoor facility for bigger outdoor events such as farmer's markets or community celebrations. Check out the board package for more information.


6.4 Winter Festival Workshop - DEADLINE January 25th

Okay so this is a fancy ice sculpture from the
2012 Ice on Whyte event held at Strathcona
Community League. But hey you can learn how
to hold your own SNOW sculture event
at your very own winter carnival!
Photo David Dodge (click photo to enlarge)

Ever thought of adding a snow sculpture component to your winter festival or program? The EFCL has invited the Alberta Scultor's Association to lead a workshop on how to provide the materials and hold a successful snow sculpting event as part of your winter festival. The City of Edmonton will present information on running successful winter events and what support you can get from the City. Sport Central will be there to talk about how leagues can access skates.  And best of all, get together with folks from other leagues and brainstorm new ideas. Participants will go outside a create a couple of sculptures to learn by doing! Register by January 25th. Register by emailing info@efcl.org.


6.8.1 SOCAN


Ok, my favorite topic! We (Allan and me) met with Adriana Verheaghue, the local business agent of SOCAN and Andrea Kokonis a SOCAN lawyer from Toronto. To make a long story short SOCAN says they created the simple fee structure ($185 per year for Community Leagues) to avoid the need to understand an even more complicated series  of tariffs that can be applied the facilities and programs of community leagues! We did however encourage the two representatives to attend the Millwoods President's Council meeting to get a feeling for how the leagues feel about this program. They did attend this meeting and got a very good sense of how leagues react and the challenges they face. Many leagues see the agreement as problematic for a variety of reasons. Nevertheless, SOCAN intends to continue collecting the fees as they are permitted to do under the law. The EFCL will oppose the tariff when it is reviewed in the spring. 


New Rinks feature at the EFCL website


All of the community league rinks have been added to a map at the EFCL website to draw attention to the more than 100 rinks operated by community leagues in Edmonton. Click on the map below to take you to the EFCL Rinks page.

Ok, that's all for now. If you have any questions contact me anytime!
David Dodge
District B Representative and President
Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues
president(at)efcl.org