EFCL Board Package March 2011 - Tripartite Agreement

Hello District B Communities,

What a busy week. There is plenty of news following the EFCL Board meeting last night. As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Here are the highlights from the meeting last night.

David Dodge, District B Representative

Download the board package for the March 10, 2011 meeting

April Calendar

• April 04 EFCL Annual General Meeting - 5:30 to 9:00 PM
, Woodvale Community Hall, 4540 - 50 Street
• April 14 EFCL Board Meeting
• April 16 EFCL Talent Show
• April 19  School Board Meeting—Neighbourhood Schools
• April 20 Swim Allocation Meeting
• April 27 Planning & Development Meeting
• April 28 Hall Rental Workshop

6.3 - pg 15 - Triparite Agreement - NEW INFORMATION

The new Tripartite agreement will be distributed this Monday at long last. The negotiation process was very successful. We addressed all of the issues raised about the previous agreement, cleaned up some of the language, reduced the mentions and role of the EFCL in the agreement to appropriate roles, and best of all we secured a new 50 per cent matching capital fund for on-lease community league projects and a 40 per cent increase in operating grants.

District B Special Report - Tripartite Agreement

District B Report

David Dodge

March 6, 2011

Hi everyone in Distrit B:

I will send a link to the EFCL Board Package as soon as I receive it. Meanwhile here are a few important updates for your attention. As always, if you have anything you would like me to bring up at the EFCL Board meeting this Thursday, please let me know.

AT LONG LAST THE EFCL PRESENTS:

The Draft Tripartite License Agreement

EFCL is holding a meeting at 7:00 p.m., Wednesday, March 23, at Rossdale Community League Hall, 10135-96 Avenue, to present and review the draft Tripartite License Agreement. This is the agreement that determines how leagues can use the land they have under license with the city. We will be sending out the draft agreement shortly after the EFCL board deals with the matter on March 10. This agreement will be ultimately be voted on by the membership at the Annual General Meeting, which is set for 6:30 p.m., Monday, April 4 at Woodvale Community League. Dinner at 5:30 p.m. – RSVP@efcl.org for both events.

District B Update

Hi everyone in District B:

I will send a link to the EFCL Board Package as soon as I receive it. Meanwhile here are a few important updates for your attention. As always, if you have anything you would like me to bring up at the EFCL Board meeting this Thursday, please let me know.

AT LONG LAST THE EFCL PRESENTS:

The Draft Tripartite License Agreement

EFCL is holding a meeting at 7:00 p.m., Wednesday, March 23, at Rossdale Community League Hall, 10135-96 Avenue, to present and review the draft Tripartite License Agreement. This is the agreement that determines how leagues can use the land they have under license with the city. We will be sending out the draft agreement shortly after the EFCL board deals with the matter on March 10. This agreement will be ultimately be voted on by the membership at the Annual General Meeting, which is set for 6:30 p.m., Monday, April 4 at Woodvale Community League. Dinner at 5:30 p.m. – RSVP@efcl.org for both events.

EFCL Board Package Feb. 2011 - District B Report

District B Report:
This is been a very busy month of meetings: the EFCL Trade Show, the EFCL Alberta Cabinet meetings, the TriPartite Licence committee, Rink Program Workshop, Area 17, Steele Heights, Killkenny and Evansdale’s Little Kickers program and more.

Download the EFCL February 10 Board Package - pg. numbers refer to the board package

6.0 pg. 15 – Community League Infrastructure Grant Program

Preliminary details of the new City capital grants program. Grants will be offered in three categories small, medium and large projects. See the board package for more information. The grants and the increasing operating grants are tied to the new Tripartite agreement process.

8.2 pg. 20 – Community League Operating Grants

This comes up later in the agenda, but it is connected. The operating grants for community leagues are increasing by about 40%. This will mean the base amount will increase from $3,500 to about $4,900 and the per capita amount will increase from $1.47 to $2.07 (I hope this is accurate). The increased operating grants are also tied to the new TriPartite Agreement.

TriPartite Agreement

I am pleased to report the TriPartite committee has at long last arrived at an official draft of the new agreement. After a few last minute tweaks at the Wednesday meeting of the committee it should be ready to present to leagues very soon. The plan to host a meeting with interested community leagues and go over the draft agreement with them in detail. This will likely happen in March. Then the goal would be to present the agreement to the EFCL membership at the AGM on April 4, 2011.

It has taken almost two years, but there is a sense on the committee that the agreement is improved in many ways. Perhaps the biggest achievement of the process was securing a $1.5 million a year increase in funding for the next two years.  Stay tuned for more details!

6.2 pg. 16 – Community League Rink and Carnival Day

Today the board approved a motion to create a new winter Community League day to help promote rinks and rink programs and winter carnivals. The very first Community League Rink and Carnival Day will be in February 2012. All that is left is to pick the date, which will be done with input from the leagues. The idea is to promote outdoor ice and winter programs by hosting a lot of our events on one day in the winter similar to the way the Community League Day worked last year. More than 90 leagues participated and it brought a great deal of attention to  leagues and their programs.

6.4 pg. 18 – Meeting with the Edmonton Public School Board

We are working to organize a meeting with the EPSB to discuss the importance of retaining neighbourhood schools and offering to partner with the school board to find ways to retain as many schools as possible.

8.2.2 Pg. 20 – The Rink Program Workshop

 This meeting was a success. See notes in package and see my EMHA-EFCL Outdoor Rink meeting blog post for the secrets of a successful program from Shirley at Belvedere and much more information.

8.2.4 pg. 22 – Meeting with Provincial Cabinet

The meeting with Cabinet ministers was a big success and very well attended considering it was a last minute opportunity. This is the second time the EFCL has been able to meet with the provincial cabinet and it was a very good opportunity for community folks to roll up their sleeves and work on issues with the provincial representatives. A very good event!

8.3.1 pg. 24 – Edmonton Community Challenge

It’s back, the Edmonton Community Challenge is just the thing to get new, young community leaders involved. Last year we gave away $14,000 in prizes. Check the EFCL website for more details. The event is June 3-5.

8.3.4 pg. 24 – Living Local

The process to work with community and other groups to define what Living Local means continues with a meeting on March 9, 2011. We are hoping to get support from the City to host a major summit on living local in the fall. Living Local is about being able to do as much as you can in your own community.

8.3.5 pg. 24 – Community League Day 2011: Saturday, Sep. 17

Start your engines, book your parties, start planning your events and join with your fellow community leagues in creating a massive collection of incredible events in as many communities as possible this year. More than 90 leagues participated last year!

8.4.2 pg. 25 – Swim Time Allocation Meeting

There is a meeting coming soon, notices will go to those who have participated in the previous meeting and others!

8.5.1 pg. 28 – Retaining Families in Mature Neighborhoods

The EFCL will contribute our message to the Mayor’s Task Force on Neighborhood Revitalization about retaining families in the places we call mature neighbourhoods.

8.6 pg. 31 Community League Hall Lookup

Ding, ding, ding, a new feature has been added to the EFCL website. There is now a Community Hall Lookup function. Please click here to check it out and click here to get the form to update your hall information at the EFCL website. While you are at it make sure your executive information is up to date as well! This is very worthwhile, even if you have your own website since many people will land on the EFCL website to look for halls and communities!

Wow, what a crazy month. I also have an update on insurance for you once I get a change to write it up.

If you would like more information please let me know. If you would like me to raise an issue at the EFCL please let me know that too!

Cheers,

David Dodge

EFCL-EMHA Rink and Winter Program Workshop

SPECIAL REPORT:
Outdoor Rink meeting with Community Leagues

The EMHA, the EFCL and 18 community leagues gathered at Crestwood Community Hall on Saturday, January 29 to discuss what we (EMHA/EFCL and community leagues) can do to support programming and the use of outdoor rinks in Edmonton.

We were joined by Bill Whitefield of Sports Central and a couple of special guest presenters: David Proden of the E4C Learn to Play Hockey program and Shirley Barton of Belvedere Community League.
If, for whatever reason hockey can no longer support this requirement then perhaps there are other ways we can work together to support community league rinks, and entry level programs in the communities. More on this later.

Community Leagues have 120 rinks city-wide!

Saturday however was not about hockey-community league politics, but about the challenges leagues face running outdoor rinks and what leagues can do to enhance the use of community league ice.
There are some inspiring things happening in leagues in Edmonton. Shirley Barton of Belvedere started looking after the ice in this north-end neighbourhood talked about their program at Belvedere.
What Makes a Successful Rink:

Here are the top eight things that make a great rink in a Community League according to Shirley:

1. Rink attendent with a positive attitude and is approachable
2. Hours of operation are clearly posted
3. Telephone answering machine reflects the hours of operation and closures due to weather
4. Assurance that the community league is a safe place to drop off children
5. Communicaton with local schools about rink times
6. Lights on nightly, even if there are no skaters, people come if they see the lights
7. Music playing on the rinks
8. A rink shack concession

For Shirley, those are the key ingredients of a great outdoor rink program in a community. She also suggests a few other add-ons that can really make a league's rink get popular:

• Learn to skate programs from the City
• Equipment loaning on site (skates and other equipment)
• Relationship with Sports Central - community leagues can refer folks to them to get skates and equipment
• Yearly photos of skaters posted on bulletin boards - builds a sense of history
• Community rink events: hot dog Sundays, milk jug curling, skating games, hockey skill competitions or a 3 on 3 tournament
• Skate sharpening on site - Belvedere has skate sharpening right on site, a popular thing!

As you might have guessed Belvedere has a successful program.

From the Floor:

At the January 29 meeting, the folks present also broke into two groups and talked about challenges and some ideas for improving programs.

• Challenges:
• Community league folks mentioned the following challenges and ideas for improving rink programs:
• Challenges:
• Ice not level
• Old rinks
• Insurance - hockey teams covered if the coach says ice ok (from hockey folks)
• CL insurance probably ok if community league is in control of facility - so rentals for $ might be different?
• Staffing/volunteer shortage can be issue

Ideas:

• Group buys for equipment, snow blowers
• Share old equipment, excess equipment
• Build-it event to level rink and refurbish boards etc. – one league did it for $3,000
• Rink hours must be predictable
• Lights on, Music on
• Rink not locked and open all the time – several examples of this
• Open late - 11 pm - adult groups use it after 8 pm
• Send email to Hockey Edmonton about ice availability
• Corporate and family rentals are possible?
• Love to do 3 on 3 tourney with other leagues
• Would like more attention on outdoor rinks and programs
• Love this meeting - need more networking for rink & program people in CLs

A number of leagues have experimented with offering the use of skates and equipment and many note that this does allow significant numbers of kids to skate and even try pushing a puck around the ice.
One reaction to the meeting was agreement that networking for rink attendants and program people is a really good idea!

Many of the community leagues attending the meeting already host winter events ranging from simple events to full-fledged winter carnivals.
A number of folks thought it is a really good idea to have a City-wide winter community day to promote outdoor rinks and programs.

Community leagues have many excellent ideas, but the question remains how hockey can work with their founding partners in Community Leagues to support and promote the biggest supply of outdoor ice in Edmonton and support and encourage programs at the community level.

David Dodge,
January 31, 2011

EFCL Board Package Jan. 2011 - District B Report

EFCL Dec. 2010 Board Package
Happy New Year District B:

This month the EFCL/EMHA Outdoor Rink Committee met and the Tripartite Committee met to talk about the community capital funding program and the new operating funds money, in addition to other regular meetings. Here is my monthly report on the agenda of the EFCL Board. These notes were prepared after the board meeting held on Thursday, Jan. 13.

Download the January 2011 EFCL Board package here

6.3 (Pg. 14) Large Site Rezonings:
The EFCL Planning committee recommended that the EFCL Board approve a series of amendments to bylaw 15654 regarding the community consultation process for large site redevelopments. One of the more innovative ideas that generated a lot of discussion at the board meeting was an idea to require a community vote on final DC2 applications going to council. The board passed these “suggestions” as proposed by the planning committee. Some of the questions that came up were: wouldn’t the community say no to everything? How would you undertake the vote? And even the question of whether money could be used to skew a vote by the use of advertising and other methods that tell only half the story. See the notes on this for more information. The board passed item and will be asking the City to apply the six suggestions made by the planning committee.

8.2 (pg. 18) 1) EFCL/EMHA Hockey - Outdoor Rink Program Workshop Planned
The outdoor rink promotions committee of the EMHA and EFCL has scheduled a rink program workshop for Saturday, Jan. 29 at Crestwood Community League (14325-96 Avenue). Doors open at 8:30 and the workshop will run from 9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Hmmm, hockey is not talking much about contributing a fee to developing hockey programs and supporting communities facilities anymore (more than 100 outdoor rinks).
But there is a workshop planned to talk about ideas for winter programs to enhance participation in community leagues rink facilities, the possibility of an annual Winter Festival or Rink Day across the City. So join us for this important discussion about ramping up rinks and programs and hockey’s role in it.

8.2 (pg. 18) 2) EFCL to Discuss New School Design with Education Minister
The EFCL will be meeting with Education Minister Dave Hancock on Feb. 1 to review ways in which the community could be involved in the design of new schools to encourage opportunities for nearby leagues to use the schools for programs or meetings.

8.3 (pg. 20) Arena User Committee meeting December 14, 2010 – see notes in board package for an update on the meeting.

8.4 (pg. 22) Living Local – next meeting is January 18, 2011 at the EFCL. Input has been collected from many groups and this meeting is to talk about measurement tools for determining success in our living local campaign. Interestingly the committee is putting together a matrix of groups and ways to live local – a simple example is “schedule more soccer games closer to home.” If you are interested in helping define what it means to live local from a community league point of view contact Michael Janz at the EFCL office for more information.

9.0 (pg. 28) New Website Helps Address Space Needs – in the Community Services report there is a note about a new website designed to help promote your space and to help non-profits find space for programs, meetings etc. See www.edmontonspacefinder.ca. Edmonton SpaceFinder is collaboration between the Edmonton Chamber of Voluntary Organizations, the Multicultural Coalition for Equity in Health and Wellbeing, Arts Habitat Association of Edmonton and the City of Edmonton

10.0 (pg. 29) 1) New Capital and Operating Funds for Leagues – Allan prepared a summary of information about the new grant programs for operating grants and capital funding grants for leagues. . The Tripartite Committee met this month to discuss proposed criteria after this note was written. This is a really useful summary, but some of the criteria are not finalized yet, so things may change. Suffice to say your operating grant will be going up and there will be new capital funds available to match other funds for projects on community league leases.

Other District B Updates – Questions from Area 17
Insurance and Community Hockey Rinks – there was a note in one of the City newsletters about written by the EFCL that suggested participants in activities put on by the Community League are covered by insurance whether it is a dance in the hall or skating on the rink. PLEASE NOTE this information came from Foster Park Baskett and may not apply to all community leagues. If you are not insured with Foster Park Baskett you would need to confirm coverage with your insurance company.

Third party insurance applies to events that someone else is running, such as a cultural group that rents the hall for a dance. It is up to them to have third party insurance and we recommend that the leagues insist they have it if the event involves liquor or sports activities, both of which increase the potential for accidents.

Community Swims Update – Regarding the community swim meetings, Shahriyar is in the process of setting up another meeting for early February. As an aside, Shahriyar has a meeting with the southwest leagues set for next Wednesday. They will be discussing the use of the new Terwillegar facility, which it turns out is quite expensive due to its size and cost. So the city and the local leagues are trying to get as many leagues from other areas involved, to help share the costs. This is upsetting the apple cart over at Confederation Pool. We are walking a fine line here, as we are reluctant to extend the meeting invitation to leagues in Mill Woods or Strathcona and upset any more apple carts.

District and Area Council Coordinator –The EFCL did apply for some funds from the City to hire a District and Area Council Coordinator. But it didn’t get a mention during the budget debate. Allan thinks a couple of things played into this. First and foremost was the significant requests we made for league funding, both capital and operating. Allan suspects council thought that it was plenty. We should probably continue to pursue this, since it makes a great deal of sense to get some small assistance to help coordinate districts and area councils, something that would help councillors too!

When it comes to the EFCL, Who are you going to call?

Click here to see a guide to the staff at the EFCL.
EFCL
7103 - 105 Street
Edmonton AB T6E 4G8 Tel: 780.437.2913

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.