BCTRABoard of Directors Annual Workplan Meeting Minutes – April 12, 2015
Date: April 12, 2015 / Time: 9:00 am -3:20 pm / Location: Pinnacle Hotel at the Pier, North VancouverAttendees: Meghan Archibald, Kylah Blair, Jennifer Bromley, Melanie Carlyle, Katie Chapman, Jasmine Jagpal-Balson, Brenda Kinch, Alison Koci, Amanda Murphy, Donna Zwickel. Staff: Kathy Flood
Guest: Roy Johnson, The Neutral Zone (Membership Criteria session only)
Regrets: None
Chair: Brenda Kinch
Minutes: Kathy Flood
1. Membership Criteria
The President, Brenda Kinch, introduced Roy Johnson, of The Neutral Zone, saying that he had been asked to facilitate the board’s discussion regarding the membership criteria. Mr. Johnson led the session, covering the following:
- Introductions, Objectives and Guidelines
- Discussion of interests
- Identification of options
- Outcomes, timeline and accountabilities
- Next steps and wrap-up
After an extensive and in-depth discussionthe Board membersunanimously agreed to proceed with recommending a number of revisions to the BCTRA membership criteria – the By-law amendments and rationale documents, etc. to be developed based on the flipchart notes taken during the session.
The Board also agreed to hold a Special Meeting of the membership on Wednesday, June 3, 2015 to hold a vote on the revisions, the membership will be asked to “Save the Date” and advised that they will be provided with the reasoning and background for the revisions to the membership criteria well in advance of the meeting. The information about the proposed revisions will be circulated to members via website postings, Board member/Ambassador contacts, icontacts, FaceBook, etc.
Next steps:
- Circulate “Save the Date” notice to membership.
Action: Brenda Kinch to draft notice/all Board members to review. - Board to meet on April 23 to develop a communication plan and draft documents to communicate the proposed changes to the membership.
- Review Special Meeting process, etc. at May 6, 2015 regular Board meeting.
- Venue for June 3, 2015 meeting to be identified.
Action:Alison Koci to enquire about Sunny Hill, Brenda Kinch to enquire about Douglas College (videoconferencing available at Douglas College?). If these venues were not available then Donna Zwickel to enquire re UBC Robson Square.
2.Poster design and content
Kylah Blair reported that the Promotions Committee had expressed concern about the wording used on the Association’s website “About” section when they were developing the new poster content. They were concerned that the explanation was too “wordy”/not clear and would not be appropriate for TR posters. It was suggested that the wording used by ATRA (Alberta), for example, was much clearer.
It was agreed that BCTRA should review and revise the wording on the “About” section of the website, the new wording could also be used on future posters and promotional materials. The wording of other sections of the BCTRA website will also be reviewed by the working group.
Action: Working Group struck to review and recommend new wording. Working Group Members: Meghan Archibald, Kylah Blair, Katie Chapman along with a to-be-identified student volunteer (Amanda Murphy to post request for student).
3.Website / Dashboard / iContacts / etc.
Website - as noted above the Working Group will also examine the website content.
Dashboard – the individuals who should have “Administrator” status was agreed upon.
Action: Kathy Flood to arrange to have the “Administrator” status updated to remove the individuals who no longer need that status.
iContacts – it was noted that member changes to the BCTRA membership list do not automatically update the iContacts list (nor the membership mailing list). Changes to the database will be made after the current membership renewal period so that any changes are automatically updated to all areas.
Action: Kathy Flood with Website Administrator
4. Ambassador role
There was general discussion of the role of the Ambassadors and how to keep them interested and engaged. Ambassadors have been identified for all of the regions. The Ambassadors now have their own BCTRA email addresses and will be used as by the Board as a “point of contact” for their regions and they will be contacted in advance of Board meeting dates. Kylah Blair commented that the Ambassadors will be actively connected as “distribution centres”, especially for the AGM and TR Month.
Katie Chapman reported that a brief phone meeting had been held with the Ambassadors. Meghan Archibald reported that the Ambassadors had been asked for their bios and photos for posting on the website. It was agreed that the program will take some time to get going but it had been very positive so far.
Action: Meghan Archibald to contact the Ambassadors in advance of Board meetings to see if they have anything they wish to report or raise with the Board.
Action: Meghan Archibald to phone Ambassadors to remind them to submit their bios and photos for the website.
5.Board roles and Recruitment for board positions
Brenda Kinch commented that some board roles had been significantly changed due to the hiring of Administrative Assistant last fall and suggested that there be a re-distribution of directors’ responsibilities. A number of options were discussed, for example, combining the Secretary/Treasurer roles, or having a new Finance/ Marketing board position with additional “Director at Large” positions. There was agreement that the Board wished to be as flexible as possible to encourage participation on the Board. (The By-laws were reviewed to ensure that the suggested changes are allowed.) The Board were asked to review the job descriptions included in the Board Manual and the topic was referred for discussion at the next meeting.
Action: Kathy Flood to forward a copy of the draft Board Manual to the board members.
There was discussion about ensuring continuity on the Board and the need to recruit for new members. The following board positions will need to be filled at the 2015 AGM:
Director of Regulations
Secretary/Treasurer*
Director at Large (2 positions)
* a combined position
The following individuals will start the 2nd year of their two year term at the 2015 AGM:
President: Brenda Kinch
Director of Education: Alison Koci
Director of Communications: Katie Chapman
Director of Membership: Melanie Carlyle
Student Liaison: Amanda Murphy
It was noted that 2016 will be the 25th anniversary of the Association and that it is hoped that the CTRA conference will be held in BC in 2017.
6.AGM 2015
It was agreed to hold the AGM at UBC Robson Square on either September 18 or 21, 2015.
Action: Donna Zwickel to contact UBC Robson Square re venue rental and catering.
Action: Meghan Archibald to contact Ambassadors to ask them to arrange for regional venues, including teleconferencing setup, and catering. The Ambassadors will also be advised re the process for proxy voting.
Suggested Program:
8:30 Registration
9:00 -11:30 AGM
11:30Awards
12:00 - 1:00Lunch
1:15 – 4:00Education Program/Workshop
With 2 coffee breaks
It was agreed to charge $10 for lunch to ensure that registrants attend the meeting.
It was suggested that the afternoon session be an “open space” workshop to consider the next BCTRA Strategic Plan. Other workshop topics were suggested for at least part of the afternoon session.
Action: Brenda Kinch to follow up with facilitator Roy Johnson re Strat Plan session.
Action: Kylah Blair to follow up re “Readiness for Change” presentation.
There was discussion of the awards currently offered by the BCTRA* and the proposal received last year from members to add a new award: the “Lou Gillette Scheffler Mentorship Award”. The discussion included the suggestion that while a mentorship award was a good idea there was concern about naming an award – how do named awards stay relevant over many years when those who knew the individual are no longer active in BCTRA and how to decide who has an award named after them. One suggestion was that the award could be called a “Mentorship Award that was inspired by Lou Gillette Scheffler”. It was also noted that a brief bio of the individuals named in the awards should be given at the AGM when the awards are presented.
Action: Brenda Kinch to follow up with Lou Gillette Scheffler’s family to ensure that they are on-board with such an award.
There was also discussion about identifying award recipients for this year and board members were asked to bring ideas for recipients to the next board meeting.
Action: All Board members to consider possible recipients for the 2015 BCTRA Awards*.
* Current awards:
1. Rachel Dobek Award (awarded to a student)
2. Ingrid ParsonsProfessional Recognition Award
3. Volunteer RecognitionAward
4. Lifetime Achievement Award
5. Agency Award
7.Webinars: participant lists, evaluations and CEU verification processes
The process for issuing CEU verifications to webinar participants (for NCTRC purposes) was discussed and it was agreed to change the process to reduce the amount of paperwork and tracking currently required.
Members will be advised that the CEU verification process has changed – the member will be personally responsible for keeping a copy of the webinar’s learning objectives along with the webinar attendance confirmation email (the webinar confirmation email will be sent automatically to the individuals who had signed in on-line and will include a reminder re the process).
Action: Megan Archibald and Alison Koci to work on this.
8. Other Business
a)“Registered” Recreation Therapist
The Board was told that a member had noticed that another BCTRA member had identified themselves as a “Registered” Recreation Therapist and BCTRA member on a professional website. It was agreed that the member who had posted this should be advised of the inaccuracy of the statement, also that, since they had also noted BCTRA membership, the Board wished to express their concern about the misinformation and remind them that, unlike other provinces, RT’s are not registered.
Action: Jennifer Bromley to follow up informally with the member.
Jennifer Bromley mentioned that last year, on behalf of the Board, she had sent a letter to Stenberg College advising that one of their presenters had inaccurately claimed to be a “Certified” Recreation Therapist is inaccurate. Stenberg College had replied that the presenter was not on their staff and they could therefore not do anything about it.
b) Reference to TR “Diploma” on Job Postings
Jennifer Bromley reported that the Regulations Task Force had noticed that a recent job posting that was posted to the BCTRA website referred to a TR “Diploma”. There was discussion on how to best advocate for the profession and it was agreed that it is important to contact employers when job postings were not in-line with BCTRA. It was also suggested that a notice be added to the BCTRA website that “BCTRA does not endorse the jobs posted there”.
Action: Jennifer Bromley to contact the employer re the posting.
Action: Katie Chapman to add the notice to the website.
c) Action List from March 5, 2015 meeting - follow-up
i) Why be a Member document
Action: Working Group re website content to also consider this document.
ii)Membership
40% of members have renewed so far; a reminder will be sent to those who have not yet renewed.
It was agreed that education transcripts do not need to be originals and that electronic copies will be accepted. The electronic transcripts will be kept by BCTRA but if an individual re-applies after letting their membership lapse they will be responsible for providing new transcripts.
iii) Glossary of Terms developed by Regulation Committee
A non-member has requested a copy of the Glossary of Termsthat had developed by the Committee for BCTRA members. It was agreed that these terms could be provided with a disclaimer and note that it was “members only” document.
Action: Kylah Blair to provide sample of disclaimer.
Action: Katie Chapman and Jennifer Bromley to follow up re request.
d) 2016 Board Workplan meeting
It was suggested that next year’s Board Workplan meeting be held earlier in the year.
e) Student volunteers
It was suggested that student volunteers working on the BCTRA board, on committees or other tasks earn “points” that could be used to defray membership costs.
Action: Referred for future discussion.
f) CTRA Website
It was reported that the new CTRA website is now up and running but the link from BCTRA website to CTRA website is no longer working.
Action: Katie Chapman to reset the link.
9.Next meeting:
Special Board Meeting: Thursday, April 23, 2015 at 5:30 pm.
Location: to be confirmed.
Meeting Adjourned: 3:20 pm
Documents circulated in advance of the meeting:
1. Agenda – April 12, 2015
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