Provincial Director's Report
To the OAWA Annual General Meeting
April 2015
The year ended has been an exciting and ambitious one, and the year to come looks even more so. I like most of you I’m sure, look forward to the 2015 Pan Am Games with excitement.
Financial Reports
As I write this report, we are still finalizing financial reports for the year ended and budget for the year to come. My projection is that at the end of it all, OAWA will be in a small net revenue position for 2014-2015
We have already released financial reports for all Provincial Championships with the exception of the Youth Festival (pending). We have made good headway on Provincials finances but need to continue to be conscious of both the bottom line and also that increasing costs for these events is hurting participation at the events. The member clubs need to consider this when choosing where and how to host these events. Deciding how/where we host these events we have to balance fairness/equality and what we can afford.
All provincials have broken even or better this year. On the down-side, costs for some items continues to escalate – fees to Wrestling Canada for example are up almost 40% for the year we are entering compared to last year. Revenue sources remain limited, so we have to be smart about how we spend our money.
Sport Alliance of Ontario (SAO)
In case you have not heard, the Sport Alliance of Ontario declared bankruptcy in early April. This was in response to a notice from the Ontario Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Sport (MCTS) that the MCTS was withdrawing funding for the SAO effective June 30, 2015.
Up until now, the Ministry funded the SAO, which provided arms-length support to Sport Associations like the OAWA for:
-Rent here in the SAO building at a subsidized rate.
-Print, communication, and mail service support.
-Management of selected programs (Ontario Games, Canada Games, etc.).
A lot going on in this area as you can imagine. The Ministry decision to discontinue funding SAO and the subsequent resignation of the SAO Board and filing for bankruptcy caught everyone off guard. There have been a lot of meetings and the situation continues to evolve, although generally I am pleased to report the situation is a lot more stable. Several long-term issues are still in development. Please note:
- A'Steering Committee' of PSO reps has been formed working through various issues.
- Tenancy in the building is secure for now. We will see what that means going forward. At some point, the Landlord will come to us to sign some sort of a lease, but we are not there yet. How much? Lease for how long? All questions we don't know the answers to right now. However, fair to say that the Landlord is working to try to keep organizations in the building.
- Basic services continue in the building, with the exceptions(outgoing mail servicing, printing, etc.). Mail into the building is being worked out through the Landlord longer term while the mail is temporarily being accepted and sorted by the Sport 4 Ontario office.
- Phone and internet service set-up is being worked on. It is anticipated we will keep our existing number, and the charges will be direct-billed to us rather than through SAO as previously. This may result in some increase, but we don’t know the numbers yet.
- Similarly, Staff Benefits are being worked on. I am the only OAWA staff person who accesses the Benefits plan previously managed through the SAO. Current options being looked into by the Steering Committee include staying with the current broker/provider, going with another provider and the current broker, and going with a Group Benefits plan we are eligible for through the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) as an Olympic sport. The Committee is working on options, costs, etc. and whether all the individual sports organizations like us can form a ‘Group’, etc. Our current broker and provider (Manulife) have extended the current plan until June 30, 2015 to allow time to work this out, which is very helpful.
- As for financial, SAO owed us money, and we owe them money. I am working with our auditor for advice on how to set this up on our books.
Ministry Grants
Given the timing issues and the turbulence around the whole SAO issue, and based on past discussions from the Executive, I suggested to the OAWA Executive a need for a 'Grants Review and Working Committee' to:
1.Prioritize OAWA objectives
2.Analyze Grant opportunities (Ministry, Trillium, CSIO, other)
3.Match programs and objectives to the best fit with Ministry and other grant areas (Sport Priority Funding, Trillium grants, etc.)
4.Participate in the reporting process (on-line evaluation & questionnaire) for Base Funding.
The Executive agreed to form this committee, made up of:
PresidentGuy Zink
V.P. DevelopmentKevin Ramroop
SecretaryChris Stefopulos
Member-at-LargeKimin Kim (nominated due to his background having worked through the High Performance Management Program (HPMP)
Provincial DirectorTim MaGarrey
We continue to wait on the Ministry to release:
- 2015-2016 Canada Games Team Development (CGTDP) – this program is one of the ones previously managed by the Sport Alliance. The Ministry is taking this program back under its direct management. They have to assess the current situation, set up systems for application and approval of grants to sports groups like us (including hiring staff to manage the program).
Consider that in normal Canada Games cycles, we would have by now filed our CGTDP Application and had been approved for our grant for Team development for the first year of the two-year cycle and begun preparing for summer programs for the next Games Team (2017) and you can see this is another key delay concern
- 2017 Ontario Winter Games - the SAO was within weeks of announcing the site for the Ontario Winter Games when the bankruptcy occurred. Again, the Ministry is taking this program back within the Ministry for direct management. Similar to Canada Games for assessment, staffing, etc. At present not sure what this will mean to the 2017 Games – will they go ahead? Where? Will sports previously pre-qualified as ‘Core’ sports (including wrestling) continue to be core sports?
As you can see, the situation with the Ministry is currently very dynamic. While the Ministry Assistant Deputy Minister (Steve Harlow) re-affirmed the Ministry’s commitment to Sport and confirmed that funding previously channeled through SAO would continue to go to sport, we really don’t know what that will look like and the mechanics of the loss of SAO have really created a great deal of uncertainty in the system at a key time of year for program planning and implementation.
There is no need to sound fire-alarm bells, but the uncertainty does not help our programs.
Membership
As directed at last year's AGM, a review of various items has occurred. Executive have recommended we stay with a single level membership process and continue a Recreational level membership category. Discussion of a Tiered Membership structure for participants based on their level of participation (local, provincial, national) would be too complex and could undermine membership revenues. Bob Parsons as membership registrar will deliver a recommended 2016 fee structure for review and discussion at the AGM.
Governance
Our Governance Committee hasn't been formed yet. We have till January 2019 to finalize:
-Re-structuring our Board - suggest task positions rather than geographic.
-Re-structure our voting at meetings - should reflect rep by pop.
-re-vamp our Constitution into a more modern style By-laws format
Development
We need to do better in this area. The OHP program was re-launched this year and has been successful. The program is developing some solid athletes, and delivering good value to those aspiring high performance athletes who need it, in particular those that don’t have ready access to a high performance training centre near them.
The OHP needs to both continue and to grow. We have talked about expanding the program to include a more regional focus – regional training camp programs that funnel into the central OHP. We also should consider ways to offer this type of regular combined training for younger athletes.
As we formalize the V.P. Development position, the formulation of an expanded OHP and Youth Development as well as the Ontario Youth Committee are all areas to better integrate into our overall development programs.
As noted, we still don’t know how the Canada Games Team Development Funding program will be handled, but there is a need to be prepared to implement this when funding guidelines become available from the Ministry. Our wisest choice is to integrate this into our existing program framework (OHP for example) so we can make the best us of funds received.
High Performance
The OAWA discontinued funding support to the Ontario High Performance Centers. Efforts to obtain funding from the government, Trillium, etc. to fund this program have been unsuccessful. This is unfortunate, since I truly believe in the value added to our High Performance program the centers provide, but it is just a straight-forward matter of OAWA not having the money to support this imitative, no matter how valuable it is, we can’t spend what we don’t have.
That said, I would like to congratulate our High Performance Senior clubs and coaches (and athletes!) on the great performances at Junior and Senior Nationals this year, including qualifying 9 athletes and 3 coaches to represent Canada and Ontario at the 2015 Pan Am Games.
OAWA needs to continue to find ways to fund our High Performance program. We need to find a way to convince the funding entities of the value we know our high performance programs deliver, and the support our high performance athletes deserve.
I look forward to discussing this and more with you at the AGM.
Sincerely submitted,
Tim MaGarrey
Provincial Director.