The national executive council (NEC) met in Ottawa on November 16 and 17.
As usual, we hosted two social events for branch and twig members. It’s always exciting to get to meet members in person, and I’m grateful to those members taking the time to come out to meet with us. Hopefully we’ll be able to visit with more members in the future.
Financial update and budget discussion
At every Q4 meeting, we have an in-depth discussion about association finances. This begins with an overview of the current year’s budget and a discussion on the next year’s budget.
Members of the NEC have been in discussions with branches and twigs across to country to solicit feedback on and help with the association’s accumulated debt. Many twigs and branches have had excellent suggestions on how to proceed, and the NEC is thankful for all the time and effort that our twig coordinators and branch executives have spent on this issue.
We ran out of time to formally vote on next year’s budget, so we will continue communicating over email and going line-by-line over the proposed budget in order to make it balance.
One of the comments we received during the consultation with branches and twigs is that they’d like to see more transparency in the budget, and once we have completed and voted on next year’s budget, we plan to implement this request. We also plan on requesting more-detailed financial information from branches so that they can be included in the association’s finances and give everyone a more accurate picture of where we stand as an entire association.
Work in progress
The NEC also discussed many items other than the budget at the meeting. Directors are going to be contacting their committees about storing all committee files on the national file-storage system to ensure continuity and corporate memory. The Foundations test is one step closer to being a reality with the approval of a testing platform (thanks to the task force for their excellent work!). The NEC has also voted to create a conference advisor position to assist local conference chairs in organizing the Editors Canada conference each year.
Branches and twigs
We met with two branches at this meeting: Jesse Marchand, the chair of Editors British Columbia, met with us via Zoom; Sara Caverley, Sara Fowler, and Lindsey McDonald, from the Editors Ottawa–Gatineau executive, met with us in person.
Jesse Marchand reported that BC has a lot of exciting seminars planned for the rest of the 2019–20 year. She shared the topics with us, and the director of training and development is going to adjust the Editors Canada webinar schedule if necessary so that no topics overlap. If other branches or twigs are concerned about seminar topics overlapping with proposed webinars, please email Greg Ioannou, the director of training and development, at Director_Training@editors.ca.
The Ottawa–Gatineau executive shared some good suggestions for working on Editors Canada’s accumulated debt. They also had some suggestions about spreading out the work the national office staff does so that the staff aren’t overburdened and nothing inadvertently falls through the cracks. The NEC has already started discussions with the office staff for how to make this
happen.
Changes to the NEC
One director has had to step down due to unexpected commitments in other areas of her life.
- Lynne Melcombe has had to resign as vice-president. Thanks to Lynne for all her contributions, and we wish her all the best. Breanne MacDonald has joined us as interim vice-president for the remainder of 2019–20. Breanne was originally on the slate of people wanting to serve on the 2019–20 national executive council and having her in the VP role was one of the options. When more candidates were nominated than there were available positions, Breanne decided to withdraw her nomination but asked that she be considered if a position became vacant. Breanne is an excellent choice for this position because she brings corporate memory to the NEC, as well as experience in more than one portfolio. Having her as VP will strengthen the NEC and, as a result, the association.
- The NEC appointing an interim director is covered in the Editors Canada Bylaw and nominations procedures:
Bylaws—4.04 Vacancy of Directorship: If a directorship becomes vacant for any of these reasons, a quorum of directors may fill the vacancy, subject to the provisions of s. 132 of the Act.
Bylaws—6.02 Vacancy in Office: If the office of any officer of the Association shall be or become vacant, the directors may, by resolution, appoint a person to fill such vacancy until the next general meeting.
National Nominations Procedures—Vacant positions: Under section 10 of the Articles of Continuance of the association, the national executive council may appoint an eligible member of the association to a vacant position on the national executive council to serve until the next annual general meeting.
- The NEC appointing an interim director is covered in the Editors Canada Bylaw and nominations procedures:
Next meeting
Our next meeting will be in March 2020. We are exploring various options to make the NEC meetings as cost effective as possible while still completing the work necessary to make the association successful. Once we have made some inquiries and calculations, we’ll be able to let members know where and how we will be meeting in March.
Heather Buzila, president