Editing revision 8 of 2025-03-09 AGM Meeting

As soon as the minutes are approved at the NEXT agm, this whole page gets replaced with this link: https://gay.hfxns.org/pics/ElderBerries/2025-03-09_AGM.pdf =Elderberries 2025 Annual General Meeting= Held March 9, 2025 in the Adult Day Space, Northwood Board Present: Lynn Murphy, Dan MacKay (running Zoom), Barend Kamperman (chair & notes) Regrets: Kaitlin Drury, Allison Brewer, Renee Clark, Nathan Elling and Pauline Federick Members: Chris Terriack, Stephanie Brown, Dave Leblanc, Kirby Geddes Guest speaker: Katerina Bakolias We had Zoom up but no Zoom attendees. Barend Kamperman, Chair gave opening remarks and Mi'kmaq land declaration Approval of the minutes of the last AGM, here: https://gay.hfxns.org/pics/ElderBerries/2024-02-11_AGM.pdf ===Treasurer's Report=== Kaitlin Drury's 2024 Treasurer's Report was given by Dan. With absolutely no plan to or effort towards, we ended the year in almost exactly the same financial position as we started. I'll be reporting some unusually large numbers here; $2500 of these amounts was a community consultation project by the Provincial Office of Equity and Anti-Racism where we ran seven focus groups - all moderated by Renée, and $750 was for the Defining Moments history workshop, run by Nathan and Dan. Both of those projects left some extra money in our bank account. Our income in 2024 was 4082.60. Aside from those two big projects, 232.60 of that was donations during our Salons, and $200 which MacPhee centre gave us for the Storytelling Salon. Our expenses, believe it or not, were exactly the same to within FOUR DOLLARS. We spent most of the money on those special events I just mentioned, and $200 for a biography for Hugo Dann, who really was responsible for the creation of the Elderberries, which which is nearing completion. We donated $150 to MacPhee Centre. We started the year with a bank balance of 761.52 and ended it with a balance of 809.48. There are an extra 43.58 in the bank which we can not account for - probably deposits of one or two collections which we did not record. In terms of assets, at the end of 2024 we had the bank balance, plus an undeposited cheque for the purchase of two mugs, plus our inventory of fourteen mugs for a total assets of 1,049.48. If there are any questions, we can provide details now or any time. ===Income Statement=== ||'''Income''' || || || ||Collection || 232.60|| || ||Mug Sales || 95.00|| || ||Special Event Funding || 3,550.00|| || ||Special Event Donation || 300.00|| || ||'''Total Income''' || || '''4082.60'''|| ||'''Expenses''' || || || ||Admin Expenses || 0.00|| || ||Misc Expenses || 344.08.00|| || ||SSS Food || 277.40|| || ||Honoraria || || || ||Special Event Expense || 3,231.84|| || ||Mugs & Brochure Printing Cost || 0.00|| || ||Other Promotions || 0.00|| || ||Donations to other orgs || 150.00|| || ||Speakers Gifts / Honouraria || 50.00|| || ||Bank Charges || 24.90|| || ||'''Total Expenses''' || || '''4,078.22'''|| ||Made (lost) money || || 4.38|| ===Balance Sheet=== ||'''Assets''' || || || ||Bank Balance || 809.48|| || ||Cheque from Lynn for mugs || 30.00|| || ||Mugs 14 @ $15 each || 210.00|| || ||'''Total Assets''' || || '''1,049.48'''|||| ||'''Liabilities''' || || || ||No known ones || || 0.00|| ===Changes In Financial Position=== ||Starting Bank Balance || 761.52|| ||Ending Bank Balance || 809.48|| This accounting is out by $43.58 -- we have that much more money than we can account for. Barend Kamperman motioned for the Treasurer's Report to be approved. Kirby Geddes seconded the motion. Motion passed. Discussion then followed. * One member urged that we advertise how to bequeath money in wills to the Elderberries, in our newsletter. * Lynn observed that there must have been more honoraria that were counted as other expenses, because surely we had more than $50. * Kirby urged us to sell Elderberries mugs at our events/salons. Dave LeBlanc said he'd take that on. ===Chair's Report=== Chair's Report of highlights of some of our doings in 2024. * January 11 (Salon) Advocates for Care of the Elderly. * January 14 Healing the Queer Community with presenter Robert Wright * February 12 Bob Millar read from and discussed the writing of a book he's writing, "Our German POW." Followed by the Elderberries AGM. (I was away in the US at that time.) * March 10 Coming out stories (recorded) with the Dal U InvestiGaytors providing food (as they had on Feb 12th.) * March 15 Members participated in ??? * March 21 Nathan and Dan attended a seniors dance at Shannex and were interviewed. * April 14 Our speaker canceled. We did a round robin on "What advice would you give to your younger self?" * April 24 Stephanie Brown and (another) spoke at a GSA event at King's Central Rural High * May 12 Barend gave a presentation, with a slideshow set up by Dan, about living and teaching fulltime in 1990s Osaka, Japan. * June 9 We held a celebration of the life of Raymond Taavel who would have been 60 on that date. About 60 people came. There was plenty of food. Tributes to Raymond were given by individuals (all recorded.) Adam Reid from Pride Halifax dropped by. He presented us with his cheque for $50.00 and one from Pride Hfx for $100.00. * June 13 Allison Brewer was interviewed by Global News about the wider community's more positive view of the queer community. * June 23 (Salon) Jaimie (sp) Burnet read from and discussed her book "Crocuses Bloom in Snow." * In July 5 the Board sent a signed letter composed by the Board challenging a lopsided view of the crisis in Gaza. We offered to help write a more balanced declaration. * July 13 We had a Storytelling Session with the MacPhee Centre in Dartmouth. Bob Frederickson, Jenn nearing, Stephanie Brown, Dan, Lynn and Barend spoke. * July 23 We hosted an Elders Hangout during Pride, at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Inglis St. Dan hosted a slideshow of queer community events and doings from the 70s, 80s and 90s. 2 ASL interpreters signed for the audience. People identified some of these shots and stories were told, all recorded. Nathan Elling prepared a high tea feast of finger foods. Three researchers did surveys with folks about various topics. * August 11 we had a picnic by Black Rock Beach. September's picnic became an indoor event at Northwood. * September 18 Lisa LaChance, an MLA of the NDP party rose in the Nova Scotia Legislature to acknowledge the work of the deceased activist, Raymond Taavel. She also honored the work of the Elderberries to honour his legacy. She asked Lynn Murphy, Howard Heywood and Barend Kamperman to stand in the gallery as the organisation's representatives. They were applauded by the house. Later an official certificate marking the occasion was mailed to us. * September 25 A "Death Cafe" at the North End library on Gottingen Street. * October 27 A casual drop by event was held at Open Book Coffee in Halifax's north end. * November 17 "Pharmacy 101" for rainbow elders. Our presenter from the Dalhousie College of Pharmacy (person?) outlined improvements in ready access to care and a move to use more inclusive language make for respectful interactions. * November 20 Dan and Allison held a Storytelling Circle at Spencer House on Morris St. * November 27 We hosted an "Important Places" workshop at the UUC on Inglis St.Dan had a list of (20?) significant meeting places in local queer community history from bars to parks and more in the 60s and 70s. These stories were all recorded. Delicious food was provided. * December 8 A White Elephant gift exchange and Yuletide party was held with merriment and festive food for all ===Membership Report=== By Dan Again the last year we’ve had several references of members from social workers and therapists which is extremely gratifying - it means that a) we’re known to them and b) they consider us a healthy place for their members to be referred to. We added 38 members in 2024; about the same as in 2024 where we had 45 new members; during covid we had 25 new members per year. 2018: 55 new; 2017: 23. As of end of year we had 375 emails on our list and 8 people who we call every month, thank you Kaitlin. We don’t know how much overlap there is between the Facebook membership and the email membership. I know that we get very VERY little engagement from our Facebook members, I don't know why. The statisitics are: 732 people, 50 more than last year, 58% women, 42% men, 33% from Halifax, 7% from Dartmouth. 98% from Canada. Out of these possibly eleven hundred people, we get fifteen, the same fifteen, coming to most of our meetings. That’s pretty normal and totally OK. Still it would be good to work on expanding that range. Some free discussion followed adding details such as the March 15th Rainbow flag raising ceremony at City Hall spearheaded by Lynn Murphy, past Chair. ===Speakers Bureau Report=== Barend and Dan both work on this but no one person is in charge of it. Our speaking engagements in and outside the metro area are well received. ===Elections=== The Board for 2025-26 The following have offered or reoffered to be on the "new" Board. Allison Brewer, Barend K, Dan MacK, Kaitlin Drury,Nathan Elling, Pauline Federick and Renee Clark. Stephanie Brown motioned that the entire slate of the new Board be approved. Kirby Geddes seconded the motion. The call for any objections to any or all of the candidates be accepted was repeated three times. A vote was held with 100% approval without abstentions. The new Board was approved. The AGM ended.

Summary:

This change is a minor edit.

Username: