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FALSE CREEK RACING CANOE CLUB

SPECIAL GENERAL MEETING
JANUARY 26, 2011
7:00 – 9:00 PM
 Room 245 at Emily Carr

At the FCRCC’s Annual General Meeting on October 7, 2010, a motion was put forward to dissolve the Club’s Heritage Fund, for reasons stated in the motion:

Motion to dissolve the Heritage Fund

Whereas club youth programs could benefit from Community Gaming Grants, and

whereas Community Gaming Grants are only available to organizations with less than 50% of their previous year's operating expenses on hand in the form of unrestricted cash and investments, and

whereas the Heritage Fund money is considered unrestricted investments even though the cash is not available for general operating purposes,

Be it here resolved that the Heritage Fund is dissolved, and that the board make reasonable efforts to reduce and maintain unrestricted cash and investments to below 50% of the previous year's operating expenses.

 

However, to comply with FCRCC’s by-laws, notice of the business of a meeting needs to be provided to the Membership in advance, and thus the motion could not be voted on at the AGM.

Instead, the Membership at the AGM voted to hold a Special General Meeting (SGM), to be held no later than January 31, 2011, to discuss the Heritage Fund.  The Executive was directed to provide details of the October motion and information on options for the Heritage Fund to the Membership at least one month in advance of the SGM.

The Special General Meeting on January 26th will provide the opportunity to learn more about options for the Heritage Fund (see below), as well as other paddling clubs’ experience with Direct Access gaming grants, and to participate in a decision regarding the future of the Heritage Fund.

 

 

Subsequent to the AGM, the Executive spent considerable time in thought and discussion on the Heritage Fund's future.  A list of various options for the future of the Fund was created and placed on this web site January 2nd.  Then, in the meeting of the Executive on January 12th, further discussion resulted in the Executive voting in favour of presenting the following two motions at the SGM.

 

Modification to the definition of the Heritage Fund

Background

The Heritage Fund is a legacy built up by all the people who have been members of FCRCC over the years.  Its purpose is to provide the seed money to fund construction of a permanent home for the Club.

The likelihood of building such a home has diminished greatly, as land values and construction costs have escalated everywhere, while most of the industrial land surrounding False Creek has been converted into expensive housing developments.

At the same time, the Executive anticipates the need to spend money on major capital items, such as renovating or building new boat sheds and upgrading or expanding our fleet.  The annual budgets approved by the Club's Members at the Annual General Meeting have typically included suitable amounts for normal equipment turnover; but, for projects that exceed the scope of our normal budget, the options for raising funds for such projects are a special levy, a membership fee increase, or accessing the Heritage Fund.

The Executive believes that the tight restriction on the Heritage Fund for a clubhouse ties up the funds for a narrow opportunity which is now unlikely to occur.  We feel the Fund should stay restricted, but with a more general defintion allowing use for major capital expenditures.  Keeping the restriction on the Fund ensures the Membership gives approval for all occasions the Fund is accessed (via a vote at an AGM or SGM), but re-defining usage allows broader scenarios to access the Fund.

A side benefit of using the Fund for capital projects and thus reducing its size may be to enable the Club to qualify for BC Community Gaming Grants at some point in the future.

Motion

The Heritage Fund will be redefined as follows:

a.  The purpose of the Fund is to finance major capital expenditures.

and

b.  Any use of the Fund for such expenditures must be approved by a resolution at an Annual or Special General Meeting of the Members of FCRCC.

 

Accelerating the OC1 Replacement Project

[This motion will be presented only if the motion to modify the Heritage Fund passes]

Background

The club has two types of 1-person outriggers - Surfriggers and C-Lions.   Both types have maintenance issues due to certain aspects of their designs.  To reduce the issues and resulting maintenance costs, the Executive decided in the late Summer of 2010 to develop a new OC1.  The 2010/2011 Budget presented and approved at the October 2010 AGM covers the cost of developing a prototype.  Following testing and approval of the prototype, the current plan is to build new boats at the rate of three per year.

Motion

In order to accelerate the replacement of the most worn-out & leakiest OC1s sooner rather than later, we are asking the Membership to approve withdrawing money from the Heritage Fund to cover the cost of building 6 boats as soon as the prototype has been approved.

 

 

Other related information:

 (note: not all of the past years' minutes & reports are available.  Early years' were done only on paper, but we have been able to locate many of those, and scan them into pdf files.  We're still looking for other years'.  2008 thru the present are complete.)

 § You'll need to log in with your Member ID & password to view these; if you have any trouble, send a message to Communications.

 

Please address any questions to the FCRCC Executive.