SCCA Presidents Report

President’s Report by John Sprungman

Manson’s Hall, in its present form, has served the community as a centre for services, activities and as a social space for 32 years. Over those years, it has been a kind of greenhouse in which things start small and some of them outgrow the available space. The first doctor practiced in what is now the hall office. Later the room across from the bathrooms was the doctor’s office and then the community built the medical centre.

The Quadra Credit Union also started in the hall office, moved into the portable on the parking lot and then bought land and constructed its own building. This year Cortes Community Radio, now fully licensed, moved to the portable from the old doctor’s office.

And the next occupant of that room will be the post office. Jim Murphy, chair of the SCCA’s renovations committee, is working with postmaster Jaime le Grandeur on a design which will include an internal lobby (open 24/7) with twice the number of mailboxes, all of them new and already on site. This move was approved by the SCCA board to accomplish a number of positive changes: the reduction of heat loss from the hall by not using the main doors as the access for incoming and outgoing mail, the creation of a pedestrian courtyard keeping vehicles back from the main entry, and providing mailboxes for nearly a hundred people who currently get their mail via general delivery. Once the post office is moved, a small group meeting or activity room will be created to reduce the need to use the Pioneer Room for a limited number of people.

We will need more money, materials and workers to make all this happen. We need your help. Look at what’s already been done in the Pioneer Room and main hall kitchen/bar area. That came about because of the support of the Cortes Seniors Society for a New Horizons grant, Sandra Wood’s grant writing, Jim Murphy’s dedication to the project and the assistance of many islanders. Imagine how many more improvements we can make if we all help a bit.

Also on the horizon in our planning is making the upstairs rooms better serve current needs. For more information and to share your ideas, come to the AGM and get involved. It is not necessary to be a member of the board to help with a specific project or program. Donations of funds, materials, and labour are another way to make things happen.

Manson’s Hall would not be a happening place day after day without the dedicated work of hall managers Mary Lavelle and Mark Christian, the attention and skill of maintenance chief Eddie Mitchell, and the regular cleaning janitor Josee Gagnon does when no one is looking. In the same unheralded fashion, Peggy looks after the skatepark.

We have been fortunate this past year to have a positive, high-spirited board with Julian Ayers as vice president, Myrna Kerr as secretary and with Desta Beattie, Andrea Block and Jim Murphy as directors. Desta, the island’s Family Support Coordinator, is our playschool liaison. Andrea is organizing this year’s Cortes Day (July 21). Jim Murphy is the hands-on coordinator of our renovation projects. Our thanks to Tom Bennet who has retired as a treasurer. Our books are in excellent shape because of his work over two years and because Marilyn Fitzmaurice is our bookkeeper.

We are also pleased to announce that the hall now has its own web site— www.mansonshall.org—thanks to Elinor Bazar and Coreen Boucher. You can find out what’s going on, book an event, renew your membership and make a donation online. Check it out.

The hall is a lively place to visit because of the people who provide services there, including Jaime in the post office, sometimes relieved by Desta and Anne-Lise, Maggie who brings and takes away the mail, Tanya in the playschool who also helps parents with tots, Mark and Erica upstairs working with Reel Youth, Garnette and Sue in the cafe kitchen, all the women who give their time to the SCCA Thrift Store and all the creative islanders who bring their magic to Friday Market. From down under the main hall, the potters occasionally emerge, and you only have to tune your radio to 89.5 fm to hear the spin from Cortes Radio’s Djs in their new digs.

AND THEN THERE’S THE LIBRARY…

The current situation is both disappointing and frustrating for the SCCA directors and the 10 members of the library committee who have put in hundreds of volunteer hours in an effort to figure out how to provide a new building on SCCA land that could be leased to the Vancouver Island Regional Library.

The sudden closure of the Cortes branch came four days after SCCA representatives met with VIRL’s administrators in Nanaimo. In that meeting, it became apparent that the SCCA could not finance the construction of a building to VIRL’s specifications based on their lease conditions and financial expectations.

After 14 years of providing library service in Manson’s Hall without ever reporting any incidents to the SCCA and without asking for any structural renovations, the news that part of the upstairs room was once a mezzanine prompted the VIRL administrators to close the library and remove the books because of a Worksafe BC hazard alert they had about mezzanine collapses.

The night before this action was taken, the SCCA board passed a motion to offer to negotiate a long-term land lease for no compensation if VIRL would build the library. This was done in the interests of having a new library faciity in the population centre of Cortes where VIRL said it wanted the library to be. This decision had not been communicated to VIRL the next day by the time they chose to shut down the library.

The SCCA cooperated fully with VIRL’s request for an inspection by their structural engineer, anticipating that the results would allow some level of use of the space by the library until new facilities could be built. VIRL’s media releases said those results would be shared at their public information meeting May 10. That did not happen and VIRL’s administrators now say it is their board of trustees’ decision as to whether that report will be made public. We are still waiting to hear what VIRL intends to do—-short and long term—to meet its mandate to provide library service on Cortes.

The SCCA board is committed to the safe enjoyment of Manson’s Hall for all those who use it. If VIRL chooses not to return to Manson’s Hall and will not share the results of its structural engineer’s assessment, we will engage our own expert to be sure that the former library space is safe for future use by those in it and below it.

In offering a free site on which VIRL could construct its own building, the board intended that the negotiated agreement would be put to the membership for approval at a special general meeting. Membership is open to everyone. Your thoughts and questions are welcome at Tuesday’s AGM.

The members of the library committee are Mary Gordon, chair; Julian Ayers, Martha Abelson, Paul Brewer, Ron Croda, Peter Elliott, Mary-Lu Lorenson, David Rousseau, Sherry Sprungman and Sandra Wood. SCCA President John Sprungman is the liaison for communications with VIRL.

 

AGENDA

1. Call to Order
2. Approval of Agenda
3. Approval of 2011 AGM Minutes
4. Reports

  • Cemetery – Myrna Kerr
  • Cortes Day – Andrea Block
  • Playschool – Desta Beattie
  • Summer Youth Program – Mary Lavelle
  • Renovations – Jim Murphy
  • Pioneer Room/Main Hall Kitchen
  • New Post Office/Entryway Upgrade
  • Financial – John Sprungman

5. Election of Officers
6. New Business

  • Library Update & Discussion

7. Adjournment