Public Service Alliance of Canada BC

B.C. Regional Women’s Committee Chairs Conference Call Minutes

On call

• Patty Ducharme
• Regina Brennan
• Sarah Cousins
• Sandy Stephens
• Angela Marafon
• Joy Harrison joined us late

Regrets from Parveen, Alethea and Sharon.

Agenda:

1. December 6
2. RWC Budgets
3. RWC Meeting
4. RWC Handbook
5. Federal Election Action Plan
6. Pre-Convention Seminar for Women Delegates – March 31
7. Part 2 of Women at Work

The call was chaired by Patty.  She started by passing along Parveen’s regrets.

1.  December 6: The black wrist bands were not ordered due to the concern over the colour choice and the necessity to go with made in China bands because of time restraints.  Patty will order the CLC Dec 6th pins and send to each Woman’s Committee as follows;

• 8 to Prince George
• 10 to Vancouver
• 10 to Victoria
• 10 to Okanagan

Postcard campaign – Anyone who wants the post cards before December 6th must order them through Patrick.  Otherwise, they will be sent on December 6th.

BC Fed is sponsoring a breakfast in support of Dawn Black’s nomination for the NDP.  It starts at 7:30am and is at the Metrotown Hilton Hotel.  Anyone who wants to come and needs lwop can contact the Vancouver RWC for financial assistance.

Reports on what actions have been planned for December 6th
Vancouver, Angela’s Local has collected toiletries for the Surrey Women’s Center and is also conducting a raffle for a bouquet.  Nothing was done specifically through the Vancouver Women’s committee, but they will organize the presence at the Breakfast.

Victoria is having a video and popcorn night.

Prince George is distributing the ribbons in the morning and providing information about the day and the reason for it.  Their District Labour Council is hosting a breakfast.

2.  RWC Budgets: Advances were sent out to all the committees.  There is no urgent need for any further funds for Vancouver, Victoria and Okanagan.  Sandy will check to see if Prince George is in urgent need of funds.  Patty and Regina will sit down on December 5th to go through the requests and make decisions.

3.  RWC Meeting: There was a proposal made to bring in up to four members of each Regional Women’s Committee, including the chairs or co-chairs and the treasurers, some time in late February to early March, after the handbook is finished, to review the handbook, the requirements, and to make a one to two year plan.

4.  RWC Handbook: The handbook is drafted but is being revised once more.  The printing will likely take some time due to election and convention priorities and the moving of the print shop.

5.  Federal Election Action Plan: Election period will span Christmas.  Elections will be either the 16 or the 23 of January.  Patty asked the Regional Women’s Committees to submit action plans for election campaign.  We will have information sheets to hand out.  We reviewed the limitations of our financial and material contributions due to election act restrictions.

6.  Pre-Convention Seminar for Women Delegates – March 31: We confirmed that this would be on March 31, 2006.  All delegates would be brought in on April 1 and 2.  The convention committees would be there to make reports on all significant issues to allow our delegates an opportunity to decide as a group how they feel and to discuss the issues prior to convention.  The delegate list is not finalized yet.

7.  Part 2 of Women at Work: Reminder of the part 2 assignment.  Deadline is the end of the year, but you can request extensions.

Announcements: Donna Sheaves Memorial Scholarship application to be faxed to all committee chairs.  This was originally mailed out by the BC Fed.

Downtown Eastside Women’s Center has sent a list of items they need.

Reminder of the annual Labour Community Christmas Dinners

We discussed the value of these conference calls.  We agreed that these calls will not be regular, but will be arranged on an as needed basis.

Minutes of the Regional Council Meeting,September 17 & 18, 2005

Download the BC Regional Council meeting minutes, September 17 18 2005 (pdf) or read below.

reposted April 2006

Here are some pictures of PSAC’s “55 foot” Tepee that was erected at the 26th Assembly of First Nations AGM and Trade Show in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories from July 4-7, 2005. We are happy to report that the giant Tepee received national press and media coverage, and is being touted as the largest ever erected in the North. Federal NDP leader Jack Layton was in attendance.

The painting on the canvas is a gift to the PSAC from internationally acclaimed Dene artist Archie Beaulieu and the Tepee is the property of PSAC’s National Aboriginal Inuit and Métis (NAIM) Network. Archie Beaulieu will complete the painting at the Dene National Assembly in August 2005.

Here are some photos of the event.

PSAC’s participation at the event was a collaborative effort between the Dene Nation, NAIM, PSAC North, PSAC Ontario, PSAC BC, PSAC Yellowknife Regional Office, Union of Northern Workers (UNW) and the Organizing Program. This special project is a great success story and the Tepee is symbolic of PSAC’s commitment to building a stronger partnership and working relationship with Aboriginal, Inuit and Métis members, leaders, communities and staff.

During the course of the week, over 3000 people visited the Tepee, including Chiefs from the various communities across Canada. The Tepee was also used as a cultural centre for the Native Women’s Association of the NWT and for local Aboriginal artists. At the site of the Tepee erection, Dene medicine man Bob Wasicuna blessed the ground and lit the sacred fire which was kept burning until the completion of the Assembly. This structure, which has been honoured in traditional ceremonies, is a priceless treasure of the PSAC NAIM network and our members.

In my role as Health and Safety Coordinator I have spent the last few weeks working in the PSAC office creating a list of Health and Safety contacts for all the worksites in BC. While not complete it is quickly becoming close to finished as Locals get their information to me. Anybody who was unable to contact me at the PSAC office can e mail me their Local contact name to joyj@shaw.ca.

My next step in this process is to send out a short survey to the contacts that I have been given and the survey will be mailed care of the Local. Watch for this to come out late August or early September. The information from the survey will be used to assist us in planning our next Regional Health and Safety Conference which we hope to hold early in 2006.

In addition to the above I have been continuing to work on the Joint Training modules being developed in conjunction with the Pacific Council. In the meantime for those who are wanting more training on Health and Safety watch for Union School news for the fall of 2005. If the new Health and Safety Training course for activists is ready in time, the chances are good that it will be piloted at the Union school.

The Brush Committee is alive and well! With so much activity occurring around Health and Safety in our Region we will be scheduling more meetings. The dates will be posted on this site. If you are interested in being part of the Committee please contact either Jack Rudd or me and we will be happy to put you on our Brush Committee list.

Finally, my other project that I am going to be working on is contacting the National Officers to come up with an idea on how best to share information around the different component’s Regional and National JOSH Committees and existing Policy Committees. From my discussions with the Locals it seems that a lot of us feel we are working in isolation and constantly reinventing the wheel. Many similar issues have already been addressed and we just don’t know it. If you have any thoughts on this I’d love to hear from you.

Here’s hoping everyone has a safe and healthy summer.

Joy Hennen, BC Regional Council Health & Safety Rep.

Allow registration - add link somewhere sorted

Implement subscribe to categories via email
http://www.skippy.net/blog/2005/12/29/subscribe2-22/ sorted explain the options

Implement the photo gallery
http://www.randombyte.net/blog/projects/falbum/ sorted, used lazyestgallery.

Get the event calendar working - update is due out week of Jan 16th - hack appears to work

?? Main Page (no parent) - NOT show up in pages tab

Page redirect - http://txfx.net/code/wordpress/page-links-to/ ?? sorted

Adhesive doesn’t appear to work - http://redalt.com/wiki/Adhesive sorted

Forms - need EZstatic - http://redalt.com/wiki/EzStatic3 sorted HEalth & Safety conference
Print page - http://dev.wp-plugins.org/wiki/wp-print sorted, and quite nicely I think.

Category visibility plugin is AFU - find one that removes posts from the front page sorted
Theme switcher - make the text larger.

Remove “latest” from all but home page sorted
remove monthly archive from sidebar entirely. sorted
Fix the upper padding in the category list, children tucked in too close to parents below

Add links within site to Contact us bios.

Tools for members.