vacation....of sorts

I get two weeks vacation every year, and I can take my overtime as lou time whenever appropriate. I'm just not very good at it.

I'm suppose to be on vacation this week. So far I've finished a report for our Community Matters project and wrote up our strategic plan. I still have one more grant proposal to write and then I can be free and clear to relax for a day.

But it's hard to relax when I keep reading about the death of women, and family members, at the hands of their spouse, two in 24 hours this week.

We react in horror, but the reality is, what are we doing as a society to protect these families?

We don't make it easy for women to get out of abusive relationships. For most women leaving an abusive relationship means instant poverty, further abuse by the justice system and no real hope.

The United Way funds two front line programs for violence prevention: Women's House Serving Bruce and Grey and The Men's Program.

The Women's House is a crisis shelter for women seeking to escape abusive relationships. Funding to the Women’s House covers a portion of the shortfall in funding from the Ministry of Community and Social Services in order to sustain the essential programs and services already in place. In addition to shelter services Women’s house also provides outreach counseling in 9 communities throughout Bruce and Grey, and is launching the new Sexual Assault Services out of Owen Sound.

The Men's Program is an anger management program for men who have been either court referred to deal with their anger, or who self identify that they are not being safe with their anger. The Men’s Program only receives funding from the Ministry of the Attorney General for men who are court mandated. The United Way has been funding the community-referred portion of the Men’s Program. In 2005, 75 men self referred them for help to the Men’s Program, getting the help they needed BEFORE committing a crime.

It's never enough and sometimes it doesn't seem like you're making a difference at all. Women continue to die at the hands of their partners.

The United Way of Bruce Grey held a press conference on June 22nd announcing the awarding of over $160 000 in grants to the community , $135 000 directly to local service agencies . The United Way will be funding 4 new funded programs. The United Way will fund 18 agencies in 2007.

These agencies are:

Women's House of Bruce County $18,000.00
Family Services Perth Huron Bruce Grey $15,000.00
Men' Program $14,000.00
Grey Bruce Eat & Learn $13,000.00
Keystone Child Youth and Family Services $12,000.00
St. John Ambulance $9,000.00
GRACE $8,000.00
Epilepsy, Huron-Perth-Bruce $3,850.00
Brain Injury Society $2,650.00
Durham & District Food bank $5,300.00
Housing Resource Centre $1,200.00

2nd Year Asks
South Grey Bruce Youth Literacy Council $5,000.00
CHIP - Adult Learning Centre $5,000.00
Friends & Neighbour Club (CMHA) $5,000.00

New Asks
Big Brothers & Sisters Of Hanover District $6,000.00
Big Sisters Owen Sound & Grey $2,000.00
PRANCE $5,000.00
Keystone - School program $5,000.00

Know your talents

I've come to the realization that I'm a big picture person, not a details person. It's neither a good thing or a bad thing, it's just a 'thing'.

But when it comes to days like today, when I need to get a grant application written, my 'big picture' mentatlity gets in the way. I just want to write "We're a great organization and we do great things so just send us a cheque", but alas it never works that way.

We need work plans, and expecations and sustainablity modles, and partners and letters of support and on and on it goes.

I have friends who live and breath this stuff, who can take 2 or 3 of my ideas and make them sound really brilliant and potentially grant'able. But dollars are limited and hiring people is out of the question and I've used up all my favours.

Plus the whole "new and inovative" bit is driving me batty. Can't repeat anythign we've ever done before, it has to be all new and dynamic. That gets weary after a while.

It's so pretty...

Ok confession time, I'm a girly girl. My favourite colour is pink, I love flowers and I'll cry over...well anything.

So when it came to think of a 'fun' way to give out our grants, I went all girly this year. I took our ficus tree and blew $20 at the dollar store and with 18 cheques to give away we now have 18 pretty butterflies in the tree, and pretty butterflies on the walls around. It's all so pretty and delicate, and corny.

But I can live with that.

I just find handing out envelopes really boring. Last year was exicting as we were 'squatting' in what is now the United Way Centre. We couldn't say it was ours, only that it was "in process" lots of mystery and intrigue.

This year it's just going to be fun and all perky and bright.

Busy spot

Dates of note:
One

The United Way of Bruce Grey will be holding a press conference on June 22nd at 10 am announcing the awarding of over $181 000 in grants to the community. The United Way will be funding 4 new funded programs. The United Way will funds 18 agencies in 2007.


•Allocations $135 000.00

•Funded 211 expansion $ 25 000.00

•Board Fund $ 2 800.00

•Children & Youth Fund $ 18 508.44

Total Community Investment Budget: $181 308.44

Recipients of these grants will be on hand for interviews and information sharing.

As the United Way of Bruce Grey begins its 10th campaign, it celebrates a community cash investment of over $800 000 over the past 9 years.

The press conference will be at the United Way Centre, 380 9th Street East, Owen Sound.

Two

Please accept this invitation to attend our opening of the Community Garden, Li Saydr and Trwaw Soeur, Tuesday, June 26 at 12:30 noon. We will be glad to show you what is growing and what we are ‘plotting’. Call if you have questions 370-0435. The Community Garden Committee.

It's Seniors Month

The Seniors Advocacy and Awarness Network (SAAN) is running a series of television and print ads to draw attention to the issue of Elder Abuse, and it seems to be working. I spoke to the Social Worker that is works with SAAN and she told me they are getting community referrals.

While it's hard to celebrate incidences of elder abuse, it is a celebration that people are becoming aware that there is help out there for them. It's a paradox of working with such an issue.

We are fortunate to have a dedicated Elder Abuse Social Worker, there are only 2 or 3 in the province. As the population ages the will be more and more cases of Elder Abuse, unless we can make the change here and now.

By educating people we can empower them to raise flags, get clarification and to simply connect with resources within the community to prevent this from happening.

it's Bruce Power Day!

Today is Bruce Power Day. Our own intrepid golfer Chris, and Vice President of the board, is off to Whistle Bear in Cambridge for the Bruce Power Suppliers Conference and Golf event to benefit the United Way of Bruce Grey. In 2005 $75 000 was raised from this event, in 2006 it was $80 000. This is the single largest donation to the United Way, and the only person who is working on it, from our side, is Chris. A very efficient way to fundraise.

It will be a few weeks before we get a total on the event and that cheque will be invested and put to work over the next 11 months.

It's going to be a quiet day around here as our kids are off on their year-end trip to the Scenic Caves in Collingwood. I had really wanted to go with them, as an additional adult, but the state of my desk tells me I should stay here and get some work done. Besides I twisted my ankle at Bruce Peninsula National Park on Saturday, hiking, and if I stay off it it's fine, if I walk too much, it aches by evening.

The garden plots are being outlined so if anyone wants a small plot to get dirty and play in, just email the Metis and they'll get you set up. There's not a lot of space but enough to have some fresh produce this summer. It is an organic garden!

Playing God...or Goddess

Today is the day. Today the United Way's Allocation Committee reviews the grant applications and makes their recommendations to the board. Seventeen hopeful organizations wait in the wings for a decision. For some agencies we are the only funder of their program, for others, we just one small drop in the thousands of dollars they raise annually.

From the smallest food bank serving a huge clientele to the various violence prevention programs, deciding who gets what, is not only a challenge but a serious responsibility.

The United Way requires audited financial statements from most of it's agencies. We do allow financial reviews for the smallest agencies. With audits now reaching into the thousands of dollars, requiring an agency to spend 20% of their entire budget on an audit is counter productive. So a review is allowed.

Our committee is also charged with deciding who is doing what they said they were going to do, and who is not, whose priorities match our own, and who, if anyone is off on a tangent and needs some support in getting back on track.

It's never an easy job and we thank our volunteers for stepping up and making these decisions.

It will be a further 10 days before we announce the funding results so stay tuned.

It's Friday

I should have posted something Thursday to tell everyone what a wonderful time we had on Wednesday at the Women's Gathering. Over 80 women gathered to discuss poverty and all the related issues.

I had the privilege of being the keynote speaker and told a bit of my story and my personal experience with poverty. Thank you to everyone who approached me one on one later in the day to express their thoughts on what I'd said.

Thank you to the Ball Seed Company for donating 90 bags so that each attendee went home with a grab bag of treats. Thank you also to Huron, Bruce and Grey counties, and the City of Stratford for supplying us with tourism information on their regions. Women who suffer from poverty still like to play and with all the natural wonders there are a lot of great 'free' places to play.

Crimestoppers gave us pens and bookmarks and the United Way chipped in for some candy (sssh don't tell the Health Unit).

We learned that there is no image that is associated with women in poverty. There are lots of images for urban poverty: homelessness, men's poverty: soup kitchen line ups, but there is no image of women's poverty.

So we've got a lot of work to do around this issue, but the good news is that there are no 80 women out there who feel better about their situation and themselves.

A great day, a great start.

Conference hangover

The only problem with being out of your office for 4 days, is you're out of your office for 4 days, the piles of paper are deeper when you get back. And it just makes you want to leave again.

There are so many things going on right now it's nuts. We're starting to layout the groundwork for our fundraising campaign. The backpack program that runs in August is kicking off mid July in Kincardine.

We're up to our necks in Allocaitons as our committee begins to review the requests for funding for 2007.

Tomorrow is the Women's Gathering and apparently I'm the keynote speaker!

That doesn't include the work on 211, the Volunteer Portal, the Linx comptuer project and the United Way Centre.

Phew I'm tired!

Well back to work! Big thank you today to our SALEP gang for preparing the bags for our Women's Gathering tomorrow. Much apprecaited guys.

Catching up

I've been away. I didn't want to announce to the world, OK the 3 people who are regular readers (hi mom!), that I was going to be leaving town for 4 days. It's a safety thing. But there I was down in the Big Smoke for 4 days, living near the 400's.

Someone was offering feedback on the conference and suggested that the number 7, as in 7am should not be on an agenda - yes we had two days that started at 7 am - and another person pipped up that the number 9 should also not be on the agenda - yes we had two days that started at 7am and went through to 9pm (time in the hotel bar not included).

I wanted to jump up and ask that the directions not include the number "4" but the sheer exhaustion of a days that started at 7am and ended at 9pm kept me routed (ha ha) to my seat. I had taken the 410 to the 401 to the 404 to get to the hotel.

I can see the challenge for the United Ways of Ontario in arranging the location of the conference. Every year there is feedback that they haven't found the right spot.

The first year I was there I complained we were in Toronto and they said that the people from northern Ontario had to fly into the airport so it made the most sense to be at the airport. If that was true why were at a hotel on Queen's Quay?

Those along the tops of the southern great lakes, well essential the towns along the 401 corridor liked the Queen's Quay location as they took VIA rail in and were downtown already at Union Station. Those that flew in were annoyed they had to take cabs downtown adding $40 so to the already large travel bill.

Naturally this year we were closer to the 401 and those who took the train were complaining about the $40 cab fare from Union Station*.

Having no efficient public transportation to take (and no taking a bus is not an efficient use of my time as there is only one to Toronto daily at any given time) I'm driving no matter what.

So I didn't like Queens Quay because I'm driving downtown Toronto and that's just scary. This weekend's hotel wasn't so bad as it was on the 400 series so not too hard to find.

Personally I'd like to bring everyone out of the big smoke and have the conference up here and put some play time into the agenda.

But I'm a little fish, so perhaps in time.

*PS of sorts: In looking for appropriate links I found out that Union Station is so named because it is a union of two or more railroad companies that set up a third independent company to run a station that all involved companies can use. Things I never knew before, full explanation is here.