On November 2, 2019, the GCABC held its Annual General Meeting, and started off a new board period. As part of that, the President’s report was presented. Here are some of the highlights from the previous board period.
The GCABC did the following from September 19, 2018 to November 2, 2019:
- Ten board meetings
- An extra strategic planning session, which resulted in the following goals:
- To develop and refine the internal governance systems and structures
- To review and assess the technology and web tools used by the GCABC
- To develop a plan for public events and community and member outreach
- To identify needed areas of research
- Three committees were established and tested by the board: 1) Advocacy and Awareness, 2) Outreach and Membership, and 3) Policy. During the year, we decided to move advocacy and membership back to the board.
- The Advocacy and Awareness Committee met five times. A Terms of Reference was created by the GCABC board with input from the committee. The committee submitted a formal response to the BC Government’s Select Standing Committee on Youth and Children.
- The Outreach and Membership Committee met four times throughout the year. During the year, they changed their name to the Communications and Resources Committee and established a draft of their Terms of reference. They also conducted the GCBAC Mental Health Professional Directory and created the following web content:
- The Policy Committee wrote the following important guidelines and policies specific for GCABC use by directors and committee members: 1) Board Manual, 2) Conflict of Interest Statement, and 3) Ethics and Confidentiality Statement.
- The GCABC organized four events:
- The AGM was held on Sep 19, 2019 at Choice School in Richmond. A special lecture was given by giftedness expert, Debbie Clelland, PhD, RCC. The title was “Acceleration for gifted students.”
- On March 4th and 7th, the GCABC partnered with the Lower Mainland Gifted Contacts group for two events (Vancouver and Surrey) focusing on how to build a successful relationship with your gifted child’s teacher.
- A movie screening with a parent and child panel discussing the movie “2E”, by director Thomas Ropelowski. The event was hosted by North Vancouver School District on March 22, 2019.
- Extensive work was done online to get more followers and spread more awareness:
- GCABC Facebook page followed by 400 people (up 64% from last year)
- GCABC Twitter account “@GiftedBC” followed by 326 (up 54% from last year)
- Regular newsletters with MailChimp to our 597 subscribers (up 54% from last year)
- A technology assessment of the organizational needs moving forward was undertaken. We assessed all tools currently used by the GCABC and identified new services we require. The goal was to streamline our activities and use platforms which offer multiple services. The assessment resulted in a report, which was one of the strategic deliverables.
- Provision of two educational travel grants of $1,500 to two board members (Maureen McDermid and Malvina Pradana) for travel to the official conference of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children in Nashville, Tennessee in July 2019. They were there to network, identify trends in giftedness research, and find future speakers for GCABC events.
As the chair of the organisation, I would like to thank the board directors and the committee members for their dedication and hard work throughout the year. It has been a pleasure to work with you all.
A. Lena Normen-Younger Vancouver, BC – Oct 31, 2019
