District 4 Report: Feb'09
Monthy Report from David Spencer and Norm Hall, your District Directors
Wow, January is gone and we’re into the second week of February already!! January was a quiet month for the directors of APAS, but not the executive and staff, their schedules were full with the Crop Production Show, KAP and WRAP AGM’s, other external committee work and of course meetings with government.
For myself the work has started again. On February 1st, I along with Don Connick and Shawn Bourgeois flew to Ottawa for a Canadian Agricultural Human Resources Sector Council conference on Feb 2nd. APAS is represented by Don Connick on this council, but the council paid for the expenses for three representatives from APAS to come and hear the results of their study and to give input to the direction that they should go.
On Feb. 5th and 6th the board met in Regina for a business/planning meeting, something we hadn’t done since Ken McBride was president. The board also used this time to get to know each other, as 5 of the 12 directors are new to the board. A more in depth report on the two days of board meeting will be found on another page of this site. Our next board meeting is slated for Saturday, March 7th.
This week the committee meetings have begun.
Feb. 9th started with the Livestock Committee,
Feb 11th is the Economic, Trade and Strategic Growth Committee ( Editors Note: This meeting was postponed due to the forecasts of freezing rain across parts of the province)
Feb 12th is the Grains & Oilseed Committee,
Feb 16th is the Environment Committee meeting and to wrap the committees up is the Governance Committee on March 6th.
These committees start by dealing with the resolutions that come in from the AGM or Mid-term meetings by seeing if they need to be researched to create an solution or if they can be taken directly to the board for approval to be sent to government to start the lobby journey. The committees also look at current issues that come up between the major meetings and see what solutions can be brought forward according to our current policies, these solutions are then taken to the board for approval and then to government to start the lobbying process. Each of your directors is on at least one of these committees, but District 4 holds 4 of the 15 available committee rep positions, very good representation from our corner of Saskatchewan.
The executive, directors, reps and staff will be busy over the next 7 to 9 weeks visiting RM’s, discussing membership for the coming year. Two of the most recent visits were in this district. On February 10th President Greg Marshall met with the RM of Touchwood. Initial reports indicate that the discussions were mostly positive. The council asked questions about our struggles of the past year and Greg assured them that those were all behind us and that we were moving ahead and needed them to help us on that journey. The same day Vice-President Jeff Simpson met with the RM of Nipawin and had a very positive experience, and wants to pass on best wishes to the ratepayers of the RM. On the 11th, Jeff SImpon also met with the RM of Garden River.
Just a reminder to all reps. This is your organization, it lives and breathes for you and your ratepayer. To get the most out of APAS, you must participate, because without you there is no APAS.
Dave is currently on holidays so you can blame me for all of the mistakes, but if you have any questions give us a call.
As always your directors.
Dave Spencer & Norm Hall