This past year has been my first as Executive Director at the Social Planning Council. Arli Klassen, my predecessor who left the organization in June 1999, had done much good work to set the stage for this year's activities and successes. I am in her debt.
During this time, it has been a pleasure to work with the dedicated staff, Board members, volunteers and contract workers who, through their various roles, have worked to keep the Social Planning Council of K-W focused on providing information and support to the community. Together we have continued the restructuring process to more fully integrate the major functions of the organization: community information and social planning.
As with many local social service organizations, the Social Planning Council of K-W has experienced turbulent times and undergone major changes in funding, staffing and organizational structure since the mid-nineties. Through this period of transition, the Board of Directors went to the community and heard clearly that local community members and agencies want information services and social planning support.
Building on a restructuring process that started in 1997, strategic planning was undertaken in 1998. It was during this phase that our current mission and objectives were established with a focus defined for three main activity area for our work: Research and Data Management; Community Information; and Community Building. Short and long term issues were also identified and so, the work continued.
I am pleased to report that all of the short term issues identified in 1998 have been successfully addressed and the longer term issues were tackled with great success on very limited resources.We still need to work on building core organizational funding but, this is a long term goal.
Our activities over the past year are highlighted throughout this annual report. We have made tremendous progress in developing our intranet and Internet technical infrastructure and much of what we have accomplished in all of our activity areas, especially technical development and community building, has been done by working in partnership with others in the community.
In April 2000, we started another phase of strategic planning. In this work, values and guiding principles were re-affirmed and updated to assist our future decision making. It is important that we be firmly grounded as we proceed. Through this renewed planning, three strategic directions were defined as our focus for 2000/20001:
As we continue our restructuring to better support the community overall, it has become apparent that social planning councils and community information centres play an important role in the community. Indeed we are seeing this across the Province of Ontario and not just locally.
Our community must continue to address the needs of community members. Changing population demographics bring new needs to our community. Our social and political structures are undergoing major transformations. Many changes are bringing a disproportionate advantage to some people, leaving many others in precarious and vulnerable situations.
The need for what we have to offer is greater now than ever before. There is growing interest in having information that, not only helps people find the services they need; but can also help us understand our community better and to tracking the quality of life across a range of indicators relevant to a healthy community. This is the work we do. There is also an increased call for us to play a leadership role to link people and groups to work toward a common purpose. This is also the work we do.
Our challenge, as an independent community based human services planning and information organization, is to harness resources as best we can and to stay as responsive as possible to the changing needs of the community.
As we begin the 21st Century, we have a particular interest in the use of new computer and Internet technologies in enabling communication and democratizing access to information. We are interested in gathering and maintaining ongoing databases of information for a variety of community needs; referral to meet human needs and understanding community changes. We are also interested in social capital and how we, in our community information and social planning functions, we can better understand and enable a stronger more cohesive community environment.
During this past year, I have been able to build on my own knowledge about our community, our local systems and the needs of various populations. I thank Arli Klassen, our wonderful staff and volunteers, and especially the Board of Directors, whose members have had the vision and dedication to stay with this organization through thick and thin. I also thank the members of our community and those leaders in various sectors who have encouraged the Social Planning Council and trusted the community wisdom we try to tap through our work. I look forward to the new challenges and knowledge the next year will bring and the opportunity to report on our 2000 activities next year!
Respectfully submitted,