OSCA PRESIDENT'S COLUMN

BY MICHAEL JENKIN

s you will probably know from my previous column, the OSCA board held a planning meeting on October 8 to look at our priorities for the coming year. The board discussed the major issues and pressure points we will be facing over the next few years in terms of changing community needs, traffic and transit growth, development pressures and perhaps most important of all, the city's struggle to come to terms with how it will manage the very different interests of city centre, suburban and rural areas in the context of growing expenditure pressures and a static revenue base.

The board agreed to focus its efforts next year on three main issues:

• develop a vision and action plan on a revitalization of OSCA's program activity and the physical facilities we need to run our programming;
• improve OSCA's ability to reflect community concerns and improve our ability to recruit volunteers; and
• ensure that the harmonized policies and budget priorities being developed by the new City of Ottawa in areas such as recreation, planning and development and transportation benefit from active input from the community.

A working group of board members will bring a specific set of proposals to the November board meeting on how these goals can be achieved. We also realized that 2003 will be OSCA's 25th anniversary as a community association and a little celebration will be in order to mark the quite significant achievements that have been made in the last number of years. Watch this space for more details on our 25th anniversary events.

NEW APPROACH TO OSCA PROGRAMS

As I have mentioned several times over the last few months the future direction of our programming activities has been a key concern of many board members. As a result, the board decided to spend its entire regular monthly meeting on October 15 looking at its overall approach to providing programs. This is one of OSCA's more important roles and it accounts for about 80% of our budget and involves a significant amount of our volunteer effort. It also involves a lot of OSCAR readers, as we have typically over 900 registrants in our programs each season.

The community is changing both in terms of growing numbers of families living here and a change in the demand for different types of programs. We have no problem with lack of demand - our real problem is finding appropriate places to hold all the programming activity people are demanding we supply. To address these changes, the board adopted a vision statement for its future programming efforts and decided on a strategy for dealing with its programming needs.

The vision states that OSCA will provide innovative, high-quality programming that will meet the needs of all the major age groups in the community. To accomplish this objective, the board has taken the following decisions:

• for the foreseeable future the Firehall will remain a core location for our programming activity, but other locales, such as Brewer Way, will be seriously considered if they become available.
• OSCA will create a committee to concentrate on improving our access to programming space and will develop a medium-term plan for improving the existing space at the Firehall, determine specifications for additional programming space and actively seek out new opportunities in the community to create new programming space, including partnerships with other groups such as Westboro Academy and Bytown Daycare.
• OSCA will commit its own funds in the short term to improve the safety and program facilities of the Firehall and will pursue with the city additional physical improvements that can be made to the building and its operations and maintenance.
• I will take the lead along with the board in engaging Hopewell School, our trustee, the OCDSB administration and city officials in developing a plan that will improve community access to gymnasium space at our local school.

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Our AGM this year will be held on November 12 at the Firehall. I would urge you to come out and hear what progress has been made this year and our plans for 2003. But the most important activity at the AGM is to elect a new board for the coming year, so its particularly important for you to come out and make your views heard. We promise to make it a social occasion as well and there will be a wine a cheese at the end of the business meeting.