HawthorneVillager.com

I absolutely loved this idea. Given the group on this forum I think we have the right number of like-minded people to make this a reality. I'd like to see it happen so I've taken the liberty of drawing up a draft charter which I'm including here as a loooong post. Please put forward your ideas, concerns etc. I'm not a professional so I borrowed a bit from the MMRA ( thank you Gary!) This post is here and not in the general forum because I'm looking for serious input and not a bunch of wisecracks

Everything is open to change - from the name to the mission to the fiscal year. So please jump on board with me and lets work together to add another strong voice at council.

Title: Charter of the Hawthorne Village Residents Association (HVRA)

Article I: Mission

To increase resident awareness and education on municipal matters
To address the issue of accountability by members of the Milton Town Council to the residents of Milton
To explore and encourage the use of technology based solutions where appropriate

Article II: Membership

Membership in the HVRA is available to all Milton residents (includes urban and rural). At this time, there is an annual membership fee of $X, a five year membership fee of $X x5 and a lifetime membership fee of $X x10. Visitors who wish to attend meetings on an intermittent basis are welcomed. Constructive input is valued from anyone in the community. Non-members do not have voting privileges.

The activities of the HVRA will be directed by the HVRA Executive or members at large. Members of the Executive are appointed as per the operating guidelines, below, and serve without remuneration. Executive positions for the HVRA are valid for a term of ONE YEAR. Elections will be held in January of each calendar year. Where an executive post becomes vacant for a period in excess of three months, a delegate will be assigned by the membership to perform the functions of that post until the next Executive election.

Article III: Officers and Duties

Chair
.. Sets meeting agendas
.. Conducts meetings following the agenda
.. Coordinates & shares all correspondence
.. Coordinates annual committee goals
.. Prepares and distributes annual year end review
.. Assigns/coordinates duties and tasks of membership toward shared goals
.. Has signing authority for all bank accounts together with the Treasurer

Vice Chair
.. Assumes all duties of Chair during their absence or at their request

Treasurer
.. Holds all MCPC funds in a savings or chequing account under the HVRA name
.. Produces complete monthly account statements
.. Coordinates all deposits and withdrawals
.. Has signing authority for all bank accounts, together with the Chair
.. Shares regular written Treasurer's Reports with membership
.. Prepares and submits an annual financial summary to members

Secretary
.. Prepares and distributes agendas
.. Records minutes of each meeting
.. Types and copies minutes then arranges for their distribution
.. Keeps a chronological record of correspondence and media coverage

Article IV: Quorum

A quorum for a meeting consists of a simple majority of present/active members that has included two members of the Executive in the voting process.

Article V: Meetings

Annual general meetings shall be held in January at which time elections will be held.
Other general meetings shall be held as required.
Notice of all general meetings shall be distributed at least 14 days in advance by phone or email.
The Association’s fiscal year is from January 1 to December 31

Article VI: Ratification/Amendments

Motions for amendments to the constitution must be given in writing to the Executive at least 30 days before general meetings. Constitutional amendments can only be considered at general meetings and must be approved by two-thirds majority vote of the paid-up membership in good standing present at the general meeting in order to be adopted.

Sounds good to me! Count me in.
I would suggest a modest membership fee between $2-$5 to create a small fund for administrative tasks and create and maintain a website. I could suggest one of the goals would be to assist town hall in getting out information on town meetings/open houses and events like Move More Milton that would be specific to HV residents. I'm thinking maybe a name change from Hawthorne Village to South Milton residents association?

Sounds interesting...

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http://tickers.TickerFactory.com/ezt/d/ ... /event.png

Count me in at least for donating some funds. For now, I want to focus on my push to land one of the advisory committee positions, but this sounds like a fantastic idea. I am sure many of our new councillors would be on board with this kind of organization.

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Steve Camilleri
http://twitter.com/scamilleri1975

Count me in please if you'll have me. Like Steve I am trying for a committee or two however I don't see it as a conflict in fact very complementary.

MRRA membership is $10 per annum as a possible benchmark.

Martin

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Martin Capper

HVRA member

www.cappercares.ca
www.MartinCapper.com

This sounds great! Count me in too.

Sorry that I've been away from the forum. My family needed much deserved dad time. =)

Great idea. I'd be interested.

Sounds like a great idea. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

Great idea -- however, you may want to allow neighbourhoods to create smaller ratepayer groups which are smaller than the actual wards themselves.

An "HV" or "South Milton" association could eventually act as an umbrella group (although the regional councillor should really be the "umbrella" so to speak), but in my experience the best practice is when the groups are smaller collections of ratepayers within a ward. It would allow smaller neighbourhoods (ie. Coates North, Coates South, Wilmott, etc.) to focus on their specific issues.

At the end of the day, the ward councillor and the regional councillor are the leaders of their ratepayers in their jurisdiction.

The elected councillors may also want to consider staying independent of this process to protect their own integrity and independence, and that of the associations as well, which makes for better decision-making for both.

Just my two cents in terms of my past experience.

Yours truly,

Paul Virdo

Hi everyone, see the other posts in the thread titled "Thoughts on Milton election 2010". There are a few of us who are applying for some of the town's advisory committees and this idea could work hand in hand with some people on those committees. I think this is a great idea and I want to be as involved as possible. At the same time, I don't want to spread myself too thinly. I would rather do a very good job at one or two things rather than a mediocre job at many things. For now, I want to focus my energy on the advisory committees and if I am not successful with that process, I want to be very involved in this association or group or whatever we ultimately call this. Either way, getting a concerned group of citizens together is a fantastic idea.

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Steve Camilleri
http://twitter.com/scamilleri1975

This is great guys!! I'll make some edits over the weekend and circulate early next week. The plan is to have an initial meet with interested parties towards the end of November to finalize the mandate & operating guidelines and beginning planning for the January meeting.

It looks like the name will be South Milton Resident's Association but at the meeting in November we can determine the exact boundaries.

We can also set the core activities of the association. It is hoped that amongst all the members, we can have representatives at all the public council & standing committee meetings (rotating based on availability) and we can report out to residents maybe perhaps via a quarterly or bi-annual newsletter. We can also do a performance report card on items such as attendance and engagement etc.

I’d like further dialogue on the “umbrella” idea. Perhaps as part of the executive we can have “Champions” for the various neighbourhoods. I’ll draft it into the charter and we can work it out in November.

I don’t see a conflict in members of the advisory committees joining the association. There is no mandatory time commitment – if you’re a paid up member, you’re a voting member and your contribution beyond that is whatever you can give as long as you’ve not committed to be a member of the executive. Your primary activities will be on the advisory committee you are member to but general membership here is open-ended.

Elected councillors, in as much as you shouldn’t be members, I’m hoping your spouses and other family members will be.

Given I’m following in MMRA’s mould, I’ll use the $10 fee as well but it will be one of the things to finalize at the November meeting.

If you’ve got a particular skill or specific contacts that can help us get going, please send me a pm. Whatever you can do will be appreciated.

Thank you all being part of this working group. My neighbours rock!

fyi even though it's likely a conflict of interest for me to be a member...let me know if I can help with non-policy things. Even technical stuff like helping with domain registry, webpages, email lists, etc.

But I may be putting myself too out there. What if I go crazy and start lobbying for the need of a turtle crossing across Thompson & Derry, if that occurs the SMRA would need to call me on my craziness so as Paul mentioned independence would be needed.

Haha, Rick. I think you'll have your hands full with council duties anyways . Good point Paul. Annie - I like your idea of champions for a neighbourhood. Maybe let's see what size of group you're dealing with and go from there? The nice idea of a larger group with common interest is it could serve to unite the neighbourhoods too. But I have no experience with this myself. Paul, are you interested? You'd be a good addition.

Actually Rick any information you can shoot my way about setting up a website will be greatly appreciated. I can probably get some high school kids to design the site in return for volunteer hours ( I think MDHS has a website design class ). Anything we can do to keep costs low I'll take, Email me the information if you can. Much thanks.

Turtles don't need to cross the street in Milton. They all have jobs building them.