Report for AGM 2021
This is the first report on our branch’s advocacy efforts and my first as advocacy director. As you may know, our branch has had a very successful recent history of advocacy; we hosted two all-candidates meetings (one provincial and one federal) which were well received and our branch initiated a members’ health survey last year. Our most recent foray was a written submission to the New Brunswick health care engagement process and participation in the Fredericton engagement session. All of these activities were successful because they were focused and because they had a very engaged team leading them. Ultimately, the aim of our advocacy activities is to highlight issues that are important to our members and to increase our visibility locally which hopefully will help boost our membership levels.
Recognizing the increasing importance of advocacy of local issues to our branch our board agreed to establish an advocacy director who will be part of the executive. This ensures that advocacy is an on-going priority for our branch and that our activities are effective, on-going and contribute to our members’ interests. The advocacy director will also interact with the advocacy directorate in Ottawa.
Our past advocacy efforts have been successful because they involved a number of our members. This will remain a key tenet of our future activities, after all we are all in this together! So, look for requests for volunteers to help with future activities!
John Richards
Advocacy Director