The View From This Chair

Food Bank Newsletter # 1
August 27, 2019

The View from this Chair:

The summer’s racing by so I thought it was high time to get everyone up to speed with what’s been going on at the Hastings Food Bank over the last few months.
Your Board has been holding meetings once a month since the AGM in May. We’re all learning our roles and how to work effectively together to ensure our clients, a.k.a. members, receive the support they need on an ongoing basis. With Brenda’s retirement we needed to make some fundamental changes. We now have a new food Bank phone number, and a new mailing address. The new Food Bank phone number is Sheila’s and for emergency backup Darlene and Orien . The new mailing address is Box 308 Hastings K0L 1Y0.
Thank you to the volunteers that were involved with Brenda’s retirement party. As part of Brenda’s retirement gift Rob has had a plaque made for her from a group picture taken during the retirement party.
We have been working on establishing a website for the Food Bank. This is mostly Rob’s endeavor. He’s enlisted the help of Dale Bateman https://warkworth.ca/lets-get-social-canada/ who has very kindly provided a Domain, and will host the site on one of his servers as a donation to the food bank.
We’ve updated the Volunteer Confidentiality Agreement, which everyone will be asked to sign. We are also working on getting Policy and Procedure guidelines drafted. We’ve drafted a Mission Statement setting out our Vision and Goals. All of these will eventually be accessible on the website.
Currently we are focusing on preparing for the Spaghetti dinner fundraiser on October 9th. We called for volunteers to help with planning and the first meeting of the planning committee was held August 13th Present were: Marg, Linda, Erin, Heather, Rob, Gary, Chris and Sheila. Annie and Bev were unable to attend.
There is now a first aid kit available should anyone have need of it. It was very kindly donated by Canadian Safety Supplies. It’s red and easily seen up on the back wall shelf.
Our next Board meeting is scheduled for September 19th at 10am. Any volunteer that is interested in serving on the Board in the future has a standing invitation to attend any Board meeting to observe. Going forward, once they have been approved the Minutes will be posted on the website for all members to read.
We would like to implement a regular coffee/tea get-together so we can all get to know one another better. Stay tuned for another email soon with a date and time when we can meet for some steaming brew, conversations and some fresh baked goodies.
Please feel free to contact me any time at Hastingsfoodbank@gmail.com with any suggestions or concerns you may have. Thank you to each of you for all your help in keeping things running smoothly!

Best regards,
Chris

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