Happy Summer everyone! We have had an exciting past month beginning with our Annual General Meeting and closing with the finalizations of negotiation for our new health center space!
AGM
On May 15th, we held our 3rd Annual General Meeting, which was well attended by over 65 members and many community guests. In addition to an update of current health co-op activities and our yearly review, our membership passed three motions: to accept a 20$ annual membership fee; to allow the creation of capitalization shares; and to support our Board’s efforts at negotiating a new health center space with James Bay Community Project in their building at 547 Michigan St. We also acclaimed our new Board of Directors. Our new Board consists of:
Mark Sherman -- President
Vanessa Hammond – Vice President
Chris Mather – Treasurer
James Christian – Secretary
Rick Hudson
Julie Foreman
Candis Elliott
Ian Macpherson
Jenneke Van Hemert
VCHC Integrative Health Center
Thanks to the work of our Board of Directors, and the VCHC transition team, we have come to an agreement in negotiations with the James Bay Community Project to lease 2400 square feet of space at 547 Michigan St as of September 2010! Our new Integrative Health Center will be a model of integrative primary health care, offering health education programming, a compounding pharmacy, herbal dispensary, and the services of physicians, nurse practitioners, midwife, pharmacist, naturopaths, mental health professionals, dietetics, and several other allied and complementary and alternative health practitioners. We also look forward to collaborating with the James Bay Community Project through their existing seniors outreach, youth clinic, and family and community services. We are currently gathering our team, and look forward to stating together in September. Our family doctors will be accepting new patients as staffing allows in the fall.
We need your help as fellow members to make this space our own! On July 24th, 2010 we will be having the first of several work parties, aimed to give our space a fresh new look for our community. Please offer what you can in time, skills, and donations. For more infor please contact Stephanie at sjohn@uvic.ca. Stay tuned for lots more information!
Community Wellness Clinics
In May 2010 we found out that the space at Alembic Healing Arts Center in Market Square, where Pacific Rim College had generously allowed us to hold our monthly clinics for almost 2 years, was no longer available to us. This has required us to cancel the Community Wellness Clinics for the summer. However, with our new space available in September 2010, we will soon be announcing new CWCs! Stay tuned!
Research
Thanks to the work of members Judy Burgess, Ian Macpherson and Vanessa Hammond we are in the process of developing a research agenda for our health co-op so that we can begin projects aimed at demonstrating the care effectiveness, cost effectiveness, and community satisfaction of our model. We currently have a grant application in, and will be working towards future applications as staff allows. If you have interest and experience in community or health research, please contact Vanessa at Vanessa@ownership.coop for more info.
Board of Directors
Our Board is already hard at work, not even 1 month into their new positions. Co-op orientation, health center negotiations, work party organization, and communication strategies are just some of the activities we have been involved with! We are also communicating with local business partners as to how we can work together, and with provincial and national co-operative bodies to discuss and advocate for the health co-operative sector in our province and country.
