I kept hearing that old line that the good guys never win over and over the last few days but the good guys actually did win this time. For a board of directors of an animal welfare charity, you can't really get much better than this.
Michael Downey with his massive corporate resume including CEO of Tennis Canada and former senior executive at Molson's and Maple Leaf Sports is now the president of the Toronto Humane Society. In the last several months, he has gone from being a concerned member to someone who is now intimately aware of the problems and challenges the THS faces and I'm sure will be integral in coming up with the plans on how to move the THS forward as a successful corporate entity.
Marcie Laking, with her extensive animal rescue background and experience within the THS is a perfect vice president. She is outspoken, well spoken and her animal welfare sensibilities along with Michael's business acumen make for a well balanced head for the THS.
Linda MacKinnon, whose dogged determination over the past several years to unseat Tim Trow and his iron grip over the THS is an inspiration to tyrant topplers everywhere and is the new chairperson.
Ian Wintrip, a forensic accountant, is the treasurer. Hopefully, he'll be able to shed some light on a question at the top of everyone's minds which is where all the money was going to these last ten years at the THS.
Lisa Gibbens, communicator and strategist, who stepped down from a seat on the Faces of Change slate, worked tirelessly behind the scenes campaigning to get the slate elected. She is now the secretary.
The new board's next order of business will be to meet with the management team of the THS and figure out how the finances are shaping up and what state the staff and facility are in after their six week hiatus. Fingers crossed that those six weeks under the old regime were well used by staff and management alike and not wasted away on extraneous activities like bringing one's car into the facility so that it can be worked on, hypothetically speaking.
More on the new board here and here.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
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8 comments:
Aaaand inevitably, the naysayers are starting up on FB. Unbelievable.
They need to get out of their mothers' basements and get some fresh air and sunshine. ;o)
Still chuckling about the hypotheticality (is that even a word?) of what's been going on there during the past six weeks.
The following comment in the National Post also got my attention:
"The shelter will reduce its intake by almost half, to 600 animals, which will make it easier to keep clean."
Which pretty well sums up, IMO, the mindset of mediocrity that the new board needs to course-correct.
The THS needs to be clean AND the numbers need to be controlled by placement and no-kill programs, not reduced intake or euthanasia.
I fully respect the board's decision to hold off on reopening until some key questions have been answered and management understands in no uncertain terms that the bar has been raised.
The naysayers on FB are obviously NOT friends of the animals. Otherwise they would be in THS to the elbows, helping to make things happen.
Instead they whinge and whine and defame people who are actually making things happen while they sit on their duffs and indulge in point-and-click activism. One in particular keeps coming back up like a bad meal.
I'm in a really sodding mood tonight, and that bunch turns my stomach.
OK, here's the Xanax'd version.
Negativity does no good and much harm. It is a waste of time and energy, and says more about the negative person than the subject of the negativity.
It is far more productive and better for one's mental and physical health to be constructive, to think and work positively towards a goal.
If one is truly a friend of the animals, one will take this golden opportunity to help make THS shine, be a light in the abyss to which more and more will be drawn.
Be the light. Not the dark.
Man, I think I'm in insulin overload with all that sweetness and light.
What's FB?
FB is Facebook
I don't mind the crisitsm on facebook or the comments on the newspaper stories. It's all the same people who don't like me & I'm really just fine with not having those kinds of people as friends anyway :)
I'm honoured to be a part of an organization I care so much about & am excited about the future of the THS.
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