Report of the monthly meeting of the Regent Park Executive Directors Network Meeting

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Executive Directors of Regent Park hold their monthly meeting.

The monthly meeting of the Regent Park Executive Directors Network took place on Monday October 18th over Zoom. The Executive Directors Network is a network comprised of Executive Directors and senior decision makers representing agencies that serve the Regent Park Neighbourhood. The Network has been in existence since 2005. The current chairs are Paulos Gebreyesus, Executive Director from the Regent Park Community Health Centre and Adonis Huggins, Executive Director of the Focus Media Arts Centre.

The October 18th, ED Network meeting was chaired by Adonis Huggins as Paulos was not able to attend.

The meeting began with Covid 19 and Vaccine Updates. Much of the discussion related to staff participant vaccination policies that individual agencies have adopted to deal with unvaccinated staff.

Following this Mercedes Watson, Executive Director from Dixon Hall led a discussion on Data Fusion related to software that multiple agencies might be able to share related to tracking and measurement tools. Mercendes will follow up with this in future meeting.

The next agenda item discussed was about Youth Services Collaboration led by Serena Nudel from The Neighbouhood Group (TNG). Serena wondered about the past work of the ED Network around youth coordination and how the ED Network will support the work of youth development in the neighbourhood including the Seen collective. The group talked about its past work and commitment to youth priorities and agreed that Serena from TNG and Greg Gary, the ED from Kiwanis Club, could lead a revitalized process building on work that has been done on the past.

The next item was a discussion about the Social Development Plan led by Greg Gary, who is the ED Network’s representative to the SDP and the new Agency Co-chair of the SDP Stakeholders Table (taking over from Paulos and Adonis). Greg gave the group an update on the Deep Dive that the SDP is currently engaged in. Greg felt that some of the projects submitted was a duplication with services already offered in the community. Greg wondered how can the ED Network inform the SDP process in future. Other members felt out of touch with the SDP plan and its activities. The group agreed that more work has to be done to communicate both the work of the ED Network to the SDP as well as the work of the SDP to the ED Network table.

The main agenda of the ED meeting was a discussion related to revamping the group’s Terms of Reference. Jennifer Stone from Neighbourhood Legal Services, who is re-editing the terms of reference, indicated that she felt that some of the sections could be eliminated or simplified. It was also agreed that the terms of reference has to be aligned with the SDP. Mercendes from Dixon Hall talked about the need to build a remuneration process for a coordinator to support the work of the ED Network. As part of the action items, the ED leads for the main sub-committee will submit description drafts.

Adonis Huggins announced that today’s meeting was the end of his two year term as the ED Network’s Chair. After some declined nominations, Jim Nason volunteered. Jim will start his term in November.

The last half of hour of each ED Network is generally devoted to guests. This meeting featured a presentation from the Regent Park Neighbourhood Association and a request for support around some of the issues that were presented.

Jim Nason, Adonis Huggins, Paulos Greysusus and Greg Gary will follow up with RPNA about how the ED Network can support them.


Written by
Adonis Huggins

Journalist
FOCUS Media Arts Centre


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