The MHBPNA AGM was held on ZOOM on Sunday, November 7. Several members of our community attended in addition to our city councillor Sarah Marsh and Niall Lobley, Director of Parks & Cemeteries, City of Kitchener.
The meeting was chaired by Kate Pearce who also took notes (thanks so much!)
Councillor Marsh provided us with an update on City of Kitchener activities, the Breithaupt Centre (temporarily closed for maintenance) and the city budget process.
Niall Lobley, Director of Parks & Cemeteries, City of Kitchener spoke about his role and talked about the city’s strategy regarding parkland. Naill was very passionate about his work and the importance of parkland. There were many questions so we had a very engaged discussion for almost an hour. The city’s key initiative right now is the Places and Spaces review. This will have an important role going forward and everyone is invited to fill out their thoughts on the “Engage” poll here:
https://www.engagewr.ca/placesandspaces
We will be publishing more about that strategy and review on our Blog in the future.
Catherine Owens is chair of the MHBPNA Development Committee and talked about its activity over the past year. The committee has engaged with the City of Kitchener, various developers and many citizens to highlight and organize our concerns about “all things development” in our area.
For an overview of the committee and some of the work they have done, please see our website: http://www.mhbpna.org/development-committee/
Kate Pearce talked about our engagement with the Downtown Neighbourhood Alliance (DNA) which meets regularly and would like input on programming (ideas, activities, leaders).
A Year in Review was provided by Kate and Ted Parkinson.
These pandemic times have stopped many of our typical activities like the soccer program and the Duke St. West Music Fest.
– Photo contest. We had several entries and some winners were given $25 gift cards for neighbourhood food businesses. We will be using the photos for our Blog and elsewhere
–Play Music on Your Porch Day. MHBPNA advertised this event on our Facebook page and website and we have a blog article about it here: http://www.mhbpna.org/2021/09/14/international-play-music-on-a-porch-day-2021/
Financial update: We still have plenty of money in the bank for small events like our “mini grant” program. In fact, our Mini Grant program is ongoing and you can read about it here:
Board Of Directors
We had people move on and new folks join our board. As a reminder, anyone living in the MHBP area is welcome to attend any of our meetings and we post them on Facebook and our website.
Our current board is:
Ted Parkinson (Communications)
Emily Slofstra (Treasurer)
Members: Erin Nespoli, Jörg Broschek, Linda Vandenakker, Katie Lefler, Kimberley Gauld and Levi Oakey.
If you have any ideas about what we could be doing, please contact us at mhbpna@gmail.com
If you have ideas we can publicize what you are doing and can even supply a “mini grant” to help you buy food and/or supplies.