That the Board of Directors provide leadership in long-term planning and fostering a co-operative community spirit within Woodsworth.
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Over the past five years, Woodsworth Boards have generally met twice each month with meetings usually running 2-3 hours.
71% of the current or former Board members said they felt too little Board time was spent on long-term planning and the development of our co-operative community.
All of those saying too little time was spent on long-term planning stated that the reason was “other issues were priorities”.
A review of Board minutes does not illustrate how past Board directed their time at meetings. The current Board is keeping minutes that will indicate how much time is spent on what topics. This will allow future study.
IMPLICATIONS
From the questionnaire answers, the great majority of current and former Board members felt that not enough time has been devoted to longer-term issues and planning. Boards have traditionally spent a great deal of time on current operational and management matters. It is unrealistic to expect these issues to decrease, so future Boards must determine how to decrease Board involvement in operational and management matters to free up more time for long-term planning and community development.
RECOMMENDED ACTIONS
Given the number of local co-ops, Woodsworth should ask CHFT to hold an annual Board training program in the St. Lawrence neighbourhood. Proper training will help Board members learn to differentiate its responsibilities and those of committees and staff.
The Board should immediately implement a strong Board/Committee liaison system so these groups can work together more effectively on longer term issues.
The members should ask the Board to leave more of the operational issues to staff in order to free up Board time to meet this social objective.
Given the workload placed on the Board, the membership should consider expanding the Board to nine members.
The Coordinator should be asked to place a copy of the most recent Board minutes on the bookshelf outside the office.