After almost a year, and four tries at reducing the number of volunteer boards and committees in Clearview Township, council and staff are not much closer to its goal.
With more stringent legislation coming down the pike, they are trying to figure out how to separate the municipality from volunteers who are in governing roles because of the increasing requirements for proper procedure and reporting. Apparently this township has more volunteers than its neighbours, which has its pros and cons. You could say Clearview has more volunteers than it knows what to do with.
Earlier contributions cannot be discounted when evaluating current success, and the same applies to the township when it comes to many of its facilities, which have been funded and operated by volunteer efforts. We are talking about the sports parks in New Lowell and Nottawa, community halls and facilities.
There is a desire to reduce the number of committees and boards, give some of the duties to staff but keep the volunteers engaged so they will continue to use the facilities, plan activities and fundraise. But not everyone can agree which boards and committees should be dissolved and how to do it without alienating those volunteers.
The answer is, you can’t.
You can change a system and some people will adapt but others will inevitably feel alienated.
This discussion is taking place at a time when other volunteer organizations are struggling to find new blood, so it may not be so easy to find others to pick up the torch in terms of fundraising and programming.
Council, at the recommendation of staff, is now considering hiring people to help the boards and committees that survive the whittling process, become compliant with current and future regulations. This would be welcome support to many organizations that struggle to keep up with reporting minutes, preparing agendas, managing the finances. Some argue that is an unnecessary expense, but if we could tally how much taxpayer dollars were saved over the years because of these volunteer initiatives, we would probably be pleasantly surprised.
We have to remember that people in the community built these facilities using community funds and yes, the municipality owns them, but we are the municipality. It is hard to say for sure what would have happened to the community centres and parks over the years if volunteers hadn’t managed them but there is a chance that they would have been sold off. Many other municipalities have disposed of their community halls.
The township is looking to protect volunteers from retribution and that is admirable. Let’s help them help us by accepting new regulations and working to a higher standard. If the time comes when the boards and committees are dissolved and municipal staff are tasked with the duties of taking on the facilities, so be it, but the quality of care, programming and engagement will decrease and then we will find ourselves asking, what happened?