2017 AGM and Conference in Vancouver

11 Jul 2017 AGM and Conference in Vancouver

Arie, General Secretary; Micah, Secretary; Dorothy, President; John, Treasurer

The Annual General Meeting, and Conference for members was held this year at the Rudolf Steiner Center in Vancouver. (See article below for report about Conference.)

The AGM was well attended by local members. In business arising from last year, there was some conversation about the issue of a proxy vote. This discussion was brought to members in Toronto in 2015, Montreal in 2016, and now Vancouver. Federal regulations stipulate that proxy voting (now called absent voting) must be made available to members. The question is about how the ASC will put this into place. There will be more to follow. (We accepted 2 proxy votes this year, in order to meet quorum.)

Jef Saunders, our administrator was absent at the AGM this year. Health reasons prevented him from attending. We missed Jef’s presence at our meetings, and wish him a speedy recovery.

Council member from B.C. and Secretary John Bach stepped down this year. Council member from Quebec, Ida Liedl, also resigned from Council, as she is spending the next year in Europe. We warmly welcome Micah Edelstein who was affirmed as Council member from Halifax, and also for the role of Secretary. Dorothy LeBaron, member from Toronto was affirmed as Chair, and John Glanzer, member from Calgary was affirmed as Treasurer.

We have a small council this year. We are actively seeking new members, but also recognize that a small working group has value.

Here are a few highlights from Council activities since the last AGM in 2016.

A mandate group formed to revise both our membership application form, and the section on our website about becoming a member. We made it more current in the look and the language. You can see these updates on the website.

Jef Saunders, our administrator, has done a lot of work on collecting members’ contributions more effectively. A protocol and timetable to inform, and remind members about their contributions has been put in place, and we have seen good results.

Much has already been written about the very successful conference in August 2016, Encountering our Humanity. Seeds from the conference have carried on. We have been hearing from members how ideas and new impulses have been flowing out of this Ottawa conference.

Council is working on strengthening our relationship with the initiatives. We finalized the agreement with AWSNA. You may have noticed on your contribution form this year, members can donate to AWSNA through the ASC and receive a tax receipt.

We have started the process to identify a new General Secretary, as Arie’s term will finish in 2018. (Update: the nominations are now closed, and the committee of council members, and two Class Holders, also in consultation with Paul Mackay and Joan Sleigh at the Goetheanum, is meeting to identify a person who would be able to take on this role.)

In October 2016, Council members and Class Holders met and worked with the theme “Is the Spiritual Impulse of the Christmas Conference still an active force for mankind in the 21^st Century?” Where do we see this Spiritual impulse at work in the movement in Canada?

We have been working with the question of what is our vision for the next 6 years to take us to the 100^th anniversary of the founding of the General Anthroposophical Society at the Christmas Conference? We see the Ottawa conference as a seed. A sense of community was developed at the Conference. Out of the question of “how do we bring this heart sensing across the miles?” we decided to work with a specific meditation, and in this process to see if a spiritual force is built up in the group. We invited members to join us in the weekly (Sunday) meditation, on the first panel of the Foundation Stone meditation, as a way to strengthen our community across the miles.

We did hear from some members who participated in this meditation.

Always part of our work is to respond to funding requests from members. This year, among other things, we contributed funds from Members Travel for 2 members who attended the Worldwide Conference at Michaelmas in Dornach.

We are organizing and underwriting a workshop and public lecture with Robin Schmidt, co-author of the book Meditation. The workshop An Introduction to Anthroposophical Meditation (Concentration, Contemplation-Meditation) as well as a public lecture, will take place in both Montreal and Toronto in August 2017.

In March 2017 council met in Thornhill and downtown Toronto. We shared some of the results of this working together, of the impulses and questions we are carrying as a Council, in the March enews.

We met with members and friends of the Toronto Branch at the Waldorf Academy. We had a café conversation, with some questions, and then open discussion at the end. One question we explored was about the challenges of the Society in an urban environment such as downtown Toronto.

We are trying in this summary to give you a picture of what we do and how we work. We do get questions from the membership about what we are doing. We would be happy to speak to you, or come to meet you in your local Branch or Group meeting to speak more about council work, and also to hear from you.

We want to thank and acknowledge Jef Saunders for his amazing work as administrator. Also, thanks to Eric Philips-Oxford for his selfless translation of articles for the enews and website. And finally, thank-you to the members for your continuing support of the Anthroposophical Society in Canada.

We on council are all excited about the coming year, deepening the discovery of what is possible together, growing the work of anthroposophy in Canada, trying to answer the needs of the world, and connecting to a wider network.

With best wishes for the summer season,

Dorothy LeBaron, John Glanzer, Micah Edelstein, Arie van Ameringen