Dear CRHNet Members & Partners,

During our AGM in March, we committed to share a more detailed financial report with our membership for the 2023 fiscal year. In addition, we were anticipating that we may have needed to do a virtual vote once we had received expressions of interest from members who were seeking to become board or executive board members, where there was more than one candidate. It is my pleasure to provide you with an update on all these things here.

First, please see the 2023 financial report attached.

We are thrilled to report that we received four expressions of interest following our AGM. As there were no additional expressions for the vacant co-secretary position or President, and we had enough board vacancies to accommodate the interested candidates, so there is no vote required here, unless there is any specific objection. As it stands now, I will fill the role of President for the next two-year term, and the co-secretary role will remain vacant until another member comes forward to fill that role.

Sophie and I met with the individuals who submitted an expression of interest, to review the roles and responsibilities of CRHNet board members and review the areas of focus for each of our existing committees. We also provided an update on our new strategic planning activities and extended an invitation to them to actively participate in this critical, ongoing work.

Please allow me to introduce you to the following individuals who will be joining our board and/or one of our committees:

Jen McEachen

Jen is a 1-year member of CRHNet and comes from beautiful BC. She is the first deafblind individual working and studying in the field of D&EM in Canada (so far!) and is particularly enthusiastic about joining the EP committee. Over time, she may consider taking on a larger role with one of the other committees, or as the EDI lead, but for the time being, she just wants to engage more with the EP group and contribute to their work, as she continues to work in her various other roles as an employee with the Canadian Red Cross (CRC), as a consultant, and as a student herself.

Corey Jakobsze

Corey has been a member of our CRHNet EP Committee for some time and has recently decided to branch out and join our board at large. He also comes to us from beautiful BC, where he is an active volunteer with the CRC and B.C. Emergency Support Services. Corey is quite willing to lend a hand to support any of our current committees where his energy, skills and ideas can be best utilized.

Heidi Marcon

Heidi also comes to us from beautiful BC, where she works as a Health Emergency Management Specialist with Health Emergency Management BC, and as a volunteer leader with the CRC. Her primary interest is to use her strong editing, writing and production management skills to both support the HazNet team, as well as the communications/marketing/branding strategy and work for CRHNet.

Ramona McVicker

Ramona is a long-time member and volunteer with CRHNet and filled the role of Executive Director until the position was dissolved this year. She needs no further introduction as we have all had the fantastic opportunity to work with her already. Ramona strongly believes in CRHNet and is excited about the changes that we are making to ensure its sustainability in the future. She would like to continue as a board member and contribute to the strategic planning work underway, and the new direction moving forward.

On behalf of CRHNet, we welcome all these individuals to our board and committees, and we look forward to collaborating with you as we continue our work on reimagining the CRHNet of the future and getting our processes and activities streamlined to better support our goals and vision.

We are also extremely excited to announce soon our updated strategy and priorities, our refreshed membership benefits, based on the feedback we heard from our membership survey, some new strategic partnerships, and of course, new events and activities for our members to look forward to for this year. Additionally, we are updating our website and adding some new and improved functionality that will allow more active engagement with our members. We are also making some improvements to our membership management system and processes, our awards processes, and updating our priorities for member engagement. This is all going to be additionally informed and enabled by our new strategic plan.

Please be sure to make sure your membership is current to ensure that you receive all these announcements and communications, and please follow and share our posts on our website and social media. There is a lot to look forward to!

Thank you again for your ongoing support, your feedback, and your participation in CRHNet. If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me using the email provided below.

With much appreciation,

Jodi Manz-Henezi

CRHNet President

Email: president@crhnet.ca

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