MRA Meeting Minutes
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
19:30 – 20:30
Virtual meeting
Attendance: Tim Ellis, Joe Fotia, Mike Majeski, Heather Mak, Adam Matheson, Jackie Monahan, Emma Park, Mostafa Shahein, James Stack
Regrets: John Homsy
All board members present except John Homsy
- Accepting February Board minutes – All
- No objections to Feb minutes
- Motion: Adam, Seconded Tim and Emma
- Minutes are approved unanimously
2. Election of key roles – All
- Chair members have technically stepped down at this point from their roles last year
- 4 Roles to fill: President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer
- Roles are outlined in the charter
- Board roles nominated by committee:
- Mike Majeski- President
- Adam Matheson – Vice President
- Emma Park –Treasurer
- James Stack – Secretary
3. Sidewalk Mural – Street Art proposal – Tim
- City of Toronto has a grant program
- Application was successfully submitted before deadline
- City has responded and are unsure if the program will proceed given pandemic
- Project is on hold at this moment
4. Event Schedule – All
- The board is discussing events we will move forward with and what must be cancelled
- Water-front clean-up – cancelled/deferred
- Potential rescheduling for the Fall – pandemic dependent
- Heather Mak is actively communicating with the city and sponsors
- Party in the Park
- We are communicating with the planning committee – typically this event is in June, therefore likely cancelled or deferred
- Tim will be reaching out to Barb (a member of the Party in Park planning committee) about where the event stands
- Halloween Dance
- Communicating the event to the public is done around September
- Booking the space is done in May
- Adam to get contact information for event space and vendors from Chris (past MRA President)
- During the next meeting we will make a committee to plan the event, so we are prepared to host if circumstances permit its viability
- Joe and Jackie have expressed interest in helping to organize the dance
5. MRA during the pandemic:
Some suggested ideas?
- Business Support: looking into building a list of local businesses that are currently open to post on our website for community members to reference
- Grocery store wait time tracker for our social media accounts
- Emma will investigate its viability
- Board in favour of moving forward with an initiative to organize virtual meetings with our respective MP, MPP, and City of Toronto Councilor
- We can host the meeting on a virtual meeting application (like Zoom or Skype) and then broadcast on our media accounts
- Plan is host separate meetings with each public servant
- Doesn’t need to be live, depending on their schedule
- Tim to reach out to all three offices to gauge their level of interest
- Mike to reach out to Daily Food Bank – a charity we are looking to support/promote as part of these informative sessions
- Mostafa to explore other organizations (similar to MRA) that operate in the city and see what they are doing
- Jackie – thinking of presentations we can host regarding managing the current situation/pandemic we are navigating and ideas and tips on getting through the challenging times
- Will also discuss ideas with other committees she is on
6. General
- Adam working on updating the online membership process for the MRA
- Considering setting up an automated welcome email for new members
- Joe to reach out to broker that handles our board insurance
7. Next Meeting:
- May 13th @ 7:30 over Zoom was proposed and agreed upon by all members present
- Mike to send out agenda
- Heather to publish February meeting notes
- James will disseminate April meeting notes