MRA Meeting Minutes
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
19:30-20:30
In attendance: Tim Ellis, Joe Fotia, Mike Majeski, Heather Mak, Adam Matheson, Jackie Monahan, Mostafa Shahein, James Stack
Regrets: John Homsy, Emma Park
1. Bios on website
- Short bios, can keep them vague
- Focus on organization, what you like about it, why you joined
- Drafts due next Sunday to Heather and Heather to post once finalized
- Tim to build Google form for submitting bios and photos
2. Approving April board minutes
- No objections to April minutes
- Motion: Mostafa, Seconded Adam
- Minutes are approved unanimously
3. Lakeshore Affordable Housing Action and Advocacy Group (LAHAAG)
- Holding a virtual meeting on May 28, Mike has volunteered to attend on behalf of MRA
- Affordable housing is critical in our neighbourhood and ideally MRA should support
4. Video initiative
- 11 videos completed so far showcasing business owners and directors of non-profits
- Any board member of MRA can participate in creating content
- James to continue with initiative albeit at slower pace
- Project has helped create new connections in community for future events
5. Debrief on MPP Hogarth/MP Maloney events, update on Councillor Grimes
- Successful events with MPP Hogarth and MP Maloney (recap for Maloney posted on Facebook)
- Attempt to contact Grimes on social media as we have been struggling to contact him for event, or potentially ask for support from Chris
- Send agenda to speakers to have them prepared and provide guidance on what we are looking to achieve
6. General
- Should MRA host an online event?
- Concerns with online fatigue
- Tim has experience hosting different types of online gatherings and willing to provide entertainment in form of DJing
- Team will think about this collectively and come to June’s meeting with ideas
- Mostafa compiled a list of what other organizations (similar to MRA) are doing during pandemic that we can use to generate new ideas
- One concept is a “virtual” waterfront clean-up
- Can create a waterfront clean-up week where we ask residents to submit photos to us of their issues and create a collage at end to showcase hard work and amount of garbage collected
- Need to ensure we do not encourage gatherings of people down by the water
- Awareness to Mental Health Initiative
- Looking to create a message/video we can share through online platforms
- Have to locate some sources, need to make sure it’s as inclusive as possible
- Team to share some sources (e.g. mental health experts) with each other to consider for this message, we will collectively select the most relevant ones to pursue and publish
- Going forward, when we create and host events, the board will consider reaching out personally to local residents (family, friends, acquaintances) to encourage participation and help drive attendance numbers and create awareness
7. Next meeting
- June 17th at 7:30PM
- Tim to send Zoom
- Mike will send agenda out in advance to serve as meeting reminder