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AYPC Meeting Minutes, March 16, 17, 2018

Atlantic Young Professional Committee Meeting Minutes

PIPSC Atlantic Regional Office, Halifax NS, March 16-17th 2018

CHAIRPERSON: Josh Fox

COMMITTEE:

Allyson Garrison
Leslie Nasmith (Secretary)
Christine Newhook
Colin O’Brien
Marcus Peck

REPRESENTATIVES OF THE REGIONAL EXECUTIVE: Kimberley Skanes

REGRETS: Nick Isenor

STAFF: Catherine Pinks (March 17th)

1. Welcome and Opening Comments

Josh Fox (acting Chair) called the meeting to order.

2. Round Table of Introductions

Since Allyson Garrison joined the Committee since the last meeting, the group introduced themselves.

3. Approval of Agenda

The agenda was reviewed.

Motion #1  Christine Newhook moved and Colin O’Brien seconded the agenda be approved CARRIED

4. Approval of Meeting Minutes from October 2017

The meeting minutes from meeting of October 19-20th 2017 were tabled for approval.

Motion #2  Leslie Nasmith moved and Christine seconded the meeting minutes be approved.   CARRIED   

5. 2017 PIPSC AGM Analysis

The members who attended the 2017 PIPSC Youth Symposium and AGM discussed their experiences at the events. Allyson and Colin has not attended, and the structure of the Youth Symposium was explained as well as the genesis of the event. The committee members who had been in attendance felt it was a worthwhile event, and that attending the AGM as Observers was a good opportunity to observe how PIPSC works.

The group discussed the potential of another Youth Symposium and it was suggested that the Committee follow up with Better Together about the potential for another symposium and whether we can provide input on another event. It was also recommended that the Committee provide their recommendations for another Youth Symposium to Kim Skanes to be shared with the Board.

ACTION: Christine - contact Better Together and follow up on the Youth Symposium

ACTION:  Leslie – draft recommendations for a Youth Symposium to the Board

6. Social Media Strategy and Member Survey

Nick Isenor provided an update on communications with Better Together (Appendix 2), and Christine also updated the group on her follow-up of Nick’s efforts.  While the Better Together team is enthusiastic about the member survey, they will likely not be able to assist the Committee within the Committee’s timeline. It was discussed and decided that the Committee should continue with the member survey without the involvement of Better Together, unless Better Together is, in fact, able to meet the deadlines. Christine had already been in contact with PIPSC members who had used Survey Monkey and was going to determine if we could use that licence. If so, it was decided that the link to the survey could be sent out by PIPSC communications. The original plan to hold a draw of one (1)  $50 gift card per province to increase participation was confirmed. It was decided the gift cards would be to Chapters/Indigo.  The email to members that would accompany the survey was discussed, it should include: prize information, deadline to reply, and draw date.

ACTION: Catherine – provide comments to Committee on questions

ACTION: Christine – Follow up with PIPSC re: Survey Monkey licence

ACTION: Christine – Draft email to accompany the survey link

ACTION: Catherine – send questions and email text for translation

7. 2018 ARC Outreach Event

The Committee decided to host a small event in conjunction with the Atlantic Regional Council (ARC) in May. This will be a Networking event in the hotel on Thursday May 24th from 5-7pm, with drinks and snacks provided. It will be open to any member in the Moncton Branch and attendees at ARC who are already in town, although the main intention is to get youth participation.

ACTION: Marcus Peck – send budget for event to Kim Skanes for approval;  Update: budget sent March 20th.

ACTION: Marcus – Draft notice to be sent to members inviting them to the event (rsvp: ddavis@pipsc.ca); Update: notice sent March 20th

The Committee wants to host a larger event before Steward Council in Halifax on October 18th. Discussions narrowed the event down to Locas Billiards or the Boardroom Game Café. The Game Café has never been used for a PIPSC event before and Catherine volunteered to do a site visit to assess the venue.

ACTION: Allyson - call Locas for pricing information

ACTION: Catherine - Site visit of Boardroom Game Café to assess suitability for events

ACTION: Allyson - Draft email notice to be sent to members inviting them to the event (rsvp: ddavis@pipsc.ca)

It was suggested that the Committee have something to hand out to participants at outreach events. Stainless steel water bottles with the AYPC logo were decided on.

ACTION: Marcus  - email Catherine to confirm the order 50 water bottles with AYPC logo; Update: email sent March 19th.

8. Activity/Progress Report Discussion

Two reports were discussed per the Committee’s Terms of Reference:

1) The year-in-review annual report to ARC, due ~3rd week of April in advance of the meeting.

2) Ongoing reports to the Regional Council informing them of Committee progress

ACTION: Marcus - Write report for the ARC

ACTION:  Leslie – Write progress report for the Regional Executive (due Wednesday March 21th, then 2 weeks before every Executive meeting); Update: first progress report sent March 19th.

9. Round Table

The Committee had a general discussion of youth committees.

10. Training

The Committee discussed training. It was felt that the objectives of the Committee should help to direct the training needed (e.g., if the Committee wants to focus on giving presentations, training could focus on that). The potential to bring someone into one of the meetings was discussed, either for facilitated learning or for discussion/exchange of knowledge.

11. New Business

  1. Partnering with local Executives (Branches and Subgroups)

It was suggested that the APYC members make efforts to work with their respective Branches and local Subgroups to be present at events and to communicate that fact to members in Event announcements. New/younger members may be more likely to attend an event if they felt more welcomed and knew specifically that a member of the AYPC would also be in attendance.

ACTION: All – partner with local Executive for events

  1. Welcoming Observers to the Meetings

Presently, the AYPC tries to invite local Friends to the meetings, but have not opened their meetings up to interested members in general. It was suggested that prior to meetings, the Committee contact the Branch president in the meeting location and solicit interest from members. AYPC cannot provide salary replacement to Observers.

ACTION: Leslie – email Ginette LeBlanc in advance of Moncton meeting

  1. Recommendations to the Regional Executive for populating the AYPC

Recommendations from the Committee were sought on how best to populate the Committee if it goes on beyond the pilot years. It was agreed that a call for expressions of interest was the best method, as opposed to elections. Staggering 2-year terms in the future would ensure that the committee always had some experienced members. The Committee wanted to maintain the regional diversity with the aim of at least 1 member from each Atlantic Region province on the committee.  While previous experience in the/a union is beneficial to new Committee members, it was agreed that people who were not stewards but were willing to become stewards should be considered. This may also help to recruit new stewards in the Region. 

  1. Regional Newsletter

The AYPC had an article in the Spring/Summer 2017 newsletter, but not since. The AYPC wants to contribute more regularly to the newsletter. The articles should focus on issues of concern to young professionals, or the perspective of young professionals on current union issues. A “catchy” name for the recurring column was requested.

ACTION: All – need name for the recurring AYPC column in newsletter

ACTION: Josh – Newsletter contributor for the Spring/Summer 2018 issue

ACTION: Colin - Newsletter contributor for the Fall/Winter 2018 issue

  1. Next Meeting

The next meeting will be Thursday May 24th (full day) and Friday May 25th (morning) in Moncton. The Chair for that meeting will be Nick.

Table 1: Upcoming AYPC Meeting Dates

Date / Associated Event / Location / Meeting Chair

May 2018 / Atlantic Regional Council / Moncton / Nick

October 2018 / Steward Council / Halifax / Allyson

Appendix 1.

Summary of Action Items from Atlantic Young Professionals Committee Meeting March 16-17th

# / Action / Item/Deadline / Completed/Progress

1 / Christine / Follow up with Better Together on Youth Symposium

2 / Leslie / Draft recommendations to the Board for Youth Symposium / DONE

3 / Catherine / provide comments to Committee on questions / DONE

4 / Christine / Follow up with PIPSC re: Survey Monkey license / DONE

5 / Christine / Draft email to accompany the survey link / DONE

6 / Catherine / send questions and email text for translation / DONE

7 / Marcus / Send budget for Moncton event to Kim / DONE

8 / Marcus / Draft email notice of Moncton event / DONE

9 / Allyson / Call Locus for pricing information

10 / Catherine / Boardroom Game Café site visit / DONE

11 / Marcus / Contact Catherine to confirm the water bottle order / DONE

12 / Marcus / Write report for the ARC / DONE

13 / Leslie / Write progress report for the Regional Council (due March 21th) / DONE

14 / All / Partner with local Executives for events / ONGOING

15 / Leslie / Email Moncton Branch re: meeting Observers / DONE

16 / All / Need name for the recurring AYPC column / DONE

17 / Josh / Newsletter contributor for the Spring/Summer 2018 issue

18 / Colin / Newsletter contributor for the Fall/Winter 2018 issue

Appendix 2: Update from Nick Isenor on the member survey

Purpose

The purpose of this briefing note is to inform the Atlantic Young Professional Committee of the issues and updates related to the survey we had planned and still plan to send to the young workers in our region.

Background

  • Nov 27, 2017 we contacted the better together mobilization team after the youth symposium to seek advice, guidance, and support with regards to hosting our youth survey
  • Jan 31, 2018. I sent an email update to the member of the AYPC regarding the efforts to contact the better together team. At the time, I also asked Kim for advice on looking for additional options that we may not have considered. I’ll get back to this point soon.
  • Feb 5, 2018. I contacted Jill Piebiak , PIPSC staff member, and Mobilization team member. Her response to the inquiry is as follows:

“I think I've been on a couple of email chains relating to this and I am not sure if you were looped back in :) I'm happy to help with building out the survey and getting you a secure link that's embedded in our website - and working with you on the managing the results. However, I'd like to discuss the timing with you first. Would it be acceptable to work on this in the first two weeks of March? We're focusing on some major Phoenix work and until the end of the month and I don't want to drop the ball on you. Let me know if that timing works. If this is more urgent, I can try to think of some workaround so we don't miss anything”

  • Feb 20, 2018. I replied to Jill Piebiak accepting her offer of support as well as an understanding of the additional work she had been working on. In addition to this, I ask Christine Newhook to co-lead this initiative. Tks Christine :-)
  • Feb 26, 2018. Christine suggested we contact the ITSPC members to seek additional support on this topic as the CS group had used survey monkey for a recent survey sent to the CS members.\
  • March 8, 2018. Jill respond to a question/inquiry from Christine ..

“I just discussed this survey with the team. We want to ensure that the results you get are helpful for your work and that after you get the results you can take action on them. In order for your committee to be able to best act on the results, I need to have a conversation with our Director and our Membership team to see what I can offer in terms of contact information of respondents. I'm also going to gather some feedback on the questions you've listed because it's likely that over the course of the year we will send a similar survey to youth in other regions. My goal is to get back to you folks hopefully in the next week or week and a half with some suggestions for a plan of action.”

  • March 14. Christine requested an update from Jill regarding the timing of, and if PIPSC staff would be able to implement the survey for our group in order to provide the AYPC with the findings for our May meeting. At the time of composing this note, I am not aware of a response from Jill on this topic.

Next Steps

Considering our combined efforts to seek internal PIPSC support to implement our AYPC survey, I think and believe it is time for us to consider external options such as survey monkey. I would highly suggest following up with the ITSPC to seek out options, much like Christine had suggested. https://pipsc.ca/about/governance/committees/itsp.

I would also suggest to the members of the AYPC to seek follow up advice from the Atl Exec in terms of what it would take to purchase a survey monkey license that would enable our group to fulfill its wishes of surveying our Atlantic Youth members. This may or may not require a business case, however, Kim would be the ideal person to advise our group on this aspect.

To this point, we have tried to engage the PIPSC staff on this topic with little to no success in doing so. Considering this, as well as the time remaining for our AYPC, I am very supportive of finding outside avenues, such as survey monkey to fulfill our goal of surveying the youth within the Atlantic region. Following up with the ITSPC members, Greg Scriver on this topic will also provide us additional avenues in which to deliver on our goal as well.