Rt. Hon. Amarjeet Sohi
Griesbach Community League held its Annual General Meeting on March 14. About 65 community members were in attendance . We were joined by special guests Federal Infrastructure Minister Amarjeet Sohi who spoke to the Canada 150 Grant awarded to our playground, MP Kerry Diotte, Provincial Education Minister David Eggen, Marvin Neumann made a presentation on behalf of Canada Lands and Brentwood Developments provided an update of Griesbach Village Square. Councillor Bev Esslinger was out of town but send a letter to be read on her behalf.
Half of our board positions were up for election. We are pleased to welcome four new directors to our board. Shelby Corley was elected to the executive as Secretary. Jason McCulloch is our new Programs Directors. Todd Demaine is taking over as Neighbourhood Watch Director and Kelti Dezse is joining the board as a Member at Large.
Brad Tilley was re-elected as President and Bill Countryman remains as our Sports Director. Bryan Evans will continue in his capacity as Parks and Gardens Director. The position of Volunteers Director is an important one, but remains vacant (Interested? We’d love to chat). A special thanks to Melissa Ferr, who has done an incredible job as our Programs Director. Melissa stepped aside to spend more time with her family. We are sad to see one of our original board members leave us. Steve McIsaac has worn several hats with the board and has been a tireless supporter of our efforts. You will be missed, Steve!
VP Carl Knowler shared the initial results from the Griesbach Residents’ Survey. We had 287 responses. Thanks to everyone who took the time to provide feedback. We are still compiling the answers to the fill-in the blank responses and will share those shortly. In the meantime, a few highlights:
The top 3 priorities identified by residents were:
- Community Prevention and Crime Safety Parks
- Trails and Naturalized Areas
- Traffic/ Traffic Safety
In terms of potential infrastructure, an outdoor skating rink and community hall ranked quite highly. Overall, over 4 out of 5 residents expressed great pride in living in Griesbach and would recommend our community to a friend. Recent break ins were identified as a concern for a large number of respondents. Again, we look forward to providing more detailed findings with you shortly.
Congratulations to the winners of our $100 gift certificates drawn from our survey respondents: Janelle and Lisa (Shoppers Drug Mart), Amanda and Nicole (Mt. Fuji) and Brian (Crown & Anchor).
In addition, all of the proposed bylaw changes were approved by membership.
Armed with new directives from members garnered from the community survey, the board is ready to move forward to pursue new priorities. The new board looks forward to doing our community proud!
Apologies for taking so long to post this. I was away for the meeting and needed to gather the information. Thanks for your understanding. (Dave, Communications Director)