Sunshine Coast Hospice Society Board Meeting January 21, 2016 3:00 PM Kirkland Centre PRESENT: Ali Khan, President; MaryAnne Darney, Vice-President; Mike Fawcus, Treasurer; Directors: Bev Nielsen, Wendy Fawcus; Staff: Linda Stroud, Deb Gleason, Bernadette Richards; Guest: Lennea Perpet; Regrets: Linda Smith, Secretary; Denis Fafard, Director. Call to Order: Ali Khan, 3:05pm 1) Additions or amendments to the Agenda: add: New Business/ 2016-17 budget; add: New Business/ Appointment of new Board Member. 2) Adoption of Agenda Ali Khan/Mary Anne Darney: That the Agenda for Jan. 21 Board Meeting be accepted as amended. CARRIED 3) Acceptance of Nov. 19, 2015 Minutes Ali Khan/Bev Nielsen: That the Minutes of Nov. 19, 2015 Board Meeting be accepted as presented. CARRIED 4) Introducing Lennea Perpet: Lennea has agreed to join our Board and could best be described as a professional volunteer. She was very involved in volunteering with schools but with all of her children through school now, she s ready to turn some of her energy toward Hospice. She is 1 st VP of the Sunshine Coast Lions Club, taking over the presidency as of July 1. She is also on the SC Lions Housing Society Board; Head Coordinator of Challenger Baseball (for children with cognitive and physical disabilities); Board member of Sechelt Minor Softball; and Board member of Coasting Theatre Society which brings The Nutcracker to the Coast. She is looking forward to taking our volunteer orientation in the fall, and working toward more hospice service on 5) Coordinator Reports Bernadette, Linda, Deb a) There was a mixup with getting the board report out from the office this month: attached are items that Linda Stroud talked about in her report to the Board: Between Christmas and New Year, I was able to visit the new Hospice in Abbotsford. Construction is complete, still lots of finishing to do inside. They hope to be open late February. 10 rooms on the 3 rd (top) floor are patient rooms. Also on the top floor Physician s office space, nursing coordinator office space, kitchen and laundry. The top floor will be run by Fraser Valley Health who will be responsible for all patient needs. Second floor has a beautiful lounge area. Two apartments for visiting families. Rooms for grief groups to meet, including a children s room and one for teenagers. Kitchen for family use. All very open plan and homey feeling. Ground floor has offices, meeting rooms and storage. Can t tell you how inspired I am by what they have achieved in Abbotsford. Building began 4 years ago, and stopped after 2 years due to lack of funds. After a year they hired Gaeten Royer who had been ED at Crossroads Hospice in Port Moody. A Foundation was formed and serious fundraising got under way. Gaeten told me that Hospice fund raisers have to be less shy about
talking to the families of those we are helping. These are the people who truly know how important the work is. I have floor plans of the Abbotsford Hospice if anyone is interested. I began attending the All Loss grief group and have attended 2 so far. The purpose of this is for me to learn from Esme and all those attending so that I may be more helpful when called upon to assist those that are grieving. I have compiled the responses from the Young Adult Grief group. There is a plan to meet with Marion and Rob to assess the pilot project. All together a fairly busy month again. My frustration remains with the database and I hope the problems with that can soon be resolved. I noticed when I was in our Shornecliffe rooms last week that there are business cards requesting donations to the Hospital Foundation and nothing asking for support of the Hospice Society. ACTION: Linda to talk to new administrator politely/gently about having our cards in Hospice rooms, not cards for donations to Hospital Auxilary/Shorn. Thanks to the Board for approving the purchase of the new vacuum and entrance carpet. This has certainly reduced the time we spend cleaning. Our cleaner continues to come in once every 2 weeks for an hour or so. As we move towards spring we will use more of the cleaning budget and have her do some more in-depth cleaning of baseboards, windows etc. as the budget allows. ACTION: The cleaner we have hired is not very dependable. Agreed that Linda Stroud find a new person to provide cleaning service to Kirkland Centre. b) Bereavement follow-up with families of palliative clients: Depending on the circumstance, we don t always have family contact information for the palliative clients with whom we work. The palliative care nurse meets with the family after death and provides a bereavement package. ACTION: Support staff in the office to follow up with family after each palliative death that we are involved with. BR/LS to ensure we have next-of-kin info on all palliative clients. ACTION: Deb Gleason will design a one-page sheet highlighting the dates/times/place of our bereavement groups, and will post on Coast Hospice website and provide to palliative care nurses for their bereavement package on a regular basis. ACTION: Deb Gleason and Linda Smith are designing a bereavement brochure which will come to the Feb. Board Meeting. Once completed, that will be offered in the bereavement package that the palliative care nurses provide, as well as being placed throughout the community and at the hospital. c) Heating Kirkland Centre: Staff in KC are asked to not turn the heat down so much, and keep it more temperate and welcoming for those who drop in. d) Second phone line in Kirkland Centre: At this time there is not enough overlap of staff time (Wednesdays and some Thursdays) to make it worthwhile to add a second phone line. e) Database Issues: There is glitch with having Access database on The Cloud, that only one user at a time can add information to the database. A second person can read the files but cannot add entries. This makes it difficult for both staff to be productive on the days they are both in the office, as every call with a volunteer or client means making a notation in the database. ACTION: Board decided that more research was necessary before changing the database we are using and adopting another system like ShareVision. ACTION: Bernadette or Linda to ask Matt Lehmann, computer specialist, to look at this issue. ACTION: Committee of Ali Khan, Deb Gleason, Linda Stroud and Bernadette Richards to look into this further.
f) Support Staff attending regional coordinator meetings: ACTION: Agreed that BR and LS will decide who will attend the meeting every second month which occurs on the same day as Board meetings. g) Tours of other Hospices: Some board members wondered how one gets in to see Hospices. If you are visiting where there is a Hospice unit, you are welcome to phone them before-hand and set up a time to tour their facility. h) Renting out meeting space at Kirkland Centre: Our insurance policy does not cover renting this space to outside groups. ACTION: Bernadette to contact Karen Archer and suggest the Lions Hall or Rockwood. h) Public Education forum: It was noted that Pender Harbour would very much like more Hospice meetings/forums/info provided to their community. There are 2500 people living in Pender; over half of whom are 65 years and older. Pender has more seniors per capita than anywhere else in BC. It will be difficult to do more than one central forum for the Coast. i) News Releases: We have done an excellent job of getting media coverage of our fundraising efforts. The Gala survey highlighted that people want to know where the money donated to Hospice goes. It was suggested to emphasize the services we provide to our community this year. ACTION: Deb Gleason to ask Christine Wood, Coast Reporter, to do an article on Hospice highlighting our 2015 stats. j) Social Media: Jackie Smola does not seem to be able to access Facebook. ACTION: Deb Gleason to find another volunteer to work with on Facebook. k) Young Adult Grief Group: The Facilitator of the group, Marion Prochnau, is very ill and the group has been put on hold for now. Assessing the pilot project with Marion is on hold. l) Lighting of the Memories: Everyone was very pleased with the new venue. Agreed to continue at Mission Point Park next year. ACTION: Bring a few chairs down to the fire for those who need it. ACTION: Tony Stroud thinks he can set up a sound system next year for the leader. m) New Funding possibility: Deb Gleason has connected to a new Sunshine Coast Chapter of 100 Women Who Care. Hospice is on their list to receive funds when they are given out, but they are waiting until they have more funds before choosing Hospice as a recipient. 6. Treasurer s Report: Mike Fawcus... At this time, revenue doesn t include grants, as per the way this was split out during last Treasurer s tenure. Mike is suggesting we add grants into revenue line. To look at during Budget Meeting.... There is $71,000 in the chequing account. Should excess above and beyond three months expenses be put into GIC? To look at during Budget Meeting. 7. Committee Reports:
a. Fundraising i. Gala... Wendy Fawcus has not seen her Gala expenses reimbursed yet. We paid Ed Hill for his auctioneering, which he was going to donate back to Hospice, but we haven t seen. Mike Fawcus to check with bookkeeper. ACTION: MaryAnne Darney found the cheque for Wendy in the Board folders on the desk in main office, as well as Ed s donation. MaryAnne delivered Wendy s cheque to her. Ed s cheque has been given to Tammy to provide a tax receipt. ACTION: All board members have a file folder in the main office. Please check them when you re here. BR/LS to bring file box to Board Meetings. ii. Donor Retention: no report iii. Legacy Giving Sunshine Coast Community Foundation Chris Fawcus (Foundation) wants to help us grow our $59,000 endowment fund, which nets about $2,000/year interest. The Foundation is harnessing its energy to support Capilano University and Coast Hospice. This year, Hospice will be the focus at the granting ceremony. ACTION: Ali Khan, MaryAnne Darney, and Chris Fawcus to meet to talk further about marketing goals and community awareness. iv. Hike for Hospice We are starting one month earlier than last year, which means we may be able to target more sponsors. Board members signed up to pitch Hike for Hospice to various sponsors on the Coast (see attached sheet). There are more sponsor letters available at Kirkland Centre if you need them. v. Osoyoos Hospice Fundraiser: Wendy Fawcus Shoppers Drug Mart, Osoyoos, has had a very successful one-week fundraising blitz for their Hospice. Rexall, in Sechelt, is struggling to figure out how to serve the community. Wendy will talk with them about this kind of fundraiser during the week leading up to Hike for Hospice. b. Developing Community Partnerships i. BC Bid: MaryAnne Darney met with Lauren Tyndall, who is saying we should know the outcome of the Bid by end of January. Vancouver Coastal Authority (VCH) has no money for capital expenditures, and they will not support the operating expenses of a free-standing hospice. c. Increasing Community Awareness i. Public Education Event Advance Care Planning Deb Gleason and Denis Fafard to meet soon to plan April event. d. Assessing Hospice Needs e. Improving Administrative Structure 8. Unfinished Business: a. Board Planning Session Monday, Feb. 29, 10am-3pm at the Watermark Amenities Room, 5665 Teredo St. Staff will leave by 2pm so that Board can meet separately for last part of planning day. ACTION: Linda Stroud is organizing lunch.
9. New Business: a. Kirkland Centre Lease Ali Khan/Wendy Fawcus: That the Sunshine Coast Hospice Society renew the Kirkland Centre lease with the town of Sechelt for another three years. CARRIED. The lease will be renewed at the end of January and can be broken with 90 days notice. b. 2016/17 Budget ACTION: Ali Khan, Mike Fawcus and MaryAnne Darney to bring a draft budget to the Feb. board meeting. 10. Reminders: 11. Next Board Meeting: February 18, 2016, 3:00pm, Kirkland Centre 12. Adjournment: 5:00pm. Respectfully submitted: Bernadette Richards, Acting Secretary