Reflections from a New CAC Member- Tonia Robinson

CAC Annual General Meeting – Ontario Region – August 24, 2012

Reflections from a New CAC Member- Tonia Robinson

It was a distinct honor to attend our Citizen’s Advisory Committee Annual General Meeting- Ontario Region August 24^th, 2012.  The day commenced promptly at 8:30am and ended at 4:00pm. Former CAC Regional Chair, Sharon Mitchel welcomed us and announced her resignation -we celebrated her leadership and years of dedication. At 12:30 we voted our new Regional Chair CAC, Murray Lincoln- who a fortunate coincidence for us- happens to be related to one of America’s most distinguished President’s Abraham Lincoln. We had the honor of having Assistant Deputy Commissioner-Corporate Services Bruce Somers present. Stephen Hogan gave us our Regional update and we ended the afternoon with a round table discussion and closing remarks by Murray Lincoln.

Just as a quick snippet of our meeting- there were three significant aspects highlighted in our AGM:-

1.            Training provided by the CSC for the CAC on that day (24/08/12)

2.            Membership growth and retention

3.            Advocacy for more funding of programs that work

Training provided by the CSC for the CAC (24/08/12)

-                      Detector Dog Program (Rolland Lapierre, NHQ Security, Don Thompson, RHQ Security, Michel Coderre, Manager CBSA, Craig Farrish, Dog Handler and his dog ‘Charlie’ presented how the program works to us. There was a video presentation and a live presentation.

-                      Craig Farrish and his dog ‘Charlie’ were definitely the crowds favorites as ‘Charlie’ successfully located the pseudo narcotics and we observed his behaviour change when he approached the “cone of scent”- the detection of the pseudo narcotics.

Membership Growth and retention

-                      More information sharing about what we do as a Citizen’s Advisory Committee (CAC) to the public.

-                      More pooling of our resources and referring our professional and personal networks to join our CAC.

-                      Finding ways to show our members appreciation

-                      Creating projects and team building exercises

-                      Monitoring the outcomes of our CAC and sharing these testimonials.

Advocacy for funding programs that work

-                      Whilst we face lean budgetary times within the Corrections Services Canada and the CAC we advocate for appropriation of the budget to funding our programs that benefit our community. Particularly those that assist with successful reintegration of parolees to our communities and also support the well-being of our parole/institution staff. We will ensure that we document our community activities that impact our action plan- stakeholders, training, awareness, partnerships, employment and recruitment.

In conclusion, this was my first AGM and it was a very informative and beneficial meeting. Special thanks to Dianne Anthony,  who not only organized a social for us the night before at her home but also organized our meeting and worked with Sharon Mitchell to ensure we had all our information packages and were fully aware of the necessary changes and approaches to positively addressing these changes. I look forward to working with our newly appointed Regional Chair for our CAC Murray Lincoln and our CAC team and stakeholders. Murray has vast leadership experience and a successful track record volunteering within Corrections Services Canada. Please consider joining our CAC today! Contact Murray Lincoln at Ontario.cac@gmail.com for further information.