Hi Everyone,
Attached please find the draft minutes of the Sep 1, 2016 EDBA Annual General Meeting.
As you can see from the minutes, ten individuals were elected to various EDBA positions at the AGM and I am glad to see some new faces such as Wendy Stewart joining the EDBA Board for the first time. Unfortunately Jenny Altarejos chose not to stand for election due to personal circumstances. Jenny first served as the EDBA Vice-President in 2009-10. In subsequent years, the EDBA benefited greatly from Jenny’s dedication, leadership and constant drive for organization improvement. Not surprisingly, Jenny has been a frequent recipient of the EDBA Heroes Award which recognizes individuals who went beyond their call of duty and go the extra mile in serving the EDBA. Although Jenny had stepped down from her formal EDBA Board position, in her true colour, she continues to work diligently in the background to ensure proper transition of her previous workload to various Board members.
As I mentioned at the AGM, booking easily ranks as one of the most critical and valued EDBA services. To ensure that EDBA provides timely booking service to EDBA Clubs at all times, functioning of the EDBA Booking Team has been re-engineered to rotate booking responsibilities in 30-day cycles amongst the 3 Booking Team members (currently Tony Yip, Peter Ing and me). Please continue to direct your booking requests and questions to booking@edba.org and the EDBA Booking Team will respond accordingly. Sonny Shem was originally included as part of the Booking Team. Unfortunately Sonny, after reconsideration, resigned from his EDBA Vice-President position and will not be taking on other EDBA posts. So as we speak, the EDBA VP position stands vacant and we continue to seek candidates interested in running for that position. I thank Sonny for having given the VP position a try.
I want to mention John Lee whom many of you know. John has been actively involved in badminton for many years. Although John has yet to join the EDBA Board, he has agreed to help the EDBA promote senior badminton within clubs, other senior associations and Edmonton communities in general. Over the years, the EDBA has been broadening its senior badminton support including hosting 55+ Tournaments, creating senior age categories in EDBA Open tournaments, etc. John’s involvement will be a great help to continually move the EDBA in that direction. We hope to see John at EDBA meetings from time to time reporting on progress in senior badminton promotion.
Curtis Chow, a new Board member this season as Director At-Large, stands ready to apply his professional expertise to undertake some of EDBA’s financial management duties. Tony Yip is also willing to take on some book-keeping. This is much welcomed help while we continue to look to formally fill the EDBA Treasurer position. Of course, we still have a group of long-serving volunteers in Jimmy Choo, Peter Ing, Danny Huang and Amy Choy who each managed a key part of EDBA’s operation. As President, I am fortunate and humbled to have such great help from a most dedicated and able Board.
I mentioned at the AGM that I will be out of town for the Oct 6, 2016 EDBA Meeting. Tony Yip has now stepped up to chair the October Meeting and he will be sending out more information later on. Please note that there will be no shuttles pick-up at the October Meeting. Clubs needing shuttles can put in their order to info@edba.org and we will make alternate arrangements for them to pick up their shuttles.
The EDBA Board continues to look for thoughts, suggestions and help from EDBA Clubs so that together, we continue to build a stronger EDBA that better serves all badminton communities in Edmonton. Please feel free to share your thoughts with any of our Board members. Thanks.
James Lin, P.Eng.
President,
Edmonton District Badminton Association