Are you 12 years of age or older and interested in refereeing for the 2017 outdoor soccer season with HHBH?
This is a great way to be involved in our community and earn some extra money.
A training session is mandatory and provided by the community association.
Please contact Melissa Hagg at melissahagg@gmail.com or 403-284-2410 if you are interested or have any questions.
Welcoming our new president
Jeff Allan, newly elected president of the Hounsfield Heights-Briar Hill community association board of directors, is a returning member of the board and a man with a mission.
Born and raised in Victoria, British Columbia, a career opportunity led Jeff and his wife to Calgary in 1998. In 1999, after a year of living in Crescent Heights, they set out to purchase a home within the community. The path that led them to Briar Hill was not an intended one, but obviously destined.
“I took a wrong turn,” says Jeff when explaining how he and his wife ended up in Briar Hill. “We set out to find a house in Crescent Heights and suddenly I was driving through a beautiful community with mature trees, well-kept homes, wide streets and big yards. We fell in love with Briar Hill so, within a very short period of time, we found a house, finalized the deal, secured early possession, and became residents.”
Jeff recalls first walking into the 1952 bungalow he and his wife now share with their 14-year old daughter and seeing that beyond the swag lamps and gold shag carpet was a home with warmth and character. Purchased from the original owners who were retiring and downsizing, the house has since undergone several rounds of renovation and expansion but retains the feeling of a well-loved family home.
“This community has given so much to me and my family. Our daughter has grown up here, from kindergarten and elementary school, soccer, dance and all the local events such as our annual Summer Solstice,” says Jeff. “I am excited by the possibilities and challenges we face going into our 65th year as a community, and I want to participate, and increase others’ participation, in our future.”
Jeff’s passions include music (he used to own a nightclub), yoga (his wife is a yoga teacher) and travel. He loves opportunities to immerse with his family into cultural adventures – their last vacation included being in an open vehicle 10-feet from a lion and a plane crash in Africa, and an impromptu flight from Amsterdam to Venice as his daughter expressed her desire to visit before its potential disappearance into the ocean.
With a Masters degree in leadership, and long professional career in the oil and gas industry, Jeff has the skills and knowledge needed to lead the continued evolution of the HH-BH board from operational to strategic.
“My mission is to firm up community association operating policies and procedures, so we can then focus on increasing community participation and honour the amazing legacy of this small but vibrant community by uncovering and sharing it’s rich history. We also need to develop strategies to get community residents engaged in upcoming opportunities such as secondary suites, North Hill Mall development, community centre expansion.
Jeff encourages HH-BH residents to contact him with thoughts, ideas and concerns at president@hh-bh.ca.
Our Community Association had a successful AGM on November 15th, with very good attendance and some interesting and relevant discussion.
Councillor Farrell attended and was able to respond to some of our residents’ concerns and answer questions about future changes in and around our neighbourhood.
We would like to welcome Jeff Allan, our new President and Kathryn Winkler, Treasurer.
Thank you also to board members who are continuing in their positions – the upcoming year will be a good one!
Submitted by Laura Hunt
November 15, 2017
It is once again November and time for our AGM. Another busy year has gone by and our Community Association has been active, striving to achieve goals that support and enhance our community. I sincerely thank all of you who have generously given your time and talents to make our year a successful one.
I encourage you to read the directors’ reports about their many accomplishments this past year. They will give you details about the projects and activities that your board has been involved with over the last 12 months. I would now like to highlight some of these accomplishments.
Better governance and administration:
Last February our board held a special general meeting to address needed updates and revisions to our bylaws. A dry subject but integral to who we are and the rules by which we conduct our association’s business.
To give practical and detailed structure to running our association, our board put together a Business Plan. This plan outlines our activities, priorities and projects and give guidance to those who are involved with them. We are also currently putting together a Policies and Procedures manual. This will give us protocols for a range of activities, from screening potential board members and employees to how gym staff are to deal with the public who uses our facility.
We have improved out governance of the community run play school. This started with a name change to reflect our Community Association’s sponsorship – the play school is now the HH-BH Community Association Play School. Our audits have been done by the same auditor this year and you will see the play school’s audit along with our community’s in the auditor’s report.
A community survey and membership drive is happening this month. Please take part and help us learn what is important to you so that our board can better focus and deliver on these issues.
Last March we hired a full time Executive Director, Guy Latour, to help our board with administrative duties and projects such as the business plan. He gives technical support to our directors, for example, keeping our website up to date and sharing his experience with sports programming and building projects. He also manages our facility and staff. Guy has done a wonderful job so far with these tasks and has played an important role in our success this year.
With Guy’s help, our gym revenue has increased due to bookings and increased numbers of programs such as pickle ball and fitness classes. We have completed a costly roof repair with the help of a substantial grant, and finally, after many years of discussion, sound baffles have been installed in our gym.
Our Vice-President, Carol Sandahl, is doing an excellent job leading our facility expansion project and we are looking forward to having more space and versatility to allow us to offer a greater variety of programs to residents and to rent our building to outside groups. She would like to have you involved so please attend her meetings the third Wednesday of each month.
This past year has presented our community with some big potential development projects and our Community Association board has worked to enhance communication between residents and the city’s municipal government so that our concerns and ideas will be heard. We hosted a workshop and open house to allow discussion and input on future changes at North Hill Mall last June, and are currently supporting a group of concerned residents’ dialog with the city and a developer who is proposing a student residential tower in Banff Trail.
To commemorate the end of the community run kindergarten in 2016, we hosted a reunion party last November and purchased a set of early emergent reading books for the Briar Hill Elementary School kindergarten. Each book contains a name plate to remind its readers of this valuable community program.
Finally, I would like to thank our board members for their work and for supporting me as President these last two years. I have been honoured to serve you and I thank you for your support in so many ways. I am now stepping down to attend to other family and volunteer obligations and interests and to allow opportunities for new leadership and ideas. But as of now, no one has stepped forward to fill this role along with some other board positions so our board is in a state of flux.
Our board is run by volunteers and is only as strong as its members. Our Community Association is relevant and successful, and an important part of our neighbourhood. Please do your part to help this organization continue.
Also, please know that you are always welcome to attend our meetings or communicate with board members individually, and that we value your input and participation in our Community Association.
Yours sincerely,
Laura
Help keep our outdoor soccer program running.
We are looking for your help and assistance for the coming outdoor soccer season. Our current Outdoor Soccer Coordinator Judy Aldous is stepping down and we need a new Outdoor Soccer Program Coordinator. We would like to thank Judy for all her time and devotion that went into keeping our Outdoor Soccer Program running the last couple years. We greatly appreciate everything she has done for the youth of our community. We are looking for someone with the same enthusiasm and passion to keep our Outdoor Soccer Program running and giving the youth in our community the chance to have fun and be healthy. The program will also need divisional coordinators as part of the volunteer team for Outdoor Soccer. If you are interested, please contact Carol Sandahl at vp@hh-bh.ca
