The following are the remarks made by Dan Clement, Chief Executive Officer, at the meeting.

Thank you, Jason.  It’s been a true pleasure to have your guidance and leadership over the past year and I look forward to the coming year.

In particular, we look forward to seeing many of you at the National Conference in a few weeks’ time in Ottawa.  We have 400 Board and Staff leaders joining us to re-connect, learn from each other and celebrate the great work of our Movement.

I also highlight our opening networking reception for ED/CEO’s and board leaders on Monday June 17 from 5 – 7pm at the top of the Westin – overlooking Parliament Hill.

To Ann Divine – A big thank you for your support over the past 6 years.  I have greatly appreciated your wise council and your steadfast commitment to diversity and inclusion that has pushed our Board, our team and myself to lean into this important work.

Jason highlighted the start of our national office strategic plan renewal.  This will be important work as we restate priorities for the coming years.

While we advance this plan, we continue to deliver on our 2023 – 2024 plan to build a strong foundation for the future.  In addition to some of the examples Jason shared, this includes:

• Being a national impact and public policy leader for the UWC and the community sector. Over the past 4 years, our national advocacy has directly generated over $1.2b in funding to the community sector – and over $289m that was delivered through our UWC network.
• After extensive development with UWCs, this spring we launched an improved Impact Data Collection process that will give us the capacity to tell our impact story locally, regionally and nationally.
• In 2023 we also refreshed our Brand Framework and positioning as the Unifying Force of our communities. And we will continue to develop this framework with brand identity tools and resources.
• We have also worked extensively with the Membership Accountability and Performance Committee to look for opportunities to streamline and update our members standards, with a specific focus on strengthening governance, privacy and cybersecurity capabilities of the network.
• Finally, we also implemented our very first Portrait of the Movement, giving us important insights about the amazing people who make up our UWC movement in Canada. Insights that will be invaluable as we support and build the capacity of our staff and boards.

There remains much to do as we continue advancing these and other initiatives throughout 2024.

I know together we will continue to make great progress and remain a strong force for good in Canada.

Thank you and I look forward to seeing many of you later in June.