CMEA President's Report 24 April 2014

Published May 7, 2014

Dated: 24 April 2014

  1. INTRODUCTION: The aim of this update is to brief Council on events since the October 2013 Council meeting.

  2. NEC MEETING: The National Executive Committee has met on one occasion since the last CME Council meeting.

    1. 4 Apr 14 – the committee discussed the following points:
      1. The Registrar's report indicated 1478 members as of 16 Apr 2014-a growth of 112 from last November.
      2. The Association is developing an SOP for the Support to Engineers in Need. This is based on the approved principles for a policy to provide ‘support for engineers in crises’ (1 and 2 CER Cpls and Cpl Turner for example).
      3. The affinity program with TD Meloche Monnex Home and Auto Insurance continues to exceed expectations. TD Meloche Monnex provided $6K to the CMEA as a percentage of the profits rebate. This money goes directly to support our programs.

  3. COMMUNICATIONS : Don Chipman has taken over as our new Director of Communications. The previous company we had engaged to update the web site went bankrupt with only 70% of the site upgraded. Through the lead of LCol Mark Gasparotto, we engaged Webkitchen in December 2013 to finish the job. Yearly maintenance costs will be $1,080. We are hoping for a site launch before the end of May. We expect to have the pay-pal pay-on-line feature available by then and members will be able to manage their own profile on-line. Individual CMEA Chapters will be able to have link-in with their own Chapter portals running off of the main CMEA web site. In addition Chapters will be able to process on-line payments for their events. The contract includes training so that the Chapters can get up-to-speed accordingly.

  4. CHAPTER REJUVENATION: CMEA expansion is going well and we have welcomed new chapters in Cold Lake and Bagotville, bringing us to 14 chapters overall. LCol Paul Fredenburg has been looking at rejuvenating the Chapter in Toronto, and there is a move to create a Chapter in Newfoundland. Quebec remains a challenge. We have asked LCol Marc Rancourt to help us out in that region.

  5. 4th Book of Remembrance (Oct 1947-present) was completed and presented to the Branch at the CMEA conference and subsequently was placed at CFSME as part of Ex Ubique where it now resides.

  6. CME History Volume IV. It is projected that the book will be complete by end-summer 2014.

  7. Weekly CMEA News Brief. A firm called Multiview puts together weekly CMEA news briefs by scanning news sources throughout Canada and collating them into a format that is sent to all CMEA members. We deliver weekly to 1,400 active email addresses.

  8. CMEA Not For Profit Status. The CMEA is already registered as a Not for Profit corporation. However the law was upgraded so that we have until this fall to bring ourselves into compliance. Kudos to Capt Mike Syzek, President of the Greenwood Chapter, for volunteering to help us out. Work is underway on this.

  9. CMEA AGM 26-27 November Cancelled. The CMEA will not be planning a National Conference in 2014 due to difficulty in finding sponsors in the tight fiscal climate. However we believe that the fiscal climate will be much better for 2015, and are hoping to follow through with a conference accordingly.

  10. Lt Col Mitchell, VC MC Tour. The museum is developing a travelling exhibit of Captain C.N. Mitchell VC, MC. It would entail his pre-commission career, the winning of the Military Cross and later the Victoria Cross and then touch on his WWII military career. All engineer units would be visited. The planned date is he for 9 Nov 2018. CMEA will provide support to this project.

  11. Legion of Honour 70th Anniversary Liberation of France. On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of France during WW II, France wished to honour the surviving Canadian veterans who contributed to this liberation by awarding a number of them the Legion of Honour. Final submissions were due to Veterans Affairs office by 31 December 2013. Through Ken Holmes and the efforts of the CMEA contacting all engineer units, associations, and Veterans Hospitals, we identified 18 still surviving engineer members (5, 23, 34 Fed Coys, etc ). Nonetheless the VAC selection committee sits sometime in April to approve the final list.
  12. CDA Comments. CMEA continues to do well in comparison with some of its sister military associations. Recently, the RCAF and the RCAA joined the TD insurance affinity program, and borrowed our "Engr in Need" Protocol.

John Lesperance
President
Canadian Military Engineers Association
Association du Génie militaire canadien