Annual General Meeting

LPQ's 2000 Annual General Meeting was held in the Auditorium of the Fraser-Hickson Library on Thursday, October 26.

At that time, members of LPQ elected the Board of Directors for 2000 ñ 2001.. Outgoing board members are Jennifer Burland, Isa Helfield and Rhonda Waters.

This board is the first to be elected according to our revised by-laws. The changes promise to take LPQ in an exciting new direction.

LPQ Members' Night

In keeping with LPQ's tradition of presenting a program following our AGM, this year we invited our members to meet at a Member's Night.

This was particularly significant as the evening was requested by many of our members during our consultation with them last year. At that time, they clearly voiced the need for the opportunity to meet one another in an informal setting in they which did not feel constrained by a set program and or speakers. Instead, they wished to be the speakers and to direct the program.

That is exactly what the 18 member groups got as they participated in the Members' Night. Shirley Sarna from the Education Department of the Quebec Human Rights Commission was invited as a resource person to field any questions or comments from the floor. In addition to this, we were most fortunate that Marlene Jennings, MP Lachine-NDG attended the meeting.

The interaction was extremely active and very stimulating. A number of topics were discussed including funding difficulties, access to and quality of literacy services and policy issues.

Ms. Jennings' presence definitely added a great deal to the evening and made for extremely interesting and candid discussions.

The evening seemed to end far too soon; however, it was clear that participants were very satisfied with the outcomes. As a result of the dialogue, there promises to be the potential for a greater voice in literacy issues at the Federal level. The discussion also allowed for the beginning of a very rich interchange about standards and practices on the front line.

We look forward to being able to present more opportunities of this kind to our members.