Hay River SPCA gets new leaders
Participants at AGM seek to place society on solid footing
Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Monday, June 26, 2017
HAY RIVER
The Hay River SPCA has taken a big step to get things back to normal after a chaotic recent past.
On June 13, an annual general meeting attracted 18 people and a new board of five directors was elected from among seven candidates.
Following the AGM, the board itself met and selected a new executive, consisting of president Kelsey Gill, vice-president Kate Latour, secretary Scott Clouthier, treasurer Sandy Whitteker and board member at large Anne Boudreau.
The initiative to preserve the organization came after the previous president and board announced in mid-May that the SPCA had been dissolved earlier this year, but some community residents discovered that was not the case.
Speaking on June 14, Clouthier said he sees no reason why the new leadership of the society would not be accepted by the GNWT because of the unusual circumstances of the AGM.
"As far as them accepting it, basically the course of business for any society is every year you have an AGM and you elect a new board," he said.
"We have a new board, so I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be viewed as legitimate."
Clouthier said the next step for the society is to submit the AGM's minutes as usual to the Corporate Registries of the GNWT.
"There are still a few issues that we have to deal with, which are financial statements and that sort of stuff that are part of the regular AGM filings that you would make that we don't have access to right now," he said.
"So as a board and as a society we need to tackle those and figure out what we need to do."
An AGM is normally called by an organization's president. However, the former president of the Hay River SPCA has moved out of town.
During the AGM, a number of people expressed disappointment with the previous leadership of the society.
Gill said she was on the previous board until being "bullied" off it.
"There are a lot of good people that were part of this organization that were treated terribly and thrown out, and their contributions pushed aside, and I do not want to see that happen again," she said.
No one from the previous board attended the AGM on June 13.
The annual meeting also discussed the previous board's controversial decision to make a large donation to the Northwest Territories SPCA.
"The money belongs to the town of Hay River for the animals in the area," said Gill.
Prior to being elected to the board, she said that, if she was chosen to the Hay River SPCA's leadership, such an out-of-town donation would never happen in the future.
"We will change the bylaw and put something in place so this can't happen again," she said.
Gill said she feels very strongly about animal welfare, and being open and honest to the public about what the SPCA is doing with their money.
The NWT SPCA announced in a statement on May 30 its board had decided to re-donate the money if and when there is a registered non-profit organization in Hay River willing to continue a spay/neuter program.
Because of the unusual circumstances of the AGM, it did not have minutes of the last AGM or financial statements.
Those matters were tabled until the next general meeting on July 25.
The AGM did discuss the possibility of changing the society's name to Friends of the Hay River Animal Shelter, but that idea was also tabled until the next meeting.
Latour said she thinks the organization's name should be changed because the SPCA currently has a "bad name" in the community.
Formation of a new society called Friends of the Hay River Animal Shelter had been discussed by some people once they heard of the Hay River SPCA's supposed dissolution.
One decision taken at the annual meeting was that the SPCA would participate in the Canada Day parade.
