Ken Johnston
As with so many organizations, declining numbers has forced the Rainy River Federation of Agriculture to make changes to its constitution.
The RRFA held their 35th-annual meeting in Stratton on Saturday night and topping the agenda were three changes to its governing doctrine, with the biggest change made to its representation structure.
Previously, there had been four zones with two members from each. These included:
•Zone 1 (Atwood, Spohn, Pratt, Curran, Worthington, McCrosson, Wild Land Reserve, Blue, and Morson);
•Zone 2 (Dilke, Tovell, Sifton, Nelles, Morley, Deward, Sutherland, Patullo, and Mattieu);
•Zone 3 (Shenston, Rowe, Barwick, Potts, Tait, Cromme, Dobie, Menary, Richardson, Roseberry, and Mather); and
•Zone 4 (Aylsworth, Kingsford, Devlin, Roddick, McIrvine, Lash, Fleming, Burriss, Crozier, Carpenter, Woodyatt, Dance, and Miscampbell).
However, the RRFA has had trouble filling all its board seats for the past few years. In fact, at Saturday’s annual meeting, there still were two vacancies on the board, having been left up to the elected executive members to try and fill with no success.
Two options were proposed to try and make the election process more productive.
Option 1 was to go to two zones, with two reps from each of them, and then two reps elected at large.
Zone 1 would be the west end from Rainy River to the Morley-Chapple line while Zone 2 would be from the Morley-Chapple line to Fort Frances.
Option 2 was to elect six board members at large (both options also included electing a president, secretary, and a treasurer).
Both options were put on the floor for discussion, and in the end the second one was approved.
Other constitutional changes saw the annual meeting date changed from prior to Oct. 31 to no later than Nov. 15.
The structure of a quorum for board meetings also was re-worked. It originally required 1/2+1 of the elected zone directors.
Now it is 1/2+1 of the elected directors plus the president.
Once the constitutional amendments were completed, elections were held for six members at large, as well as president, secretary, and treasurer.
Incumbent president Bernie Zimmerman, incumbent secretary Linda Armstrong, and incumbent treasurer Angela Halverson all were acclaimed.
Of the six board members at large, the four current board members still had one year left in their term of office.
Kristine Carpenter, Craig Sargent, Dan Teeple, and Lisa Teeple will continue to serve.
Nominations then were opened up, with Jeff Pollard, Jason Teeple, Ken Mason, and Jack Vandenbrand all suggested. But all of them declined the nomination.
In the end, despite the constitutional changes, the board was left in the same situation it was before—with two vacancies it now will have to try and fill.
In other news, Zimmerman also was acclaimed as the delegate to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture’s annual meeting, with Lisa Teeple being his alternate.
As well, Peter Aalbers was nominated to be the regional OFA Policy Advisory Council rep.
