The new Grande Prairie and District SPCA board will be working on a plan to get the organization back open. New Marketing and Social Media Chair Ian Puckett says they will have 6 people on the board going into 2017 and they are all new. They need to have 9 people on the board in order to follow new bylaws.
“I think our goal is to try and recruit 12 at this point because there is so much work to be done. We are going to be and are a working board and having more people available to help spread the workload would be a really good thing.”
Their board consists of 6 people including Puckett, Alicia Lacroix, Rhonda Wald, Dan Paul, Denis Sawyer, and Melanie Kimble. Donna Sieben brings the group to 7 but she will be resigning as of January 1st, 2017.
Puckett says their biggest challenges are finances and mending relationships.
“One of our plans is to make sure that we correspond with the public. This includes both individuals and businesses about what is actually going on.”
He adds that it isn’t a sure thing that the SPCA will open their doors once again but they will be looking at all avenues in order to make it happen. The organization has worked out a payment plan with the Canada Revenue Agency. In the summer of 2016, the SPCA had got their debt with the CRA down from $120,000 to about $60,000.
“It is down to about $44,000 now. We have been paying it off. There has been some community based fundraising. Those people in the community that care have been fundraising. We still have the mortgage, we still have the CRA debt, and basic things like insurance that need to be paid.”
Puckett says the city and county have been helpful as they have been taking over bills from the utility building that they share with the Grande Prairie Regional Animal Care Facility.
They do have a volunteer board member that will be working on a new business plan for the organization in hopes to make it a more sustainable facility for the future.