A Message from the Board of Directors to volunteers, community and allies

November 2008 Update

In February 2008, CKLN members voted to remove the non-student members from the Board ofDirectors, and to dismiss the Station Manager and Program Director. This was done in accordance with CKLN’s By-laws. Even more important, it was done to return CKLN’s Board to transparent and accountable action as well as to ensure financially sustainable programming in support of CKLN’smission and vision.

Subsequently, two community members, two volunteer members and a core staff member were elected to the Board, in accordance with the By-law.The Board members and senior managers who were removed/dismissed refused to leave. This situation still needs to be resolved.

What has the Board’s strategy been to resolve this?
We have taken a number of steps to try to get resolution. We proposed that we get together with the others and resolve the situation through discussion. We supported lawful actions by locked-out programmers and community members to bring all parties to the table to resolve the situation. We opened our Board meetings to all stakeholders so that they could take informed action and we could listen to other strategies we could support. We solicited the assistance of Industry Canada to resolve the dispute. We solicited the assistance of the law firm that has long represented CKLN. We reluctantly supported the Ryerson Students’ Union decision to withhold student fees from CKLN as a way of urging resolution. (Our reluctance was based on the fact that we do not want to hurt CKLN and had to weigh short term pain against long term gain.) We sought legal advice as to whether we could get a court decision in our favour - we had conflicting opinions and decided that we would continue other strategies. (We decided that it was too risky to lose in court and we did not want to take that chance.)

Did anyone associated with this new Board steal CKLN funds?
No. We have made a clear and prudent decision: We will hold any funds we receive for CKLN - and not touch them - until the dispute is resolved. To do otherwise would leave ourselves open to liability for failure to exercise due diligence.

Is it true that the new Board doesn’t care about volunteers?
Dismissing volunteers in a manner that appears, at least, to be capricious and arbitrary is unacceptable. We are very concerned to ensure that CKLN remains true to its mission. Volunteers are key to that. They always have been. We want that to continue.

Are student members of the Board involved with you?
We are committed to ensuring full student involvement and not just in name only. We consider all duly elected student members to be members of the Board and we have worked hard to get their full participation - although still with mixed results.

What about this Annual General Meeting called for November 23 at El Mocambo?
Our opinion, based on our reading of the By-laws, is that all members in good standing are entitled to attend and participate in all CKLN meetings. We passed a resolution that anyone who pays $10 to CKLN through us will be a community member and should be entitled to attend, participate and vote.

Send your membership fee - with your full name, address and phone and/or e-mail address - to Arnold Minors, 964 Avenue Road, Toronto, ON M5P 2K8

What’s next?
We believe that we are close to getting resolution. If that is not successful, we will seek resolution in Court.

Contact information for the non-student members of the Board:
Conrad Collaco (Vice Chair; Former Core Staff Rep) - Conrad.Collaco@cbc.ca;
Heather Douglas (Treasurer; Volunteer Staff Rep) - hdouglas02@yahoo.ca;
Geoff MacDonald (Secretary; Community Rep) - gmacdonald@riseup.net;
Arnold Minors (Chair; Community Rep) - ArnoldMinors@sympatico.ca;
Ron Nelson (Volunteer Staff Rep)- djronnelson@rogers.com