A special presentation will be held on Wednesday, March 21 at the Centennial Arena at 7 p.m. This is a session that should be attended by the hundreds of volunteers who have devoted countless hours to building up the community spirit of Valley East.

The Mayor’s Task Force on Community Involvement and Voluntarism will be holding a total of eight such meetings around the region that week. Louise Portelance, Councillor for Ward 3, and Georges Boudreau, committee member, will be facilitating the public meeting.

The mandate of the task force is two-fold:

1. To ensure that the volunteer activities supported in the past continue to receive the support of the new City and its people;

2. To examine the new community participation and involvement models that are in existence today in the world and that the group believes would be useful for this community to investigate, examine, debate and recommend.

The task force outcomes will be:

1. To increase public participation in the decision making process;
2. To support and strengthen the network of volunteers;
3. To identify a set of community values;
4. To create a citizen bill of rights;
5. To develop a set of performance indicators;
6. To formulate an implementation strategy;
7. To create a Councillor’s toolbox of techniques for public participation.

Since 2001 is the International Year of The Volunteer, it is appropriate that  the Council of the City of Greater Sudbury has taken on this project. Volunteers have been the backbone of our community since the beginning of time, and as we head into an uncertain future, their efforts will be needed more than ever before.

According to Louise Portelance, “This will be mostly a listening session for us. We want to hear what the volunteers have to say and take their ideas and concerns into consideration when we report on the task force.”