The Countdown

As a prelude to our All Members Meeting, our Treasurer distributed a somewhat crabby letter to the membership. Her last paragraph stated:

All I can say is if you are not willing to be part of the solution then pay your housing charge on time and SHUT UP or GET OUT.

The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker. No, they weren't in attendance, but our accountant, a court stenographer, the co-op's lawyer, representatives from CHASEO, The Agency and an outside Chairperson were all present at our co-op's meeting last night. These are the highlights of the topics discussed:

• Based on the Building Assessment which was done on our co-op and our dire financial situation, the representative from The Agency could not recommend the refinancing of our co-op to CMHC; therefore there's no money to fix up all the empty units.
• That the co-op is cash strapped and will continue to be unless our arrears are cleaned up and Members pay their housing charges on time.
• That an interim Board comprised of two Members from the co-op and three people from outside the co-op could manage the co-op for two years in order to gain control of our finances.
• The Auditor stressed how difficult it was to get this audit done because of missing documentation. Charts and financial statements prepared by the Auditor and The Agency clearly indicated our financial straits.

Members expressed frustration in not being able to fix up the empty units in order to rent them in an effort to increase our revenue. Members also complained about the state of their own units with rotting windows and doors being the main factors.

A short discussion ensued concerning the requisition to dissolve the Board of Directors. Before a vote was taken, one of the Board Members blurted out to call off the vote and slammed his written resignation on the table. In a premeditated show of solidarity, all the other Directors slammed their tucked away resignation letters on the table, stormed out of the room and and before we knew it, the Board of Directors was NO MORE. It was quite a dramatic presentation and I'm sure our guests were quite aghast at the goings-on. Simultaneously, there was a gigantic sigh of relief from many of the Members at large. We've been part of the solution all along!