I have had numerous requests to clarify my reasons for resigning from the Board of Directors of the BC SPCA. I started volunteering about 15 years ago in Prince Rupert. I joined our local board when we started on a new shelter in 1998, was President of our local branch till Nov 3, 2001 when local boards were disbanded because of restructuring, was elected to the BC SPCA Board of Directors in 2002. I was re-elected in 2003 and was Treasurer until just before the May 2004 AGM.

Initially my reasons for returning for a second term to the Board of the BC SPCA were as follows:

¨ To reinstate branch access to gaming revenues

¨ To see the Society become more accountable to it’s members and the public (full disclosure)

¨ To give members at the branches back their connection with the Society and shelter (ownership)

¨ To see the Society being open to partnering with other individuals, groups or organizations involved with animal welfare throughout the Province

¨ To pare down the top heavy bureaucracy at the Administration Centre (created by the previous administration)

My personal goals as Treasurer were:

* To give back to the branches the ability to look after their own expenditures which, in turn, would go a long way towards the ownership issue at the branch level and reduced costs at the Administration Centre

* This change was necessary to allow individual branches Gaming Access (lost to them under the Nov 3, 2001 restructuring) which could have seen the Society collect well in excess of $1,000,000 annually but would have to be accessed by the volunteers at the branch level and not by paid staff. (There was a requirement by Gaming that we amend the Society’s Bylaws to address their concerns with the current structure.) Rick Sargent and myself did considerable work to further this end.)

* I also had a problem with the way the financial statements were and currently are being prepared and presented to the public. The reporting of amortization (approximately $1,000,000 per year) on the Statement of Operations, as an expense, is misleading to say the least as it is not “funded”.

* The other issue was the lack of an investment policy/strategy that addressed the various ways in which the Society received and accounted for donations, not only assets already held but new dollars as well. It would appear that this is still an issue.

We had come a long way to achieving most of these goals when things changed dramatically: lack of communication, the undermining of the Treasurer’s position by certain paid personnel and some Board members frustrated the process. The lack of cooperation by some paid personnel was an ongoing problem starting not long after the departure of Doug Brimacombe (in 2003, and the promotion of Craig Daniell as CEO). It was a situation that seemed to get progressively worse.

The final straw was at the AGM (May 04) when the resolution to give access to gaming back to the branches (to allow volunteers to play a more meaningful role at the branch level) was defeated by the voting members. When asked, our current CEO spoke against the motion as there was a feeling of a lack of trust in the ability of the volunteers (CAC’s) to do just part of what they had been doing since the inception of the SPCA (prior to November 3, 2001). It would appear that this issue was almost certainly about control and there was far more energy being spent trying to control people as opposed to looking after the welfare of the animals. I found the comments of the CEO and certain members of the Board to be offensive to say the least.

The very people that were being criticized were people like myself. I had started volunteering at the branch level and was still a volunteer at the Board level. If the inference was that paid staff could do a better job than volunteers at the branch level could then that begged the question; what am I doing here?

With the subsequent events such as the handling of the Cheech incident (and others), my firm belief that nothing was going to change for the better under the current Board direction was confirmed. Therefore I resigned.

It would appear that there is ongoing lack of support for the current direction of the Society as there have been several other Board members resign as well.

Howard Gray,
Prince Rupert