June 2011 Archives

Due to the current Postal Lock Out, we will extend our finally date for this season to help you avoid the late fee.

Currently we will extend up to post marked date of July 9th, after which time, please submit with your late fees.

Thank you.

RLHA: 41 votes cast. 30 votes for, 11 against = 73% in favour.

MDMHA: 88 votes cast. 55 votes for, 33 against = 60% in favour.

The motion does not pass.

Thanks very much to both amalgamation teams for all of your hard work, diligence and above all patience through this process. Thanks also to all of the committed members of both associations who came out to the information nights.

The new Board of Directors will be comprised of both Rice Lake and Millbrook members and work very closely together with the Amalgamation Committees to make the transition both smoother and in the best interest of both parties. It has been and will continue to be a team effort. No amount of effort has been spared in all decisions the committees have made. The decisions have not been made lightly every effort to include the majority of members was taken in to account.

For the 2011/12 Season we expect to run with a larger than normal executive to make sure that the transition from separate associations to one association is smooth and to make sure that we maintain as much institutional knowledge as possible.

Over time we expect to trim down the number of executive members, how we do so will be a subject of on-going discussion.

For 2011/12 the following positions will be maintained as they are currently filled, with a representative from each centre:

• President
• Vice President
• Treasurer
• OMHA Rep
• Local League Rep
• Equipment Convenor
• Scheduler
• Time-Keeper / Gate-Keeper Scheduler
• Referee in Chief

While we expect these positions to return to being held by a single person over time, we do think that we will probably maintain a VP - Millbrook and a VP - Rice Lake.

The following positions will be open for applicants. The decision of who will fill each position will be determined by the amalgamation committees with an eye towards maintaing equal distribution (and therefore votes) across the two centres.

• Secretary
• Coach Coordinator
• Tournament Convenor
• Fundraising Convenor
• Skills Coordinator
• Public Relations

In an amalgamation we have to decide on our new boundaries. There are two types of boundaries: hard boundaries, and soft (right-of-choice) boundaries. Hard boundaries are just what they sound like, firm boundaries with all surrounding centres where all people inside the boundaries are residence restricted. Soft boundaries or "right-of-choice" depend on the location of a centre point and measuring the distance out from that point as well as the distance from other centres to determine whether a family is residence restricted or right-of-choice.

After an enormous amount of time, effort and discussion the amalgamation committees have decided both to maintain soft boundaries and to keep the new amalgamated centre's centre point located at the Millbrook Postal Office.

We came to this decision for a number of reasons:

1. MDMHA has more families to the north and west who would be effected if we moved the centre point than Rice Lake has to the south and east.
2. Port Hope has made it clear that they intend to attempt to expand their northern boundary to take in much of Rice Lake's territory. Depending on how much they manage to expand (if at all) this gives us the greatest protection and room to grow (to the north).
3. Notwithstanding the above we think that there is more long term growth potential to the north than the south.
4. We feel that this centre point will be the most acceptable to our surrounding centres and therefore easy to get approved.
5. Because Millbrook is hoping to build a new Community Centre with rink in the very near future it is important for fund-raising purposes to make sure as much of the township is within the right-of-choice area as possible.

It is difficult to draw right-of-choice boundaries on a map because they depend on determining the distance (on well travelled roads) from any given address to an associations centre point, however we have attempted to demonstrate the outer limits of our right-of-choice area on the map below. The purple line represents what we believe the outer limits of the new right-of-choice are to be, without us actually having gone out and driven all the distances. Note that while it looks as if there no members in the northern-most area of the proposed boundary this is because the Omemee/Ops amalgamation and the relocation of their centre point to Reaboro has moved their right-of-choice area to the west and north and thereby expanded our right-of-choice area accordingly.

Click on the map to view it full size.

After a great deal of research and finally having received some actual documentation from the OMHA we have found that much of what we were told about voting at the beginning of the process was incorrect. We have also spoken to Omemee/Ops and Fenlon Falls/Bobcaygeon about how they ran their vote. The voting rules for an amalgamation of two not-for-profit hockey associations are based on the Ontario Government's Corporations Act.

The Ontario Government's Memorandum: Amalgamation of Not-for-Profit Corporations (February 25, 2011) states:

"(2) The amalgamation agreement must then be submitted for approval by a 2/3rds vote (special resolution) of the members of each of the amalgamating corporations."

and the Corporations Act (Ontario) states:

"Adoption by shareholders (3) The agreement shall be submitted to the shareholders of each of the amalgamating companies at general meetings thereof called for the purpose of considering the agreement, and, if two-thirds of the votes cast at each such meeting are in favour of the adoption of the agreement, that fact shall be certified upon the agreement by the secretary of each of the amalgamating companies."

With this in mind the amalgamation committees have decided that for amalgamation to pass we will require a 2/3 majority of votes in favour from each centre of whoever shows up to vote. There will be no proxy votes.