President's Report - Spring 2022 - CCI Manitoba Chapter

Article from Volume 9, Issue Number 2, 2022

President's Report - Spring 2022

By John Popowich | Other articles by John Popowich | Regular Column

“Spring is in the air, I can feel it everywhere. O Yeah, spring is in the air?” I am excited! I am really excited and I hope you are as excited as I am. It is a wonderful feeling. Being cooped up through this pandemic has driven me a little stir crazy and I am excited to get outside and enjoy another great Manitoba spring and summer. With restrictions being relaxed, hopefully we will have a spring and summer like never before.

I have many passions in life and two of them begin in the spring. I have a small patio and enjoy gardening and making my patio look as tropical as possible. The serenity of sitting outside in this setting and enjoying the summer evening is incredible. I lost two dwarf apple trees last fall - I had them for over twenty years and they finally succumbed to age. This spring I will be replacing them, although I have not decided on what I will replace them with. Suggestions? Regardless, I enjoy getting on my hands and knees and making my patio a great place to sit and entertain.

I am also excited to explore the city on my bike. I have been touring around the city on my bike these past few years and am looking for some new adventures again. My intention is to film my rides on a few trails around the city and post them on youtube. I would imagine everyone has some exciting plans for this spring and summer. Let us know what your plans are, send some photos and maybe we can create a feature in our newsletter. We would love to know what our members are up to and to see some photos to satisfy our curiosity. I will be sure to share some of mine.

Here at CCI Manitoba, we are also looking forward to spring. With the nice weather, we hope to be back to in-person lunch-n- learns where we can all meet again and see how much we have changed over the past couple years. Our Education Committee is planning more great sessions in the coming year and of course, if you have any suggestions for our sessions, please let us know. We aim to please.

We have gone back to hybrid board meetings and personally I am happy we did so. All of our committees have been hard at work throughout the pandemic to make your membership in CCI Manitoba even better than it has been. By the way, we are always looking for volunteers to join our committees, so if you are interested, drop us a line.

I am also looking forward to our Annual General Meeting. This year it is scheduled for September 22, 2022, stay tuned as we finalize the date and time. There will be an interesting theme and it will be enjoyable for all attending. We are also planning a meet and greet with the Board members and candidates the week before, so I hope you can come out and meet all of us. Instead of staring at my computer screen wondering who is watching, it will be great to see everyone in person and be able to chat. We have not been able to do that in a long time. We will have some Board positions available, so consider running to be a director and help CCI become even better than it already is.

Although we have been trapped inside a fair bit, CCI Manitoba has been busy on quite a few fronts. Our long awaited online version of our introductory course is up and running and registrations are coming in. I am very proud of the work done by our Board and Education Committee in delivering a wonderful course. I can’t say enough about the work our Board and Committees have done this past year. If you haven’t already, go to our website and sign up. It’s quite easy. I took the course many years ago and found it extremely helpful as a new member of my own condo Board. My president and I followed it up with the Level 200 course and it helped us navigate through the processes of running our Board and condo corporation.

CCI successfully lobbied against the increase in waste diversion fees, and the fee was dropped from the 2022 budget process. Good News! We will be involved again, should it be introduced for the 2023 budget.

We have also been lobbying to be heard on the issue of short term rentals. We have heard from a number of City Councilors and the Standing Policy Committee who will be following up with us. We will keep you posted.

This year is the 40th anniversary of CCI in Canada (officially November 26th). Hard to believe it has been around that length of time. Keep your eye on our website https://cci-manitoba.ca/, as well as the national website https://cci.ca/, for events pertaining to our 40th anniversary.

Things have been unclear and foggy the past couple of years, but with restrictions lifting and things getting back to somewhat normalcy, I believe we can all finally get out, enjoy ourselves and have a great Manitoba spring and summer. I know I will.

As always, enjoy the pages of our newsletter and until we meet, stay safe.

JOHN POPOWICH, President CCI Manitoba Chapter