Easter Seals CanadaAnnual Report2012 - 2013

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Contents

04 Letter from the Board Chair & President /CEO

09 0806

1312

Fundraising

Access 2 Program

Treasurer’s Report

Board of Directors & National Office Staff

Provincial Members

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Partners & Sponsors

Contact Us

This has been a year of review and consolidation for Easter Seals Canada. With the need to pre-pare for Continuance under the new Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act, Easter Seals decided to undertake a comprehensive governance and bylaw review. We asked the Chief Executive Of-ficers Committee to set the pace with the development of a Strategic Governance review with the assistance of an outside facilitator. The CEO Committee completed this review and made a number of recommendations that will require bylaw changes. Our Board will take these recommendations and complete the Compliance documentation well in advance of Industry Canada’s deadlines.

Our Board has also taken a number of measures to make our operations more efficient - compact-ing our business meetings into a half day, using electronic methods to keep members up to date and to make decisions between meetings as required. We will continue to explore more means of electronic communications and document management.

As Chair of Easter Seals Canada, I am particularly proud of our robust summer camp programs in all provinces of Canada. I believe that our Easter Seals partners in the United States, Mexico and Australia and children with disabilities in all four countries would benefit from an international camp experience; hence, we intend to launch a World Camp experience and invite each province and our 3 international partners to send young people to this World Camp which will be held at Easter Seals Camp Squamish in British Columbia late summer 2015.

I wish to thank our strong and committed Board of Directors for their leadership over the past year and our very lean, but efficient national office staff continues to be thoroughly professional in exe-cuting the Boards policies and priorities and balancing the many diverse demands of our provincial Easter Seals organizations.

Doug Surtees Chair, Board of Directors

Message from the Chair President/CEO

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We continue to rebuild Easter Seals in Canada and this year we have launched a photo tour creat-ed by Easter Seals Ontario working with the internationally recognized PhotoSensitive organization with sponsorship from Canon Canada. The show demonstrated the amazing Easter Seals camp experiences from the eyes of the young people who have benefitted from these enabling and life al-tering experiences. Every province was represented with photos and videos taken by some of Can-ada’s leading photo journalists, and the stories of our Easter Seals kids were inspired. The show toured for approximately 8 months and was on display in many key Canadian cities.

National fundraising continues to grow, but the rate of growth has slowed this past year. Our CEO Committee has determined that expanding and enhancing awareness of the Easter Seals brand and fundraising are to be the key priorities for the next few years. Accordingly, we have developed a new fundraising plan of action and we will recruit a more senior fundraising professional to lead this development over the next decade. We have engaged SearchSmart - a professional search firm who specialize in recruitment of fundraising and development leaders - to assist us with this search and we expect to have a new team in place early next fiscal year.

Max Beck President & Chief Executive Officer

Message from the Chair President/CEO

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Canada Safeway continues to be our largest corporate donor. This year the Canada Safeway cam-paign had another stellar year: the “Abilities Campaign” raised $1,196,386 for Easter Seals Cana-da. These funds are in turn distributed to our provincial members in Western Canada who partici-pate in the campaign.

Friends of We Care is another key sponsor. They have a series of fundraising activities to Send Easter Seals Kids to Camp which in 2013 raised $835,000 for Easter Seals. These funds are raised from their member com-panies in the food services industry ranging from large corporations like Maple Leaf Foods to smaller special-ized companies like Cardinal Meat Specialists.

For the first time, The Avril Lavigne Foundation se-lected a Canadian Easter Seals member - Easter Seals Alberta as the beneficiary of a $10,000 grant for their Adaptive Bike program at Camp Horizon.

Fundraising

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Paper EggsEaster Seals Canada coordinates a significant cross-Canada campaign called Paper Eggs. During the campaign, enthusiastic sales clerks from 100’s of retail stores across Canada encour-age customers to purchase paper eggs and write their name on them in a show of support for Canadians with disabilities. These Paper Eggs are then displayed on a donor wall. During the course of the four week campaign, which ends on Easter, the accumulation of these Paper Eggs is a colourful testament to the communities’ commitment to make a difference. At the national level $256,919 was raised for Easter Seals’ active living and camping programs. Several hundred thousand more was raised at the provincial level.

Special mention to The Bargain! Shop, which raised a whop-ping $144,160 for Paper Eggs, to Booster Juice whose fund-raising increased by 39% over last year, and our Atlantic partner Lawtons Drugs increased their fundraising by 5%. This year, Money Mart joined the Paper Egg campaign and raised more than $81,850.

Fundraising

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The Easter Seals Access 2 Card has been an amazing resource for persons with a disability who require an attendant to get to ordinary daily activities. One specific challenge is that many entertainment venues charge for both the per-son with a disability and their attendant. Thus doubling the cost of a activity like attending a movie.

In 2004, Easter Seals, Cineplex Theatres and eight other disability organizations developed the concept of the Access 2 Entertainment Card. The Card enables persons with disabilities to be-come more active in the community. Simply show the card at a movie theatre, museum or many other entertainment venues and the admission fee for the attendant is waived. No more buying two tickets just to get out to the movies. Easter Seals has added many new venues who have agreed to accept the card at their admissions desk. Currently the Access 2 Card is accepted at over 90% of the movie theatres in Canada. We intend to add many more venues like museums, galleries and sport-ing venues in the next few years.

For the most updated list of places accepting the Access 2 Entertainment card visit our brand new website access2card.ca.

This year the Access 2 program reached a significant milestone by issuing the 50,000th card!

We intend to keep working with other organizations across Canada to increase the number of card holders, enabling more people to actively participate in community entertainment events and lead healthier lifestyles.

Access 2 Program

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The consolidated financial statements of Easter Seals Canada are prepared by the management in accordance with Canadian generally accepted accounting principles. Management, with the aid of proper accounting systems with internal checks and balances, maintains the integrity and objectivity of the financial statements and ensures that reliable financial reports are prepared on a regular basis.

The Board of Directors, through its Executive Committee, monitors the functioning of accounting and control systems. The Audit Committee meets with management and external auditors to review the results of the audit examination. The external auditors have conducted an independent audit in ac-cordancewith generally accepted auditing standards. Their report outlines the scope of the audit and includes an assessment of the financial statements of Easter Seals Canada and its adherence to Canadian generally accepted accounting principles.

Rob BerkovitzSecretary/Treasurer

Treasurer’s Report

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Treasurer’s Report

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Treasurer’s Report

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Board of DirectorsDoug Surtees, Chair, Board of Directors

Michael Duffy, Past Chair

Dale Briske, Vice Chair

Rob Berkovitz, Treasurer

Ron Davidson, Chair, CEOs Committee

Anne Ewen, AB

Stephen Miller, BC

Tom Spence, SK

David Steen, MB

John Penhale, QC

Rhonda Rubin, NB

Barry Saunders, NS

Roger Power, NL

Lorne Moase, PEI

Don Lawby, Member at Large

Doug Bridgman, Member at Large

Todd Stevens, Member at Large

National Office StaffMax Beck –President & CEO

Parag Tandon –Development Manager

Linette Moreno –Staff Accountant

Ruth Pereira –Executive Assistant

Brian Chan –Programs Manager

Adrienne Chan –Program Co-ordinator

Board of Directors& National Office Staff

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Easter Seals Newfoundland and Labrador

Rotary Club of Charlottetown

Easter Seals Nova Scotia

Easter Seals New Brunswick

Quebec Society for Disabled Children

Easter Seals Ontario

Society for Manitobans with Disabilities Foundation Inc.

Saskatchewan Abilities Council

Easter Seals Alberta

Easter Seals British Columbia

Easter Seals Provincial Members

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Partners & Sponsors

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Easter Seals Canada40 Holly Street

Suite 401Toronto OntarioM4S 3C3

Phone: 1 877 376 6362Website: easterseals.caTwitter: @easterseals

Easter Seals Canada adheres to the

Imagine Canada

Ethical Fundraising and Financial Accountability Code.

Contact Us

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