Association Dues Increase Announcement

By now, most, if not all of you, have been advised by your respective Presidents there is a need to increase the Association portion of your overall Fees. I will go into the details further on within this message.

Firstly, further to my message to you on the 9th of this month on what is done on behalf of our members, I am pleased to provide more information about the business of managing the affairs of the Association.

The “Your Association at work” overview has evolved somewhat in the last week and will continue to do so over the next few months. The current version is attached to this message. As these were planned to be part of the roll out of our revised web site later this year, you will see these Fact Sheet style communications in the future, and we have attached some of them today as they should be helpful for my message today.

In August, as part of the annual dues setting process, the Board of Directors reviewed the“Treasurer’s Report and Recommendations – Setting of Dues” dated July 29th 2021. I have attached the report for your review. Reading this should help you understand the unique point in time we are all dealing with. I believe you will come to the same conclusion we have. We need to increase our dependable revenue to continue to support our membership in the diverse services we provide. And we need to reduce our reliance on fluctuating, unstable and unpredictable sponsorship and donations as a primary source of revenue. The end of the current sponsorship agreement occurs June, 2022. which leaves us having to find a significant revenue stream to have the RCMPVA continue to support our membership as a viable and valued association.

As I have alluded to at the start of this message, since 2017, membership dues have been $37.00 per annum. However, effective January 1st, 2022, the Board has approved an increase of $8.00 to $45.00 per annum in order to allow us to continue to serve you, our members. I am well aware of the questions about how funds are being spent and why it is necessary to increase membership dues. Our Association CAO and Treasurer have prepared a detailed financial overview in fact sheet format. These are Association Members – RCMP Veterans Association Office operating details, and How the VA Operates and these are attached for your information. You are encouraged to review these documents as it is an accurate reflection of our financial status and our budget forecasting to 2023.

I do wish to point out our web page, as it evolves over the forthcoming months, we will include a number of Fact Sheet style of communications that will include the above fact sheets to increase your understanding of what the Association is doing in a format for your easy reference.

There is so much going on behind the scenes, I feel it’s important for you to have a clear understanding of what is involved in the administration of an Association, while adhering to the legal requirements of the Canada Not For Profit Corporations Act as well as the Canada Revenue Services rules. It is so very important for us to operate legally.

Speaking on behalf of the Board of Directors, the Chief Administrations Officer, and the Secretariat, I hope we will continue to have your trust.

Regards to all

A.P. (Sandy) Glenn, National President
RCMP Veterans Association
Members Helping Members and Their Families