Fall Report
Our first look backwards brings sad news. We have lost one of our most passionate directors, the late Carole Ford put all her energy into her fight with pancreatic cancer, and left this world on October 10. She was a retired Facilitator, University Professor and Elementary School teacher, and passionate about Davis Learning Strategies. She was always cheery, the best supporter, colleague, presenter and editor ever, so don’t be surprised if there are typo’s in this Newsletter. We will miss her enormously, but knowing Carole and her indomitable personality, she will be helping us from ‘above’ and we are dedicating our Davis Learning Strategies Fund to her in Memorium.
Your Board just met for a Strategic Planning Meeting and we all agreed that looking forward to the next 5-10 years involves looking back on the past 20 years of The Whole Dyslexic Society’s life – something we rarely have the time to do, but oh so valuable.
Looking back at the Society : Firstly there was an idea; let’s form a non-profit/charity, then how does one do that; where do we get the money from to initiate the legal process; who do we ask to be our founding Board members? Well, thanks to Janice Scott for the original idea; to Brenda Pulvermacher who suggested I ask Milton Wong, who donated $5,000 and lent us his charity advisor, John McCulloch, who became our first Board Chair alongside Ian Tostensen and Helen Babalos. We got charitable status in 2002. Every Board member since then has donated their time and enthusiasm to maintaining our mandate: Jack Harland, John Robbins, Rita Schmidt, Carolyn Van Meenen, Joe Wozny, Susan Manz, Natrisha Sagris, Jennifer Prowse, Liz Vela, Jay Fisher, Bruce Shore, Clinton Pazdzierski, Sue Jutson, Carole Taljeh, Anne Haegart, Andrea Flaa, Guy Murphy, Adrian Boston, Donna Doerksen, plus the endless volunteers who have helped with hosting training sessions, workshops, Pro D Day and Conference presentations, webinars, talks, fundraisers, bursary interviews, summer camps and fun activity days.
This is what we have all achieved! We have maintained our 4 Objectives: : improved Outreach, funded Bursaries, created and maintained a Community and have a Prevention plan in progress. We are particularly proud of the fact that we have donated $90,400.00 to 10 Davis Facilitators in Canada for 63 clients over the past 16 years. Our current website provides a comprehensive view of our mandate, our objectives and our current activities, which is astounding considering we are ALL volunteering our time outside of our full time jobs, families and hobbies; even our Administrator volunteers more time than she is paid for. We are SO grateful and blessed for the thousands of volunteer hours donated to us.
Looking forward to a very rosy future:
SHORT TERM:
Continue our podcasts, starting with a Christmas series featuring the ‘gift’ of dyslexia and all the wonderful talents that it brings. The message being we are good at what we do BECAUSE of our gift, not in spite of it!
A Davis Learning Strategies Workshop Spring 2021- Online
Family Summer Camp weekend, May 2021, Camp Elphinstone
Walk and Talk the DYS out of Dyslexia II - August 2021 PLUS an Online Auction
Adding one school a year to our DLS Learning Challenge Prevention plan
Full use of social media – especially for fundraising
Attracting a major influencer/sponsor to support us
Planning a Homeschooling Support Conference
LONG TERM:
DLS Learning Challenge Prevention plan – to have at least 3 schools, or School Districts using DLS throughout their school(s).
Maintaining a strong community of corrected dyslexics
Being part of the Davis international community
Sustaining the Society financially
Being a beacon for information, solutions and support in the world of dyslexia
Members at Large - To accomplish all of the above, we are asking for Members at Large. You don’t have to be a Board member (unless you’d like to be) but if any of the tasks above appeal to you, please let us know, we would be SO grateful for your help. We are a very small Board, with a modest budget, and an enormous amount of work to do. Some of you have felt the benefit of our programs, maybe of our funding, and Outreach and Community efforts – our work is SO important for at least one third of the population – we are all LEARNING ABLE – we just don’t learn the way we are taught – and you all have skills worth sharing.
THANK YOU !!! Sue
Our Fundraiser, Walk & Talk, continues to the end of this year. Visit our Canada Helps Page to support our cause.
Our Fundraiser - The Card Project has a wonderful selection of art cards for purchase. Created by Davis Dyslexia Students.