It seems like just yesterday when we had our Annual General Meeting and we were celebrating the many accomplishments of the previous year, especially those of the youth in our community.  You may recall that when I spoke as the new Chair of the Board of Directors, I mentioned that PFC would be embarking on strategic planning to provide us with a vision to take us to the years 2021/22.  After a busy summer, I wanted to take this opportunity to provide you with an update on the progress. 

We have hired a consultant to help us with this project – Urooj Qureshi.  Urooj is the Founder of Designed Centred Company and came to us recommended by CSED (Centre for Social Enterprise Development).  Some of you may have met him either at PFC or at our annual Bar-B-Que. He is working with our Strategic Planning Committee, which is comprised of Christine Earnshaw and myself from our Board of Directors, and Karen Secord, Alissa Campbell and Meagan McVeigh from the PFC staff.  

We started out in early June with a combined Board and Staff Retreat to talk about our goals and objectives and to put on paper all our ideas of where we see ourselves in three years from now. It was a busy day and we all came away filled with excitement around how we see PFC transforming and growing to meet the needs of our neighbours and growing community.  

More recently Urooj has held Focus Groups with our neighbours and volunteers, and is now interviewing many of our community partners to capture their input and to ensure that we have a broad set of opinions to consider as we develop  our Strategic Plan and Vision. After these sessions are complete we will regroup as a Committee to begin to put pen to paper.  

Strategic Planning is more than “wish lists”, it means that we (the PFC Board and Staff) will need to make choices and establish priorities.  We need to be open to new ideas and concepts, and be inclusive to our partners, community, city, volunteers and most importantly our neighbours.  Our new Strategic Plan will give us the opportunity to create a shared vision for the future of Parkdale Food Centre.  

We anticipate finishing the Strategic Plan and an Implementation Plan by the late fall.  This is an ambitious schedule but we are all committed to moving forward quickly so that all of you in the PFC Community can see our Vision and be part of our Strategic Plan and transformation.  

Should any of you have any questions or comments please don’t hesitate to contact me directly at deb@parkdalefoodcentre.org

Kind regards, 

Deb 

Chair Parkdale Food Centre,

   Board of Directors