In mid-October, the CLT working group organized an information session for potential members for the first ‘transitional’ board of directors of Parkdale Community Land Trust.

A Community Land Trust is a membership-based organization, as it represents community diversity through members and board of directors elected by them. Currently, however, we are not there yet to base our organizational development on membership. At the same time, we understand that there are a number of opportunities we would hope to seize. Therefore, we have decided to begin by setting up a ‘transitional’ board of directors until we shift to a membership-model. This way gives us time (we plan for three years) to establish a strong governance model, policies and memberships before turning it over to a membership-based board. But also this approach provides us with a platform to formalize our activities as well as helps us ready to seize any future opportunities that may emerge suddenly.

With this context in mind, the information session was organized and we invited 12 community organizations representing diverse Parkdale residents. Also technical expertise and knowledge necessary for establishing a CLT was another component in choosing diverse organizations.

The information session centred around explaining what is CLT and why in Parkdale, and what opportunities exist currently, and what are expectations and involvement of board members (presentation PowerPoint here).

We will be announcing soon the first members of a transitional board of directors!