Accomplishments

2020-2021 Accomplishments

There were five priorities for the last year:

  1. Provide a voice to monitor and influence development planning and activities in Riverview Park and elsewhere in Ottawa

    • Development applications in the last year were way down compared with previous years. The largest planning and development issue this last year was the Official Plan. We were involved early on that file and have kept an eye on it ever since. It has been well-documented that a large number of people within the Alta Vista Ward have not been pleased with what has been proposed and the RPCA has voiced our comments on a regular basis.
  2. Promote revitalization of Balena Fieldhouse

    • This remains incomplete. Funding was applied for again but has not come up, yet. We bring this item up with our elected official as regularly as we can to continue to advocate for funding this project.
  3. Organize our activities to centre around a few core events, being realistic for pandemic conditions

    • Unfortunately, this year being “realistic for pandemic conditions” meant cancelling all the events. This was disappointing, but sadly necessary. Where possible, some events like the Carol Sing were held virtually, but turnout to virtual events is rarely of the same scale as in-person events.

  4. Be a cheerleader and helpful enabler for individually/community driven events and activities, at an appropriate social distance

    • In this, by the happy fortune of the Friends of the Riverview Park Greenspaces, we did very well. The FotRPG experience was exactly what this objective was intended to capture. It was a community-based group and not an RPCA group and the RPCA helped where we could to help make the FotRPG more effective in what they wanted to do.
  5. Be as financially responsible as reasonable considering the pandemic and change how we conduct membership drives to be virtual

    • We went significantly into the red this year. We had always projected to, but we drew in very little revenue. We were unable to launch our membership drive adequately virtually but we have set ourselves up well to do so this year. We spent less than we normally do and what we did spend money on was largely items that cannot be done more efficiently or removed from our annual expenditures (like the Directors Insurance).

2021-2022 Priorities


The priorities this year are very similar to last year. Last year was something of a lost year for us and we want to continue to move in the same direction this year, just with a little more pace, before moving on to other things.

The priorities are:

  1. Provide a voice to monitor and influence development planning and activities in Riverview Park and elsewhere in Ottawa
  2. Promote the revitalization of the Balena Fieldhouse
  3. Organize our activities to centre around a few core events
  4. Be a cheerleader and helpful enabler for individually/community driven events and activities.
  5. Be financially responsible with a focus on expanding the membership and increasing community engagement by employing new digital techniques.
  6. Offer our continued support for the Friends of the Riverview Park Greenspaces

The priorities are not terribly ambitious. However, last year’s priorities were some of the least ambitious ever and they still did not all get fulfilled to our hopes and expectations. So, by necessity, we are staying away from being too ambitious. Stretch goals are nice to have, but unachievable ones are self-defeating.

2019-2020 Priorities

This last year, we did some strategic planning to figure out the best spots to spend our energy. It has been a truly eye-opening experience of self-reflection that has resulted in us making some changes to our priorities from last year.

This year coming, we are going to focus on our parks, our planning files, and a few community-driven events. The events we are going to focus on are:

We will be continuing to add to our social media presence to keep everyone informed and, at times, entertained. We’ll be keeping an eye on the big planning files for the year including pushing for environmental assessment funding for the new bridge over the Via Rail tracks, monitoring all the new transit-oriented development at the Trainyards, and looking at some new thinking for some of our major thoroughfares.

One important difference from last year was trim down the number of priorities so we could meaningfully focus on them:

  1. Provide a voice to monitor and influence development planning and activities in Riverview Park and elsewhere in Ottawa
    • This is the typical priority most people expect from the RPCA and what we do best. It has to continue to be the top priority
  1. Promote revitalization of Balena Fieldhouse
  1. We left this hanging a little bit last year
  2. We want to do better this year and make it a recurring theme of discussion where we have access to politicians who can help make funding happen
  1. Re-organize our activities to centre around a few core events
  1. One of the main points of the strategy sessions was to focus more on less and do those things really well before expanding into another thing
  2. This is also reflective of how our budget is laid out as this is where the majority of our spending happens
  1. Be a cheerleader and helpful enabler for individually/community driven events and activities
  1. Another point well received in the strategy sessions was that we don’t have to do everything, and in fact some things probably do better without our meddling
  2. Rather like our involvement with the Corn Roast, we do our best to help someone else’s initiative along. We should look to continue to do that within the community and be
  1. Lay the foundation for the financial stability of the association
  1. The association needs more sources of revenue
  2. This year we will formalize those steady sources in order to keep a meaningful annual balance and retain a reserve for a time it is needed

2018-2019 Accomplishments

There were a lot of priorities for the last year. The first thing we did was focus on 3. This reflected our resources more than our desires, and it is unfortunate that we could not devote more resources to doing the other priorities justice.

  1. Enhanced level of volunteerism by local residents (e.g. more residents involved in RPCA activities)
    • We have a new membership coordinator who has been working away at this
    • This is tied to visibility
    • Overall, not enough volunteers to cover everything – we still need more engagement
  1. Raise visibility of RPCA in the community 
  1. Launched a door knocking campaign this summer
  2. Have hit most of the houses in the community
  3. Rebranding efforts to enhance our advertisements
  4. Whole new social media and website presence that has more than doubled our web traffic
  5. Big success
  1. Investing in safety and beautification of Riverview Park neighbourhood
  1. We had to curb investment compared with previous years, so focused on safety
  2. Resulted in a community safety meeting
  3. Overall, pretty good
  1. Provide a voice to Influence development planning and activities in Riverview Park Community and elsewhere in Ottawa
  1. Kris does this in his sleep, I think, and his efforts are covered in detail in the Riverview Park Review columns as well as his report for this AGM
  2. Steam Line Rd. consultations were a big win for us
  3. Big success
  1. Promote Community strengthening activities (e.g. Winter Carnival, parks clean-up, movie nights)
  1. We continue to help with various events
  2. The events all went pretty well this year
  3. Overall, pretty good
  1. Increase RPCA membership totals
  1. This remains to be seen, but the general thought is that we were pretty stable compared to most years so far
  2. Not so great
  1. Promote revitalization of Balena Fieldhouse
  1. We re-iterated the desire to revitalize the field house, but as yet there is no funding allocated
  2. Not so great