LSPC Newsflash (Published Summer 2003)
Inside this Issue:
From the Desk of Duncan Adams
Technology at the LSPC
Social Economic Inclusion Initiative


From the Desk of Duncan Adams

This Newsletter welcomes you to the beginning of Summer.  As you will read here, there are lots of interesting things happening at the Lakehead Social Planning Council. 
 
We want you to know that you are invited to our Annual General Meeting on Wednesday June 18.  Along with the important legal stuff of receiving reports and appointing auditors, there will be an exceptional panel to talk about youth issues in Thunder Bay and our Closing the Distance project.
 
For news, we have some excitement about our Social and Economic Inclusion Initiative: we have received Phase 2 funding from Health Canada. Also, we are having lots of meetings and planning to participate in the "2 1 1 Service" in Thunder Bay.  Last month the Board was working on long term planning for the LSPC, and looking at our mission and vision for the future.  Our offices are getting more computer friendly, thanks to Mark our computer specialist.  We have a new summer student, Lindsay Harris, in partnership with HRDC.  And to maintain our involvement in social justice issues, we have been a partner in the Thunder Bay Economic Justice Committee, trying to ensure that the results from Kimberly Rogers' inquest get implemented. 

We appreciate our volunteers: they help in the office, they serve on Committees, they work on the Board, and they read this Newsletter!  Thanks for your interest in LSPC. We hope to meet you in person at our Annual Meeting on June 18th.

We are also pleased to announce that the revamped versions of both the LSPC and CIRC websites are now online. The new websites are better organized and will be updated on a regular basis. Please surf on by at www.lspc-circ.on.ca

Later this summer, will be adding the CIOC (Community Information Online Consortium) software program to the CIRC website. This software application will bring the CIRC database online and accessible to anyone searching for community, human service, health, and local government information. CIOC has received the Diamond Award of Excellence at the Voluntary Sector Information Technology Awards in 2001. CIOC is currently utilized by other major Community Information Centres in the province. It will also replace our current database application and stream-line efficiency around updates, queries and reports. We hope to have this up and running by the fall.

The rest of the project will focus on bringing youth in our community closer to the rest of our community, and promote understanding between the two groups. This goal is particularly timely as the Youth Criminal Justice Act is brought into full operation in Thunder Bay, with input from our project.