The Olds Institute for Community and Regional Development delivered its first-ever report to the community on April 16, giving an overview of the organization's activities for the past year.
The OICRD would have finished 2012 with a deficit of $686,082 due to an investment by Olds Fibre Ltd., one of the institute's spinoff corporations, in fibre optic network infrastructure.
But the organization had $20,044 in leftover revenues— after the year's total expenses of $396,093 were subtracted from the year's total revenues of $416,137— and that amount was put toward the deficit to bring it down to $666,038.
Nearly $125,000 of the OICRD's revenues came from Town of Olds funding.
The various committees and essential members of the OICRD, plus the institute's two spinoff corporations, Mountain View Power and OFL, also gave an overview of their activities over the past year. The pillar committees include the community lifestyles committee, marketing and communications committee, business attraction, retention, and expansion committee, the technology committee and the Sustainable Olds Committee. Reports from the Town of Olds, the Olds and District Chamber of Commerce, Olds Agricultural Society and Olds College were also given.
Rob Smith, outgoing chair of the OICRD, said one of his objectives since he took over as chair was to conduct the annual general meeting in a public setting to give as many people as possible the chance to find out about all the OICRD's various activities, such as the Sustainable Olds Committee and its work around defining genuine wealth in the community, the Community Lifestyles Committee and its work on social development and the marketing and communications committee's work on increasing community awareness of the OICRD and its activities.
The Community Lifestyles Committee worked on its four strategic directions, including social development, succession planning, advocacy and communication. The committee also worked with the Olds Community Assistance Fund – a capital investment fund for use by community groups – taking it over and folding it into the committee's mandate. The fund's interest is available for use by community groups. The fund has increased in the last three years to about $20,000.
“What the institute is ultimately about is the collectivization of all these individuals who have hopes and dreams for our community that want to make a contribution, and then that do make that contribution and see those hopes and dreams realized. And so in order to understand all the good that's being done by our community base, we need to share those stories,” he said.
Smith speculated that in the future, the institute could hold similar events throughout the year, focusing on a few of the committees at a time.
Smith said OFL and Mountain View Power are essential aspects of the institute's plan for self-sustainability. The town, Olds Agricultural Society, Olds and District Chamber of Commerce and Olds College – OICRD's partners – also provided seed money to the organization to get it started in 1999.
“We're funded operationally by the Town of Olds. In a lot of cases, it takes cash to make (aspirations come true). We do not want to come to the Town of Olds to ask for more,” he said.
