The 33rd annual general meeting (AGM) for the Friends of Cortes Island fell on Giving Tuesday which prompted the organization's plan to launch a fundraiser for $10,000.

The non-profit is hoping that the $10,000 can support core FOCI programs and the environmental work they do on the island.

At the AGM on Nov. 28, a video featured five FOCI Projects in action, out in the field, with a project overview by project leaders to contextualize the project.

CKTZ spoke with Helen Hall, executive director of FOCI, at the AGM and she described how in the past project leaders spoke about their project at the business meeting, but this year they wanted to do things differently, keep the meeting to an hour and serve up a meal along with a video showing the projects rather than just telling about them. 

“Often we are out in the wilds and people aren’t seeing what we’re doing. We thought doing something visual would be a really good thing to do,” stated Hall.

This was part of several new ideas at this year’s AGM, including a first ever annual report.

“I wanted to put things in numbers and step back a bit and look at what we do," Hall said. For example, every month of the year we are maintaining 19 kms of trails. We also have 150 people involved in our volunteer projects, from beach clean-ups to counting fish. And we have a 147 different monitoring activities!”

After Hall delivered the Financial Report, discussion ensued regarding Climate Action being under FOCI’s umbrella. Christine Robinson, one of the Streamkeeping project leaders, described climate action as being essential to FOCI’s work. Hunt responded that it all comes down to resources.

“I work four days a week but we could easily employ four more people. We are asking for $10,000 but we actually need another 50 or 60,000 dollars a year.”

For more info on FOCI, go to friendsofCortes.org

To hear more about FOCI, listen to the CKTZ News Update below: