Letter from the President, Fall 2002

On behalf of the Board I would like to begin by expressing our thanks to Norma Lundberg who has stepped down as the copyeditor of the CJH. Over the last couple of years Norma has been instrumental in helping to maintain the high standards that our readers have come to expect. Thank you Norma for your hard work and dedication and good luck in your future projects.

On a sadder note, we would also like to express our sincere sympathy to Conrad Richter and the Richter family over the passing of Conrad's mother. Through her work as cofounder of Richter's Herbs, Mrs. Richter has made a very important contribution to the promotion of herbs in Canada. She was a constant presence in the Richter's greenhouses, always cheerful and very helpful. She will be missed.

Our Annual General Meeting is being held on Sunday, November 17, and at that time a new board of directors will be elected. The current board set out last fall with an ambitious agenda. After the merger between the OHA and the Central Canadian Herbal Practitioners Association, it was clear that there was much work to be done in terms of improving the efficiency of operations of our association while at the same time expanding our agenda into some new directions. In looking back over the year, as one might expect, there were some successes, some partial successes and some initiatives that never really got off the ground.

Our first order of business was improving the precarious finances of our association. One of the biggest costs to our association was the production of the Journal. It was taking up most of our revenue, which left us without the necessary resources for our other initiatives. After many meetings between the Board and Journal team, we managed to decrease our cost of production without decreasing the quality of the Journal. Instrumental was Jane Schmidt who has done a great job increasing the Journal' s advertising clients. But the whole Journal team is to be commended for their excellent work. The CJH is now almost selfsustaining.

Also, we soon realized that the monies coming in from our membership, events and the Journal would not be enough to fund our various new projects. So, we have established a fund-raising committee consisting of Celina Ainsworth, Victoria Foulger, Nicole Nantel and John Redden. This team has been contacting members of the herbal and natural health products industry in hopes of increasing our revenue through donations and corporate memberships. So far, these efforts have produced very little results, but we are hoping that with increased education of the industry on how we are benefiting them, they will dig a little deeper into their pockets.

Our new professional committee was created and was able to develop educational standards for professional herbalists in Ontario as well as revise and expand our Code of Ethics and Code of Practice for professionals. We were able to participate in some of the many political initiatives that have been taking place. We have also seen a significant increase in professional members over the last year.

In response to the requests of our members outside the GTA, we began the process of establishing regional branches. Daria Nedilsky, our branch coordinator, is working on setting up our first branch in the London area. The first meeting had to be cancelled due to lack of participation. If you are interested in helping create an OHA branch in your area, please contact Daria through our e-mail address or telephone number.

We have finally begun the process of reorganizing, updating and improving our website. Because our revenue has increased over the past year, we were able to hire a new webmaster, Harold Lass. He has done an excellent job of reorganizing our website as well as improving its appearance. It is still a work in progress and will take some time yet to complete, but we have many interesting ideas. We welcome all input from our members.

There have been many other initiatives a well, too many to mention all of them here, but we will give a full account of them at our AGM. I would like to thank all of those who have helped out this year on every project or event, big and small. I would also like to thank all of the members of the outgoing Board. In spite of their own busy schedules and personal demands, they have done their best to keep our association alive and thriving.

On page 5 of this issue of the CJH you will find the results of our members' survey. I would like to thank Victoria Foulger for creating the survey and consolidating the results. I would also like to thank all of our members who took the time to fill it out. The vast majority of respondents indicated that they are very happy with the current direction of our association, our Journal and the events that we have been hosting. However, the survey has illuminated a very serious problem within our association—poor participation from our members.

To begin with, only a quarter of ou members took the time to fill out our survey. Also, although almost all of those who filled out the survey indicated that they wanted more events, attendance at our events this year, with the exception of the Herb Fair and the Herbal Medicine Seminar, was very poor. In fact, the majority of events this year had to be cancelled even though our membership is strong at this time.

It is very difficult to run a non-profit association that depends on volunteers to get things done. I have been involved in many similar associations in the past and the OHA is no different in that the lion’s share of work is done by a very small core group of dedicated individuals. Most members may have some great ideas and expectations about what they would like the Association to accomplish, but their involvement ends there. Inevitably, the members of the core group do a tremendous amount of work and then get burned out after a few years and have to quit. This cycle has repeated itself numerous times in the OHA. We are now at the point where there are fewer and fewer dedicated individuals to take the place of those who can no longer maintain their high levels of commitment.

The OHA has come a long way since its inception and herbalism has evolved considerably over this time. These are very critical times for herbalism in this country—laden with opportunities as well as potential pitfalls. If herbalism is going to continue to grow in Ontario in the 21st century, it is absolutely essential that we have a strong association to represent our interests. In order for this to happen, we need more commitment from our members.

The personal and professional demands on those of us who are working hard to make the OHA a strong, vibrant association are just as great as everyone else's, and yet we make the commitment because we realize the stakes are very high. As herb enthusiasts, herbal students and professional herbalists we have to ask ourselves if the survival and growth of herbalism is important to us. If so, we need to get involved.

The board is currently working on a page on our website that lists our volunteer opportunities. We are also outlining benefits to volunteering. We want to reward those who participate, because we appreciate your commitment. If you feel that the work of our association is important, please get involved! It is my hope that in the coming year we will be able to overcome our apathy and build an even stronger OHA that will be able to continue to grow and evolve for the benefit of our children and grandchildren.

Michael Vertolli, OHA President