Credit Counselling Society

 

 

 

Anthem:                                              Peter Masson

Grace:                                                 Gordon Brown

Toast to Queen E, Canada & Rotary: President Basil

Attendance: 17 including guests:

Ann Arbour (guest speaker), Mike Conway Agincourt club, Adel Shamaileh (looking us over), Milane Hanley-Farrell (friend of Basil’s from Nevis)

 

Gordon B. announced that we have approached three Beer Store outlets and got clearance from at least two of them to stock the new Rotary beer which could be a new fundraiser.  Samples will soon be available.

 

News for the TV Auction that two corporate sponsorships of $5,000 each have been received from Park Property and Frank Lippa.

Al Meredith shared his success in making contact with Canadian Tire management that has generated at least four donations for the Auction worth $6,300 .

 

David S., now the International Group leader, announced that the group meeting will be held Wednesday Sept 21^st at the Baton Rouge after our regular meeting.

 

Board meeting will take place Monday August 29^th at 6:30 pm at Gordon Brown’s residence: 19 Sir Lancelot Court, Markham.

 

Basil reminded us to plan to attend the R.I convention in Atlanta next year (June10 to 14^th). Help is needed to promote the 2018 Convention in Toronto.

 

Mike Cooksey will be coming to our club Nov 23^rd to speak about preparations for our 2018 Toronto convention.  Home Hospitality for Scarborough will host about 200 visitors in the newly renovated Guild Inn. Cost to our club will be approx. $2,000.

 

Sunday Sept 11^th in Brighton the District Foundation Walk will take place. A pledge sheet will be put in circulation by the Foundation chair to sponsor our Club President for the Walk.

 

District 7070 Conference will be held on Oct 21^st and 22^nd at the Sheraton Parkway (Leslie & Hwy 7) Registration on Friday starting at 4:00; Welcome party at 6:30, and several hospitality suites open. Check out the District Website for details (page 24 of the August District newsletter)

 

Habitat for Humanity Women’s Build will take place Wed Sep 14^th to Sat the 17^th and again Tues Sept 20^th to Sat the 24^th.  All Scarborough clubs are volunteering to help with making and serving breakfast to the volunteer women builders.

 

TV Auction team leaders: Alan, Maddy, Jacqueline and Basil attended the TV Auction meeting Aug 23^rd.  Do we need lawn signs?  In checking a fair retail value for art work, it may be worthwhile to Google an auction art house to check on values.

 

Alan Meredith was the winner of the ticket drawn but Saifoo only allowed him to have the $5 consolation prize. Alan went on to collect from numerous members who had not yet solicited items for the TV Auction.

 

 

 

Jacqueline Smith introduced Anne Arbour, Financial Educator of the Credit Counselling Society. She explained that she had met Anne through a Rotary breakfast meeting and having had personal experience in credit and collections for years she was very aware of the importance of financial education to preven many who feel trapped by accumulated debt to get their lives back.  Anne also has been fully indoctrinated in Rotary through her father’s 50 years as a Rotarian in the Scarborough club. (Basil has taken note of that for his 2016/17 membership goal).

 

C.C.S. is a non-profit agency that started in 1996 in New Westminster BC and has grown in the past 19 years to 100 staff and 22 offices across Canada. Last year they received 65,000 phone calls and 20,000 came into their offices for counseling.  They have five offices in Ontario and have received Consumer Choice Awards each year from 2011 to 2015. In the 20 years of service to clients there has been only a 1% repeat rate. “We love our clients but if we have done our job we don’t want to see them again”.  They offer 6 day service all day until 11 pm and when the counseling is concluded there is no charge to the client.

 

The clients often arrive after a bank has said “NO” to further relief.  The counsellers can work with the client with a range of strategies which include:  Budgeting skills, a Plan to work out debt, a Consumer Proposal or Bankruptcy.  But as Anne says there are 50 shades of grey between a Proposal and Bankruptcy.  But when needed, a trustee will be engaged from a very small group that CCS has worked with and are confident that they will work with the best interest of their clients.  Anne went on to describe many of the different educational tools that they have developed over time to help their clients and that can be used in high schools and universities to build financial skills before creditor protection is needed. Even employers must be educated to the fact that employees can be distracted often wasting valuable company time worrying about debt issues. Counselling has been increasing and they are finding that many are using multiple credit cards not just for big purchases but for day-to-day needs. The major growth demographic is in the 55 + age group often because they have “boomerang” families living at home due to unemployment, underemployment, illness, separation or divorce which accounts for 20% of clients.  Their statistics show that 35% of Canadians struggle with debt, 40% do not pay off their credit card balance each month, in Canada the average per capita debt is $1.55 excluding mortgages etc., 36% of Canadians find dealing with debt overwhelming, and 50% of households live from paycheck to paycheck.

Currently CCS is dispersing to financial institutions $4 million per month, and last year they dispersed $44 million.  The average age of clients is now 43 down from 44 in 2015 and will have as many as seven creditors to which they owe between $29,000 and $30,000.

 

Anne summed up with the CCS satisfaction rates:

95% of creditors were happy, 98% of clients would recommend CCS to others, and 99% of clients would recommend their workshops

Listen to the link for the intro by Jacqueline, Anne’s presentation, the Q & A session that followed and the thank-you by Roland for her presentation and his confession that, as an academic, he is appalled at how little financial knowledge or discipline seems to have seeped into the halls of academia.

(Your scribe wishes to apologize for the background noise from the laptop/projector fan that was picked up by his recorder.)  The link to the recording is attached:

 

A link to the CCS power point presentation follows:

 

NEXT WEEK at North Scarborough Jim Louttit our District Governor will speak to the club and he and President Basil would appreciate as many of our members to attend as is possible. The plans for District 7070 will be outlined for all to endorse.