Holiday Message from President Britt Hall

December 21, 2022

On behalf of the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee at URFA, I want to wish you and your com­mu­ni­ty a very hap­py end-of-term, hol­i­day sea­son, and New Year ahead!

It has been an incred­i­bly busy year for URFA and I would like to acknowl­edge the hard work of our many mem­ber vol­un­teers, as well as the staff who make our union work every sin­gle day.

URFA would­n’t exist with­out the col­lec­tive will and action of all of us togeth­er, so thank you for help­ing build our union into an orga­ni­za­tion we can all be proud of.

Look­ing ahead, 2023 is already promis­ing to be a busy year — with sev­er­al more units enter­ing bar­gain­ing, emerg­ing work­place mat­ters to address, con­tin­ued health & safe­ty con­cerns relat­ed to the pan­dem­ic, and a grow­ing list of polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic issues that affect work­ing peo­ple in the post-sec­ondary sector. 

We have a lot of work to do — and it will be more effec­tive if we do it together.

As you’re con­sid­er­ing any New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions, I invite you to think about how you can engage with URFA and help build our union’s capac­i­ty to cre­ate change in the year ahead.

There are lots of oppor­tu­ni­ties to get involved! Just a few of the cur­rent oppor­tu­ni­ties open to all mem­bers are:

• URFA is seek­ing a mon­ey-savvy vol­un­teer for a six-month term on URFA’s Finance Com­mit­tee start­ing in Jan­u­ary 2023. Vol­un­teer for one meet­ing a month to help man­age our union’s finances.

• We are look­ing for an alter­nate Return­ing Offi­cer to help over­see our col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ment votes. Vol­un­teer on an as-need­ed basis to help make sure our vot­ing process­es are held to the high­est standard.

• URFA’s Equi­ty Com­mit­tee cur­rent­ly has three vacan­cies for inter­est­ed mem­bers to vol­un­teer. Meet­ings are usu­al­ly once a month — and mem­bers have access to spe­cial pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties like attend­ing CAUT’s annu­al Equi­ty Conference.

• URFA’s Ses­sion­al Advo­ca­cy Com­mit­tee cur­rent­ly has five vacan­cies for ses­sion­als to vol­un­teer. Meet­ings are twice a month and the com­mit­tee is cur­rent­ly work­ing on a cam­paign and sev­er­al events for 2023.

• The Cana­di­an Asso­ci­a­tion of Uni­ver­si­ty Teach­ers has a call out for mem­bers who are inter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing in nation­al com­mit­tees on some of the big issues fac­ing work­ers in post-sec­ondary right now.

If any of these oppor­tu­ni­ties inter­est you, please email urfa@​uregina.​ca and we will fol­low up with more infor­ma­tion on these oppor­tu­ni­ties and how to get involved.

If you’d like to get involved, but don’t see some­thing that calls to you, reach out to us any­way — because there are plen­ty more oppor­tu­ni­ties that aren’t list­ed here!

As a union, let’s do great things in 2023. By work­ing togeth­er, we can cre­ate the kind of change we want to see in the post-sec­ondary sector.

I look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to serve as your pres­i­dent in 2023, build­ing stronger rela­tion­ships with those of you who I know, and con­nect­ing with new mem­bers and those I haven’t yet had a chance to meet.

Wish­ing you a fes­tive hol­i­day sea­son and restora­tive break before the new term begins.

In sol­i­dar­i­ty,

Britt Hall

Pres­i­dent

P.S. The URFA office will be closed for the hol­i­days start­ing Decem­ber 23. If you need assis­tance in the mean­time, please email urfa@​uregina.​ca and when the office re-opens on Jan­u­ary 3, our staff will respond as quick­ly as possible.