Some FAQS
1. What is this election for and how does it change the current structure of the CIC organization?
When the CIC was originally conceived and formalized in 2014, the community was much smaller than what it is today. At that time, it made sense to have fewer members involved in the day-to-day running of the organization. The members of the board (1 chairperson of the board, two voting Directors, 1 Vice President/General Secretary and 1 Treasurer) also doubled up in taking operational roles of the Officers of the CIC.
The community is much larger now and it makes sense to separate the Board from the Officers who will be responsible for the daily operations. The Board will mostly remain unchanged but will take on an advisory role to the Officers (see next FAQ). The Officers who will be elected through these elections will execute on the responsibilities as outlined above.
2. What then is the role of the CIC Board?
The Board’s role is to ensure that all the actions of the CIC are consistent with the vision of the CIC as a community to bring like-minded people in the Cambrian area. The Board will be available to provide support and guidance to the Officers as they execute on their roles and responsibilities. The CIC Board’s role is not to be necessarily involved in the day-to-day affairs of the CIC. Having said that, the board will weigh in very directly if it is felt that the officers are proposing action that conflicts very directly with the mission, charter or goals of the Cambrian Indian Community.
3. What is Cambrian Indian Families (CIF)? How is it related to CIC?
The CIF Facebook group was started by a few families who live in the Cambrian Park neighborhood. This is to allow a social gathering and as such is a private facebook group with memberships managed by the administrators of the group. You can apply for membership with this group directly, but CIC has no relationship, direct or indirect, with CIF. Since some of the families also attend, participate and are active volunteers at CIC events, the information about CIC events may sometimes be cross-posted in the Facebook group for visibility.
4. Why do we need an organization? Isn’t it just folks getting together and doing stuff?
We have always been about bringing the community together. However, with time, we have grown as a community and hence our needs, interests, and events have grown as a result. Becoming an organization gives many benefits like getting liability insurance for our events, having a bank account and getting tax exemption for donations received in our events. We are now an officially certified 501c3 tax exemption organization.
5. How do I become a member of the CIC?
There is no formal membership for the CIC organization. When we formed the organization, we took a conscious decision to keep the focus on community building and not a lot of paperwork and formality around memberships and such. Hence, at this time, we have no formal membership model and no yearly membership fee as well. We will review this periodically as the community grows and interest and participation changes.
6. What are the benefits of being involved with CIC?
The CIC organization exists to create events, foster community and be the voice of the community as defined in the CIC Mission and Vision. This allows the member to have the knowledge that there is always a set of folks who are driving events and other activities with this goal in mind. Apart from occasional fundraisers (2 in the past 4 years) which are scheduled on an as-needed basis, the only support that we look from our community is to be an active participant/volunteer in our community events. Besides, the CIC events give the community members a great opportunity to meet other like-minded people in the area and provides a sense of community involvement.
7. How can I learn about new events and how do I sign up to volunteer or participate in CIC events?
The CIC blog is always the best reference to hear about our events and understand how to register as a participant or volunteer. In the past, some of our members have cross posted to private Facebook, WhatsApp groups that they are part of. However, these are unofficial and private shares. In the future, we may employ other social media channels in addition to or in lieu of existing mechanisms to communicate our events and other activity, but at this time, the only official communication channel is our CIC website. We will communicate any changes to our communication strategy in this blog.
