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COG’s Annual General Meeting & Panel
April 6, 2021 @ 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
We would like to invite you to join us virtually as we look back on 2020 and forward to 2021, and for our interactive panel, Is it really Regenerative vs Organic?
Annual General Meeting & Panel
Tuesday, April 6th 2021
2pm – 4pm EST
The panel “Is it really Regenerative vs Organic?” will begin around 2:45 PM EST.
Click here for the full agenda.
Location: Zoom meeting, online.
Please RSVP by sending us an email at admin@cog.ca to let us know if you will be attending, we will send you registration information 24 hours prior to the event.
This registration link will be the same for the AGM as for the Panel portion of the event.
Election for COG’s Board of Directors & Nominees
Eligible voters have received an email with instructions on how to vote. If you have not received an email and believe you are eligible to vote please contact admin@cog.ca. You must be a member in good standing in order to vote.
There are three vacancies to be filled by election at this time. This number includes two Directors seeking reelection. Directors are elected for a three-year term (2021-2024).
For re election of second three year term:
Gillian Flies
Gillian Flies owns and operates The New Farm with her husband Brent Preston. The New Farm provides high quality, organic produce to fine restaurants and specialty retail stores in the Toronto and Collingwood areas.
Gillian grew up on a sheep farm in rural Vermont. After graduating from the University of Vermont, Gillian joined the Peace Corps and spent two years teaching math in Botswana. She went on to work for human rights and democratic development organizations on four continents, and organized observer delegations for landmark elections in Nigeria, Indonesia, East Timor and elsewhere.
Gillian worked as a management consultant in Toronto for six years before abandoning her successful career and moving to the farm in 2003. Since then, Gillian and Brent have built The New Farm into a thriving business and a leading light in the good food movement, providing organic vegetables to some of the best restaurants in Canada and raising almost a million dollars to make local, organic food accessible in low income communities.
Gillian is currently the President of Canadian Organic Growers.
Allison Squires
Allison is an owner and operator of Upland Organics, an organic grain farm located near Wood Mountain, Saskatchewan, with her husband and three children. Upland Organics has been certified organic for over a decade and produces several crop types including pulses, cereals, and oilseeds.
After completing her BSc in Environmental Toxicology at the University of Guelph (Guelph, ON) Allison moved to Saskatoon, SK to complete first her MSc and then PhD in Toxicology at the University of Saskatchewan. Allison has many years of board experience and currently sits on several local and regional boards. This has provided her with experience in community engagement and fundraising in both regular and non-profit capacities.
Allison believes that as organic producers we have a very interesting and positive story to tell. She is passionate about empowering and inspiring other organic producers to be willing to “think outside the box” and learn about new techniques and methods to improve the quality of their food production. Allison is very interested in promoting the organic industry; especially through on-farm research. Allison supports involving organic producers at the individual farm level and believes that it will contribute to the overall applicability of organic research.
Allison is currently a Director of Canadian Organic Growers.
For election to a three year term:
Andrea Barnett
Andrea Barnett lives and works on her family owned and run ranch in beautiful Secwepemc Territory in south central BC (near Kamloops). A 5th generation cow-calf operation, Andrea and her husband Ted are working through a farm succession process in which they are becoming principal owners and managers, and continue to pursue their vison of developing their wild grazed direct-to-consumer meat business, where they employ regenerative agriculture principles wherever possible.
Creative and results-orientated thinking are just a few of the tools that Andrea relies on when she wears the many different hats she is positioned to wear at any given moment. One is as a sessional lecturer at Thompson Rivers University where she teaches Natural Resource Policy and Planning. Her academic background includes a Political Science and Philosophy degree from the University of Victoria and a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Simon Fraser where she studied natural resource policy and economics and researched different approaches to habitat mitigation in BC and across Canada.
On the ranch, Andrea integrates her lifelong passion for wildlife and habitat conservation into their work. By drawing on her experience as a rancher and background in public policy, Andrea serves as Policy Advisor to the BC Cattlemen’s Association. She has also volunteered her time to multiple boards including serving on the BC provincial Minister’s Wildlife Advisory Council, serving on the Board of the Canadian Agriculture Policy Institute, the Board of the Kamloops Food Policy Council, the Young Cattlemen’s Council of Canada, and has sat on the ad-hoc committee comprised of representatives from Canadian Cattlemen’s Association and the Nature Conservancy of Canada to seek new conservation financing solutions to facilitate the provision of Ecological Goods and Services.
She is currently coordinating the Target One Funders Collaborative, which works to support Canada reaching its terrestrial habitat conservation targets under the international Convention on Biological Diversity, and works in the environmental sector with Ducks Unlimited Canada. As part of this work, Andrea is studying ways that well managed rangelands can be counted towards Canadian terrestrial conservation area targets under the Other effective Areas-based Conservation Measures (OECM) conservation designation.
As a mother and avid outdoorswoman, Andrea has a passion to see her children continue to enjoy the outdoors and growing healthy food, just as she does.
Documentation for the AGM 2021
Click on the links below to view