UNF Focuses on the Future

National convention tackles issues crucial to adaptability and, ultimately, survival

By Olena Wawryshyn

 “Adaptability is the secret to survival. This has been the first law of life on earth, and it applies to organizations,” said Ukrainian National Federation President Michael Kalimin, speaking to delegates at the organization’s recent national conference.

How should the UNF adapt to ensure that it not only survives but thrives? This was the central question that the National Executive members of the Ukrainian-Canadian organization headed by Kalimin, along with 60 delegates from across Canada, were addressing at the conference, entitled Focus on the Future. It took place in Toronto on October 28-30.

“When we speak of the UNF we mean the Ukrainian National Federation; the Ukrainian Women’s Organization (UWO/OUK); the Ukrainian War Veterans Association (UWVA/USH) and the Ukrainian National Youth Federation (UNYF/MUNO). We are all members of the UNF family and, as such, we must work jointly to renew, revitalize and strengthen the organization,” Kalimin said during his opening remarks on Friday, October 28.

Representing the member organizations were Natalka Bundza-Iwanytzkyj (UWO), Ivan Andrusiak (UWVA) and Taras Babyuk (UNYF, Toronto).

The UNF, founded in 1932, has a long history as a leading force in Ukrainian-Canadian community life.  At its zenith, it consisted of 91 branches across Canada (British Columbia: 3; Alberta: 26, Saskatchewan: 24; Manitoba: 5; Ontario 30, Quebec: 3).The reach of the UNF at that time is especially noteworthy considering that most of these branches were established during the economic Depression.

During the 1930s to 1950s, the UNF flourished. It played a key role in the educational and cultural life of Ukrainians in Canada by fostering dance groups, choirs, orchestras and theatre groups; establishing libraries and cultural centres; and publishing Noviy shliakh/New Pathway, the magazine Woman’s World and books. The UNF encouraged Ukrainian-Canadians to not only promote an independent Ukraine but to also actively participate in the general Canadian community, especially in the political sphere.

It was and continues to be an inclusive organization that aims to reach out to all Ukrainians in Canada, regardless of their political, religious or other beliefs.

From the 1960s onward, the UNF’s membership started to dwindle. “We lost at least two generations due to lack of interest and, to some degree, apathy,” said UNF National Executive Treasurer and Focus on the Future Conference Chair Dan Cherkas. “From the mid-1950s on we haven’t retained many people. We got to the point where UNYF was basically non-existent until Taras Babyuk formed a club in Toronto,” said Cherkas.

“When I was in the UNYF, we probably had more members than there were in the combination of UNF, OUK and the UWVA. The youth arm of the organization was the largest contingent, and very few of those people are in the organization today,” he added.

Cherkas’ concern about the falling membership led him to volunteer to head the Focus on the Future conference committee.

Other UNF conference committee members are President Kalimin, UNF National Executive Secretary Les Salnick and UNF National Executive Members Natalka Bundza-Iwanytzkyj, Daria Diakowsky, Walter Maceluch, and Michael Wawryshyn.

As the committee’s chair, Cherkas greeted delegates on October 28 and outlined the agenda for the upcoming two days.  Afterwards, Kalimin presented an introductory address outlining the UNF’s major objectives: “To unite all Ukrainian Canadians, regardless of their political, religious or other beliefs, with the exception of those that are socially or politically damaging, to promote the spirit of unity among Ukrainian Canadians, to strengthen the Ukrainian-Canadian community, to protect and expand the place of our Ukrainian-Canadian community in Canadian society; to serve the Ukrainian-Canadian community and represent its common interests, to be a well-spring out of which our cultural heritage will flow.”

On Saturday, Cherkas opened the day by giving an overview of the UNF’s organizational background and the challenges facing it in this area today.

Following Cherkas’ remarks there was a panel discussion on organizational issues.  Panelists included: Les Salnick, who spoke on the UNF’s organizational structure, Taras Pidzamecky, CEO of the Ukrainian Credit Union Limited, who spoke on good corporate governance, and Walter Kuplowsky, a lawyer and member of the UNF National Executive, who spoke on the UNF’s constitution from a legal perspective, including the rights of branches and the National Executive’s duties.

The floor was then opened up to participants who brought forward their concerns regarding the constitution.

Speaking after the event, Cherkas said that issues relating to the constitution need further discussion. “There are a number of things that may be outdated, and we won’t really know until we do a more detailed review and that needs to involve branches,” he said.

The UNF constitution is not a standard legal, corporate document. In the 1950s, UNF members at the national and branch levels came to an agreement as to how the organization should be structured. Their agreement was then passed as an act of parliament, and all of the branches signed on to that piece of legislation.

After the panel on the constitution, delegates were divided into moderated discussion groups and asked to provide feedback on the following topics: the role of the national executive; views of the national executive, communication, budgets, membership fees, and ways to improve the relationship between the national executive and branches.  

A discussion-group format was used in order to facilitate communication.  “I’ve found through experience that this format allows people to have an open discussion without getting into branch politics and all kinds of other things. And, we specifically broke up the delegates into groups so that no one branch dominated the group,” said Cherkas.

Next, Les Salnick, the President of the Board of Directors of Noviy shliakh/New Pathway, gave a presentation on the newspaper. He noted that the publication is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year and stressed that it has always been “a community newspaper as well as a voice for political points of view.”  In addition, he pointed out that the editorial policy is to “report on events relating to the Ukrainian community regardless of political, religious or any other views,” and that editors have editorial freedom.

The luncheon speaker was Eugene Roman, Group President, Systems & Technology, Bell Canada Enterprises, Chairman of the Board of the Ukrainian Credit Union Limited, and a member of the Ukrainian National Federation. In his speech, he drew on his own life experiences to demonstrate the benefits to the individual and the organization when one participates in community affairs. He challenged the group to become more aggressive in recruiting new members.

Fittingly, in the next conference segment, Kalimin and Salnick gave presentations related to membership.

In the final Saturday session, called "The Youth Factor," a panel of university students from the University of Toronto and York University gave opinions on what would attract them to an organization.  “I wanted the members to hear the views of the young people that we are going to have to start reaching out to,” said Cherkas explaining why this session was included in the agenda.

“We got a very honest and open view. As an example, they said: ‘Why should we belong to an organization like this?’ and ‘What’s in it for us?’ And, that’s no different than if I asked one of my friends to join,” said Cherkas. “The types of issues in general terms are very similar, but the final solutions are going to be different because the activities that would interest a university student are going to probably be quite different than someone in my age bracket or anyone in between,” he add.

On Sunday, Cherkas gave a brief report on finding funding for UNF activities through federal, provincial and municipal government sources as well as charitable foundations.

But the main session of the day, again, dealt with membership. However, according to Cherkas, “unfortunately, very few members were prepared to deal with the task at hand, and the discussions digressed into a venting forum on various organizational issues. We need to revisit the ‘how’ part at a future date.”

Even though the membership question needs to be revisited, Cherkas said that, overall, much progress was, nevertheless, made on this issue as well as on the constitution and communication. These three areas are ones that will affect the organization’s future most, said Cherkas.

Focus on the Future was “a new beginning in terms of beginning a dialogue focusing on the future,” said Cherkas. Now, it’s important to keep the momentum. To this end, Cherkas presented the conference findings to the UNF National Executive on November 7, and a full report will be submitted to all branches by the end of the month.

Future conferences are also being planned. “We had a very significant number of people say ‘we’ve got to have another one,’” said Cherkas. And, the conference committee has agreed to stick together as a group to plan follow-up events dealing with the UNF’s future.

Cherkas said that Focus on the Future was a success as it “opened the door and created awareness amongst the members and the branches that we can deal with the issues. We just needed to find a format that worked, and we’re very confident of what we did. Using similar approaches on an on-going basis we can get a more unified voice as to where the organization needs to go.”

 PHOTOS

Conference Chair Dan Cherkas

UNF President Michael Kalimin speaking to delegates