Message from the Chair–January 2022

Looking Back to Look Forward

Seasons change, and so does the calendar, and we have a new year to celebrate. Here at the AOMBT, we will be moving forward, informed by the past.

This is my first year as Chair of the AOMBT and being part of an organization that serves the midwifery community and its employees is an honour and great responsibility.

It can be tricky to find the balance of ensuring we provide a comprehensive benefits plan while ensuring our members have money to invest in their retirement plan and for leaves, with the finite amount of money each midwife receives in benefits funding.

In the last year, we said goodbye to our previous Chair, Kelly Gascoigne.
Under her leadership, several projects were achieved, and some initiated which we have continued to carry forward.

It has been quite some time since we surveyed our membership and in 2020-2021 our surveys took a deeper dive into member demographics.

With this information we initiated new work with equity consultants, and their report will be coming to members later in the new year as well as undertook an evaluation of members experience with disability, illness, and injury and the AOMBT disability program.

Trustees provide governance to the AOMBT, but we must also have processes to govern ourselves. We have worked to improve our governance structures as well, in addition to succession planning, the ensure stable leadership and look for new trustees to add to the skills trustees currently hold.

In the meantime, we are mapping out how we can implement recommendations from the equity report and work towards a more diverse membership of trustees and advisors. We will have trustee vacancies for the upcoming 2022 election process and will have opportunities for interested members to sit on committees as well. The AOM Benefits Trust wants to ensure equity at the governance table. We want to continually move our organization forward in ways that brings greater quality to the lived reality of our diverse membership. We can’t have that in a meaningful way without diverse voices. So, we invite everyone, certainly those who have not had their voices adequately heard which would include our IBPOC members, to the table of friends and changemakers.

If it sounds like we have had a busy year, I would say this is true. Staff have done an amazing job managing our programs while taking on new work arising from our projects and research.

The past year was a challenging one in the wider world in so many ways. We will be here with an eye to what we’ve learned from the past in supporting you in the year to come.