TWINNING COMMITTEE REPORT FOR 2010-2011

We have made two main changes for the twinning program in Canada for 2011. We have introduced Twinning Receipts, which we request of the partners to whom we send funds, part of our due diligence as Penny says, to account for these funds and be accountable to the CRA, should they ask this of us. Secondly, we have completed a Twinning Manual, which collates the various documents that guide this work for us. It is available on the National website at ssvp.ca

As your National Twinning Chairperson, I have committed to goals for twinning in 2007, and continue to try to address them.

Below is a report on progress with these goals, and other task items that are done to maintain and promote twinning. 

• Promotion of projects as a way to further assist out twins – We encourage conferences and councils who express the wish to help their twin more, to consider the project process.

The project between conferences here and in Dominican Republic, to complete a cement block home, was completed, much to the gratitude of the family that was helped and the conference that facilitated the change.

• Articles in the Vincenpaul magazine, which goes to all Councils in Canada.

The titles of articles published in 201 are: What Happens to Our Twinning Funds, Excerpts from the new Twinning Manual, and Help Us Find The Poor in Canada (Internal Twinning).

• Assistance where possible of the young adults in their twinning endeavors.

The young adults will report at the plenary session of the AGA on their works. 

• Approaching twins who haven’t transferred funds in the past 3 years, to ask about their needs and wishes in regards to twinning. We did not act on this goal this year.

Task Items

-  Twinning Receipts – We received a report on the weariness about not receiving responses from the Twin after repeated letters being sent, and slow transfer of funds from National/Superior Councils to the Receiving Twins. It discourages twinning action, forgetfulness in prayers of the donating twin, and reluctance to send funds. We are now asking Receiving National Council presidents or National Twinning Chairpersons to return a form on which we have left space for them to indicate the date that funds were transferred to twins, and their signature. This process requires their cooperation, and may take a while to have it become a matter of practice. We have had a fairly good response from the National/Superior Councils.

On the other hand, I received this from a National Council president: “I once again very gently would like to remind you that although the conferences do good work, their communication abilities are limited because most of them have no ability to correspond in English and also do not have internet access.”

-  Twinning Manual – The National Board reviewed the manual presented to them, and made changes for clarification and process. It is available on the National website, with a few hardcopies available from your Regional Twinning Chairperson.

-  Transmittals - We are so grateful to Nicole, who sends our twinning funds to the National/Superior Councils four times a year. For example, in February, she sent bank transfers to 40 twins with 14 countries, with requests for twinning receipts. In addition, letters were sent to all the Canadian Conferences and Councils who had passed up the funds for these twins. She also collects the twinning receipts for us. These actions and communication make twinning a possibility and gift for us, a legal transaction, and a benefit for the poor around the world.

- We have suspended twinning with El Salvador, as advised by the International Council General. The ICG legal team is working on getting a bank account established for their National Council, aggregations confirmed and also started for those who are not yet aggregated by ICG, and establishment of a National Council who has resolved their issues. Carmela Addante, the Western Hemisphere Twinning Representative for the ICG reports, “…we are all working hard to resolved the problems as seamlessly as possible.” 

-   Lastly, to report, we are 126 strong, with some conferences and councils twinning with two twins. I have 50 International twinning applications from the following countries: Peru (3 Conferences and the National Council), Dominican Republic (9 Conferences and 1 Zonal Council), Nicaragua (5), Haiti (8), Colombia (18, with 6 Conferences, 4 Particular Councils, 2 Central Councils, 4 Departmental Councils, and 2 Zonal Councils) and Guatemala (1).

Respectfully submitted,

Kathy Weswick, National Twinning Committee Chairperson
twinning-chair@ssvp.ca

All the twinning forms are available in the "Forms to download" section, under "Twinning".