13 February 2023

Founder's Day Message - Founder’s Day A Time to Celebrate​

Like many things IODE Founder’s Day is unique. It is both a birthday and New Year’s; equal causes for happy celebration. As a birthday, 123 years is a major accomplishment for a women’s charitable organization.  Getting started in the deep winter of 1900 was no mean feat. Imagine travel on the river ice by sleigh and on rudimentary roads by sleigh or carriage, gathering in a room  heated by a stove in the corner and using natural light.  The women who gathered as a result of communication from the Mayor, a man of course, were resourceful and determined.  As more groups of women formed across Canada and across the seas in other countries in the British Empire, these women were organized enough to have their organization become incorporated although women were not considered persons by the law.  While doing this, they worked to support soldiers and their families.

IODE service has transformed over the 123 years and has a broad impact in Canadian communities. It was that capacity to change, as society changed, that has allowed IODE to arrive at 123 years of age and still be a major charitable force.  It is time to look forward to our 125th Anniversary celebrations and how to build on the fabulous foundation the first 122 years have given us. We have rallied during our Covid isolation and learned to Zoom, conduct online auctions and outdoor sales and many other new ways to follow our purpose. We have demonstrated the same determination and resourcefulness that the women did in 1900.

No wonder people have often misnamed IODE the “Independent” Order Daughters of the Empire.  Over the years, our behaviour has been independent.  As we move forward, we now need to demonstrate that we are also inclusive.  Our service has met this standard for a very long time.  We have supported those in need without regard to religion, race or gender.  We have gradually begun to transition to allyship.  Asking what those we help need and acting on what they tell us and not just delivering what we think they need.
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Now, we begin a new year with the momentum of the previous year’s successes to increase our enthusiasm.  Our founder, Margaret Polson Murray, sometimes wrote hundreds of letters a day seeking women to form this organization.  Very few of those
letters had a positive effect.  Our enthusiastic celebrations of IODE Awareness Week and Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee attracted women to seek membership in IODE.  Let us share our enthusiasm for the work we do as we celebrate our 123rd year.

Jane Cushing
President
IODE Canada
_________________________
IODE Canada Head Office
80 Birmingham Street, Suite B6,
Toronto ON M8V 3W6

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​09 September 2022

Up-date from the Board of Directors

​Thank you for the opportunity to serve as your President.  I am looking forward to the next year. The work of our IODE members in their communities across Canada is tremendous.  These accomplishments are celebrated at our National Annual Meeting and are featured in this edition of Echoes.  During IODE Awareness Week, 01 to 07 October 2022, we tabulated those results across Canada and have a clearer idea of what can be accomplished when Working Together for Many. Seventy years ago, The late Queen Elizabeth II assumed the throne and pledged to continue the life of service to which she had committed on her twenty first birthday. At that time, IODE pledged to support Her Majesty’s commitment to service and this sum of the service done by IODE in 2022 will demonstrate our continuing loyalty to that commitment.  “What does the “I” in IODE stand for?  Members requested a fresh approach to these questions and have agreed “I” will stand for “inclusive”.  Good communication, opportunities to safely share ideas and mentors are ways that chapters include their members.  Listening to those we seek to help is inclusive.  Respecting all the people in a chapter and sharing leadership roles is inclusive.  Allowing new members and chapters to do things differently is inclusive.  As a result of the Pillars Membership Project conducted by the National Advisory Committee, we learned that members like being able to undertake the projects that suit their communities.  Members pointed out that women who shepherded them during their first years in IODE were key to their IODE membership.  From our Quebec Silence to Sound scholarship winner we learned of allyship.  To practice allyship we throw away our ideas about what people “need” and listen to what they think would improve the quality of their own lives. At the National Annual Meeting, the speakers from Mama Bear Clan and North Point Douglas Women’s Centre in Manitoba, described how they practice allyship. These are all examples of inclusiveness.  Let us apply the concept of inclusivity to the regular business of our chapters. Enjoy our membership and share that enjoyment with others.

Jane Cushing
President
IODE Canada
_________________________
IODE Canada Head Office
80 Birmingham Street, Suite B6,
Toronto ON M8V 3W6

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27 May 2022

Acceptance Speech of the National President at the 112nd National Annual Meeting

Thank you for the opportunity to serve as your president.  It is an honour to follow in the footsteps of the Fredericton, New Brunswick women who answered Margaret Poulson Murray’s call to begin a new organization and then held firm behind her efforts to form a chapter in Montreal.  Encore une fois, une Néo-Brunswickoise a l’opportunité  d’introduire une nouvelle ère au sein du développement du IODE. En effet, elle sera la première présidente qui n’est pas  originaire de l’Ontario. 

This change has been made possible by the vision of IODE leaders like Catherine Moore, Doreen Hamilton and Jean Throop.  Carol McCall has smoothly led IODE in the transition from our letters patent, that forbade a president not “readily accessible” to the national office in Toronto and prevented Margaret Polson Murray from even serving on the executive, to our By-Law #1 under the Not-For- Profit Act, which allows any member in good standing with IODE leadership experience to become president.

IODE has grown forward over the 122 years of its service while accomplishing a huge amount of service to people living in Canada. During this time women have been recognized as “persons”, changes in transportation have made the national office accessible to all of us, and modern technology allows women from coast to coast to meet monthly to help steer this great organization.
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The many kinds of service to those in need that IODE women undertake change as time changes the needs around us. This flexibility means that IODE never has to be out of step with the times. Let us go forward “working together for many”, enjoying the friendships established through that work, and celebrating our accomplishments and each other.

Jane Cushing
President
IODE Canada
_________________________
IODE Canada Head Office
80 Birmingham Street, Suite B6,
Toronto ON M8V 3W6