This year’s annual meeting took place at the usual site, the Knowlton Golf Club, on Tuesday, August
16th. Directors and members assembled to get the news from the year and approve resolutions that
were required to end the year in good stead.
Bill G. Duke, Treasurer, (standing left), Dr. William Barakett, President & Chair, (center), and Ron Creary, Executive Director, (right) at the recent annual meeting of the Foundation.
The assembly was informed that the last campaign projects are all going well with the last of the
projects finishing in late 2012. Donations to the various foundation projects as well as to the various
foundation scholarship funds totalled $381,643 for the year.
The Chair, Dr. William Barakett, was obliged to announce the sudden death of Mr. R. Claude Menard, a recently appointed Director who had supported the last campaign as a valued volunteer. Claude
was instrumental in landing a major donation from Agropur as well as providing a significant donation
himself. He will be sorely missed.
The Treasurer, Mr. Bill G. Duke, informed the members that the Foundation was in good financial shape.
Presently, the Foundation has a variety of non-capital assets totalling over 2 million dollars and 2010
administrative costs came in at 3.6% of said assets. According to the Chair, this very low administrative
charge is in stark contrast to other foundations that spend heavily on fundraising and are forced to
accept significantly higher administrative costs. The Butters Foundation is proud of the fact that 96.4
percent of very dollar received is subsequently invested in projects directly affecting intellectually
disabled or autistic people and their families.
At the end of the meeting, a general discussion of future fundraising projects was led by the Chair.
Various projects were discussed, all requiring the support and participation of our public partner,
the CRDI Monteregie-Est. The board will use the coming 12 months to study projects with a view to
launching a new campaign by the summer of 2013.
Ron Creary
August 22, 2011