New Board & AGM Update

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Access Copyright’s new board of directors is unlike any of its predecessors. The collective’s members have, for the first time, reached outside their own ranks to elect directors from the education and technology sectors.

Two academic librarians, a leader in public education and a technology CEO became the first wave of directors recruited under a new governance process after their election at the 2014 AGM in late April.

The new directors were recruited by a member-driven Nominating Committee and elected to a restructured, 11-member board that replaces the previous 18-member board.

The governance changes are part of a top-to-bottom transformation of Access Copyright, begun over two years earlier, designed to deliver on a renewed commitment to meeting the needs of content users—particularly those in education.

“Continuing our partnership with the education sector will directly benefit Canadian writers, visual artists and publishers, which will indirectly benefit all those who rely on published content for teaching and learning,” said Roanie Levy, executive director of Access Copyright.

The new governance model enables members to recruit and elect directors with skills best-suited to the task at hand, but don’t expect that to change Access Copyright’s close connection with Canadian creators and publishers.

“Many talented creators and publishers have served on Access Copyright’s board of directors over the past 30 years and many more will in the future,” said Levy.

Elected at the 2014 AGM were:

Ron Canuel, president and CEO of the Canadian Education Association and former head of a K-12 school board.
Nicole Dixon, electronic resources librarian, responsible for scholarly communication, at Cape Breton University, an award-winning author and former K-12 teacher.
Bob Foley, recently retired director of library services at Malaspina University-College/Vancouver Island University.
Tyl van Toorn, president and CEO of the Fantan Group, specialists in design-oriented business-to-business and business-to-consumer digital innovation.

They join six representatives from the 2014-15 Board including: Cameron Macdonald of Canadian Science Publishing, Jeff Miller of Irwin Law and David Swail, recently of McGraw Hill-Ryerson, plus writers Katherine Lawrence and Michael Elcock, and Sandy Crawley of the National Reading Campaign, as well as Executive Director Roanie Levy.

Other Highlights of the 2014 AGM:

2014 revenues ($21M) were higher than budgeted while expenses ($6.1M) were lower than budgeted.
Access Copyright distributed $18.7M to writers, visual artists and publishers in 2014.
Of the $12.1M in royalties Access Copyright distributed domestically in 2014, 45% is estimated to have gone to creators and 55% to publishers.
76% of creator affiliates stated they were either satisfied or very satisfied with the fairness of Payback in 2014.
Elected to the Nominating Committee by creator representatives was Kristian Clarke from Canadian Artists’ Representation, while publisher representatives elected Brush Education’s Glenn Rollans and Nelson Education’s Jonathan Abrams. They join John Degen of the Writers’ Union of Canada and Michael Elcock on behalf of the current Board.
Members approved the creation of a Membership Advisory Committee, tasked with communicating key concerns and interests of affiliates and membership to the Board