I am delighted to humbly submit this report to the CARG members. As you know, I just completed the first year as President of CARG. This responsibility was more challenging than I had anticipated. I tried to do as good a job as I could. I realize that everything did not work out perfectly; there were shortcomings and it is possible that some of you were not fully satisfied. Any how, a lot was achieved and all this happened with the support that I received from you both morally as well as in performing the required tasks.The major challenge this past year was to nurture the Coronary Artery Rehabilitation program at the Shaw Centre and bring it to the level of the program we have at the Field House. The CARG activities started in September 2009 with all three lanes rented from 8:30 AM to 11:30 AM. The starting time has since been extended; the tracks are now available from 7:30 AM to 11:30 AM. Resistance exercise equipment provided by the Saskatoon Health Region and purchased by CARG with part funding from the Saskatoon Lions Club is also available.
The CARG members who walk in the Field House have, hopefully, noticed the changes that have taken place in the Field House facilities. The resistance equipment owned by CARG was maintained in good working order. The Health Region / Field House have built new office accommodation for use by the Exercise instructors. This freed a lot of space in the Resistance Exercise Room; this space has been used by bringing in new equipment. Also, two storage cabinets have been acquired in which materials that were previously being stored in boxes are now stored in the storage cabinets. The Saskatoon Health Region has provided two computing systems to exercise instructors for accessing medical records of CARG members and participants in other fitness programs for discussing their exercise needs as well as for use during emergencies. CARG provided two additional computing systems to exercise instructors.
I am delighted to report that CARG received from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Saskatchewan a commitment for $2,000 per year for a period of two years in support of our Heart Pillow project. Funds for the 2009-10 year have since been received.
The Social, Hospital Visitation and Heart Pillow Committees continued to function very effectively with the able leaderships of Vic Zapf, Ethelyne Eichhorn and Darlene Urban respectively.
The CARG web site has been maintained and a very educational Blog has been developed. These facilities keep members informed of CARG activities as well as provide information on important developments in health care in general and cardiac health in particular.
The highlight of the year was the twenty-fifth anniversary celebrations. These started with the pancake breakfast to welcome CARG members back in the exercise programs. This was followed by the next event that was the Anniversary dinner; this was attended by more than 200 members and guests. Two congratulatory messages were received; one from Honourable Don McMorris, Minister of Health, Government of Saskatchewan and the other from the Saskatoon Health Region. The highlight of the dinner consisted of CARG presenting plaques to Dr. Louis Horlick, Dr. Whitmer Firor and Dr. John Merriman thanking them for their foresight and initiative in starting forty years ago the Cardiac Rehab program that led to the formation of CARG. All these activities became possible solely by the initiative and assistance several members of CARG. Some of these are Peter Scott, Curt Weberbauer, Ron Fleming, Vic Zapf, Howard Hrehirchuk and their teams of volunteers who worked hard to make the CARG operation a success.
Finally, CARG Board of Directors considered ways to increase dialog with the members. It decided that, in the New Year, two Directors will make themselves available at the Field House to meet with the members for answering their inquiries and for listening to their views and suggestions. The minutes of the Board of Directors meetings will also be posted on the CARG web site.
Mohindar
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