Former president returns to board
HUMBOLDT Last August, Jamie Brockman was feeling worn out.
He’d served on the Humboldt Broncos board of directors for five years and was its president when he stepped down in August 2017.
Although the team can have up to 12 people on its board, it often doesn’t have enough interested people to fill all the seats. During the 2016-17 season, the last in which Brockman was president, he oversaw a board of just eight people.
“It was a lot of work,” Brockman recalled. “It was a second-time job for awhile because we were running with small boards ... I needed a break because I was worn out.”
In the aftermath of the April 6 crash that killed 16 people aboard the Humboldt Broncos team bus, Brockman wanted to return to the board. He felt he had experience that would benefit the organization, and he knew the international spotlight that had been shining on the Broncos since the spring would attract enough attention that the team would not have empty seats on its board.
Brockman was one of seven people elected to the Broncos board on Monday night during the team’s annual general meeting. Seven other people were unsuccessful in their election bids.
Past and present board members who were at the meeting said Monday ’s AGM was, in their memories, the best-attended. No one could remember the last time the organization needed to hold an election for board members.
Brockman said having 12 people on the board this year will help it run things smoothly and efficiently as the team heads into the upcoming hockey season, which begins next month.
Those at Monday’s meeting heard the Broncos had been projecting a deficit of between $30,000 and $35,000 for the 2017-18 season before the April 6 bus crash. Since then, the team has received an unprecedented volume of donations and its financial statements for the season are not yet complete.
A representative of HSA Chartered Professional Accountants, which oversees the Broncos’ books, said about $2.4 million in donated funds is sitting in segregated bank accounts affiliated with the team. It’s not yet clear which of those funds belong to the team and which will go to the Humboldt Strong Community Foundation, which was set up to collect funds for those affected by the crash. Brockman said the board will ensure the money is used responsibly. “We still need to budget, we still need to do our fundraisers, we still need to be as profitable as a regular junior A hockey team is at all times,” he said.
At least four people running for the board gave speeches saying they want to make sure the Broncos board is transparent. Brockman said he hopes the team can use social media more and do a better job of letting people know about big milestones before they happen.
“As a board, you can’t share absolutely everything. However, there were times perhaps a little more could have been shared,” he said.
Broncos president Kevin Garinger, who is entering his third year of a three-year term, said he is “thrilled” by how many people want to be on the board and he hopes the team can carry that momentum into future years.
“We have a different normal and the normal now is it’s all hands on deck, we can’t do it alone,” he said.