Caboto Club to debate membership proposals at executive meeting
Highly criticized, women-excluding policies on table after Wynne cancels
Whether city Coun. Bill Marra remains a member of the Caboto Club will depend on what the club’s board decides on Thursday about its highly criticized, women-excluding policies.
Marra, a former recipient of the local Italian of the Year award, said Monday that there is a consistent sentiment among the many people he’s been talking to lately who all believe a change is “long overdue,” at the popular Italian club.
The issue returned to the spotlight recently when Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s office announced her town hall meeting at was being changed to the St. Clair College Centre for the Arts because of Caboto’s policy that bars women from being full voting members or holding positions on the board of directors.
Marra hopes change will happen Thursday when the board meets to discuss several proposals on how to make the club’s membership policy more inclusive for women.
“We’ve been going to the club for years, as family members, the city has elections there, I’ve had an election there, I got married there, that’s where my reception was,” Marra said.
He added that he recently had a conversation with a member of the board.
“I said I’m certainly not going to knee-jerk react right now. But if the board decides not to make a change, I feel very strongly I’ll have to rescind the membership.”
The proposals being discussed Thursday came out of an hourlong meeting Saturday between club officials and Unifor director of automotive Dino Chiodo and Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce president Matt Marchand.
“We had a good meeting and I’m optimistic there’s an opportunity to find a resolution,” Chiodo said.
“We expressed our concerns. There was a positive response,” he said. “They’re taking some of the ideas discussed back to the executive board and membership.”
Chiodo declined to discuss any proposals put forth Saturday until after the executive board has a chance to hear them Thursday.
Representing Caboto at the meeting were club president Dennis Segatto and manager Ron Moro.
“I will not say anything until af- ter the meeting,” said Segatto in an email seeking comment Monday.
After Caboto’s policies were back in the news because of Wynne’s cancellation, several community organizations which use the club said they were reassessing their relationship with the popular venue.
Marchand was unavailable for comment Monday, but tweeted out over the weekend he was optimistic progress could be made.
“I was encouraged because they didn’t say no to considering things as I thought they might,” Chiodo said.
Unifor Local 444 president James Stewart also has a meeting scheduled this week with club officials to discuss the issue. Local 444 uses Caboto for a number of events, including two large retirees’ banquets each year that draw about 1,600 people, and a number of smaller events.
“There’s absolutely no reason to believe they wouldn’t understand the consequences (of the status quo),” Chiodo said.
He said the most important thing local organizations would be looking for from the executive board meeting is a positive change in direction.
“It might take some time for the process to unfold, vote and make changes to the constitution,” Chiodo said.
“What we’d like to see is some intent of progressive change. Something we can build off, some movement.
“I think what people are looking for is a willingness to be part of the community as a whole.”
Chiodo added the labour movement and the chamber of commerce agreed to let things play out at executive board and a membership meetings scheduled for this month.
“After that, we plan to meet again and see where we go from there,” Chiodo said.