Inside the Board of Directors at CVNQuinte
Laying the critical foundations to support everyday excellence
Most people never think about a board of directors. They work in the background, meeting monthly, reading minutes, voting on policies. They are the scaffolding that holds an organization upright.
At CVNQuinte, the board is something a little more than that.
Terri Korkush, Executive Director, describes the board as the people who exert influence, ensure alignment to specific values, and bring the kind of outside perspective that keeps the whole organization sailing toward an ideal point on the horizon.
What makes this board different, those who serve on it say, is the organization it reflects.
Giving Back to a Community that Needs It
Victoria Watts joined the CVNQuinte board and serves as its current Chair. She has served on other boards. She came to this one knowing the landscape of nonprofit governance, but she found something here she did not expect.
“This is a beautiful community board with great people around the table,” she reflects. “They’re very knowledgeable and very passionate about working with adults living with intellectual disabilities.”
For Victoria, the work is not a burden. Monthly meetings are not an obligation to manage.
“I find it’s a very joyful place,” she says. “Coming here for meetings is something that I actually look forward to every month.”
She points to the organization’s approach as the source of that feeling. CVNQuinte works with adults with intellectual disabilities in a way that, she notes, not every organization in this space has chosen to adopt.
“It’s extremely person-centred,” she says. “There’s such respect for the people we support and it really empowers them to have a choice in their care and what they would like to do in life.”
She sees that ethos in the employees she encounters, in the people CVNQuinte supports, in the energy of the place itself. “It’s just a very joyful place to be,” she says. “I’m very proud to be a part of this board.”
What Makes a Board Work
Victoria has enough experience with boards to recognize when one is functioning well. She is direct about what she believes makes this one work.
“This board operates pretty efficiently,” she says. “I think it’s about Terri, actually. She just runs a great organization. She makes it easy for us. She’s very transparent about what goes on.”
That transparency, she says, creates the conditions for genuine governance. The board is not managing uncertainty or filling in gaps. It is guiding an organization that already knows where it is going.
Changed by the Work
Beth Shea came to CVNQuinte’s board almost six years ago. It began quite practically, she explains: a period of employment transition during COVID, an invitation from Terri and a willingness to say yes to something new.
“What interested me the most is when Terri started telling me about the organization and the services that we provide to persons that we support,” Beth says. “I found it intriguing and unique to other services.”
She stayed. And as the years passed, her understanding of what CVNQuinte does deepened.
“What sets CVNQuinte apart from other organizations is their individual-based services,” she says. “It gives the persons that we support an opportunity to be involved in the community at levels that they might not be involved otherwise, and they get to explore their own interests, and our staff assist them in doing that.”
Beth believes the model is the right one, and that its time is coming. The Ministry of Community and Social Services, she notes, is moving toward services more tailored to individual needs, which aligns closely with how CVNQuinte has been operating for years.
She speaks with confidence about the organization’s future.
“When Terri became Executive Director, she made some amazingly positive changes in all areas,” Beth says. “And I can’t help but feel, with Terri at the helm, that CVNQuinte is only going to get bigger and better.”
Near the end of the conversation, Beth is asked how the experience has shaped her. She pauses.
“The longer that I have been here as a board member, the reason that I have stayed for so long is because I have developed and grown a real passion for how CVNQuinte operates.”
When asked whether she has changed the organization, or whether the organization has changed her, her answer is immediate.
That kind of transformation is not unusual at CVNQuinte. It happens in the lives of the people the organization supports. It happens in the people who work within its scope. And apparently, it happens in the people who meet once a month to make sure the whole thing holds together.
Terri Korkush says CVNQuinte is always looking for people ready to be part of it.
“We are always looking for great directors,” she says with an inviting smile.
