Stories from the Neighbourhood

We are looking for amusing anecdotes, stories about the inception of our neighbourhood or just why you enjoy living here. Please, no identifying information unless you have permission to share.

The Story of our Incorporation

The following is an excerpt from a general meeting of the Spring Valley residents, likely written sometime after 1948.

“Do You Want a Charter?

We the residents of Spring Valley Survey at Ancaster, Ontario learned the hard way, the mechanics of obtaining a charter for our Community Association.

Having made our decision to purchase land for a park and playground we thus forced our own hand to become a non-profit company in order to make a legal purchase of the desired property. It sounds easy enough and would have been except for a few blunders into which our inexperience and enthusiasm lead us.

It had been suggested by someone that the method should be the submission of a Constitution and a set of By-Laws to the Secretary of State who would be empowered to grant a charter under the Companies Act of l867.

A committee was struck and after several meetings the complete picture was ready for presentation. A General meeting of members passed the work of art without a change and happily we sent it off to the Honourable Colin Gibson. How were we to know that the only errors we had made were (one) drawing up the Constitution in the first place (two) sending it to the Federal Department and (three) applying for it under the wrong Act.

The Assistant Secretary of State returned us our material and very politely suggested that it was very good and quite acceptable but that it would be much better if we applied to the Deputy Provincial Secretary in the usual way.

Once more we mailed our voluminous material in duplicate and sat back waiting to become a company. Finally the Secretary received a letter from the Deputy Provincial Secretary. On opening the fat official registered envelope we found to our consternation that it was not our charter but once more like the bad penny, our carefully prepared material had returned. A nice letter from the department carefully explained that everything would be fine and dandy if we would just fill out the enclosed application forms and send them along. A tactful note at the end suggested that if we had difficulty with the forms we would be well advised to seek legal council.

Fortunately we were able to secure the services of Mr. T.J. McKenna, a young lawyer in Hamilton, who took an interest in our troubles and offered to help out in an honourary capacity. Quickly the necessary forms of application under Part 2 of the Companies Act of 1934 were prepared and sent to the Deputy Provincial Secretary of the Province of Ontario. Twice they were returned for correction or addition and finally on the 1st day of April 1948 a charter was granted.

We hope that the story of our experience may be of some assistance to other veterans communities wishing to form a non-profit company for the advancement of their particular efforts. Our only word of advice is that they seek proper legal guidance in the first instance for by so doing we could have saved months of time and hours of work.

Good Luck with your Charter!”