Greetings OAN members and affiliates, 

As the Co-Chairs of the Board of Directors of the Ontario AIDS Network, we wish you all a Happy New Year! We hope that 2021 will be a productive, safe and rewarding year for us all as we continue to work together to support and strengthen our communities.

As we venture into 2021, we want to share with you an important update regarding the long-term strategic goals of the OAN. Specifically, that we plan to extend our existing April 2016 to March 2021 Strategic Plan until March 2022.

In March of 2020, our board had planned to spend the balance of the year engaging with our members, affiliates and other stakeholders to develop a new 2021-2025 Strategic Plan. However, given the ongoing realities of the COVID-19 pandemic and its continued disruption of our collective work, we believe our members and affiliates are best served by delaying the strategic planning process until we have a better sense of the longer term implications of COVID-19.

While we had looked forward to this next phase of strategic planning, the Board believes that the OAN’s existing strategic directions — which support vibrant partnerships, speaks loudly for evidence-informed policy, and builds highly-skilled leadership — remain highly relevant to our sector and the ongoing work of the OAN.

We look forward to providing an update on our plans to create a new Strategic Plan in early 2022. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or concerns. 

Thank you.

John McCullagh and Janet Rowe
Co-Chairs 
Ontario AIDS Network