In a bid to survive and thrive, the Richmond Chinese Community Society (RCCS) has, of late, made a slight course correction along with a number of changes.
RCCS said goodbye to two of its three full-time staff recently - including the retiring, long-time executive director Henry Beh – to reduce costs at its home on Westminster Highway at Buswell Street.
Since then, the volunteer board of directors have picked up the slack at the mainly Cantonese-speaking non-profit and started reaching out to the Mandarin-speaking community in Richmond.
The move, according to RCCS president Linda Li, has worked out very well, with more than 400 new recruits signing up for the organization that already had more than 1,000 active members.
And, as well as providing social events and classes for the city’s Chinese community, RCCS is currently writing a joint grant application with the predominantly English-speaking Minoru Seniors Society to bring the two groups closer together.
“RCCS has been going for almost 30 years and the population (of Richmond) has changed since then,” RCCS president Linda Li told the Richmond News.
“Before, we just served Cantonese (speakers), but there are more Mandarin-speaking groups now and we also want to change away from just being a bridge to community harmony.
“We want to be more than a social club, we want to provide more services to our members.”
Previously, there was a perception that the RCCS’ move last year from Park Road to its current, smaller location – hence, less programming and less revenue - was the main reason for its financial difficulties.
“That’s not entirely true. Revenue is not the problem, the expenses were the problem; that was the part we had no control of,” said Li.
“We moved because the rent was cheaper. We were moving anyway. We are trying to balance things here and it’s not easy.
“We have applied for several grants, but every year is different, there are no guarantees of getting them and we can’t budget for it.
“We should use our money as efficiently as possible…our admin costs were way too high and the government funding is getting more difficult to access.
“We are re-structuring the whole society. The cost-cutting was the first thing. We want to survive first and then offer better services to our community.”
The city’s ageing ethnic Chinese population has all kinds of problems right now, added Li, who wants to “help people with that and be more of a bridge and platform for them” to services in Richmond.
“But we are not just looking at senior groups, we are thinking about doing a youth leadership program,” said Li, noting that the vast majority of its membership is aged 50 and above.
“We are going through a lot of transition right now and writing for a lot of grants. We want to take it to a level beyond a social club.”
As for a shift into the realms of local politics, Li said no such move is anywhere on the radar for RCCS.
“Not politics. Definitely not,” she said.
“We want to educate and introduce people to services that are available in the city. We didn’t focus on that before.”
Li added that, given the finances, there is no plans to replace the well-respected former executive director Beh.
RCCS director and past president Thomas Yu said the joint grant application with the Minoru Seniors Society will hopefully connect isolated seniors from different cultures.
“If we get the grant, from the Richmond Community Foundation, we’re going to have a special roundtable with Minoru to talk about working more with them and other community groups,” said Yu.
“We’re not trying to compete against each other, we need to work together; why re-invent the wheel?
“We have good programs, they have good programs, we can join them and they can join us, a kind of cross-pollination.
“We (all) have to be more creative in finding revenue…it certainly opens up opportunities.”
