Question: What can students or community members access/ gain through Provincial?

  • Skills
    • Governance (You will learn and use an array of decision-making structures and policies)
    • HR
    • Outreach
    • Event Planning
    • Decision-making structures
  • Resume credentials
  • Networks & Job References
  • Templates & examples
  • Mentors
  • Archives
  • Training 
  • Job Opportunities

Question: How does the OPIRG Provincial Network help students?

Students benefit from your chapter being affiliated with OPIRG Provincial Network because of the range of services and tools available to improve the chapter’s work locally, and the level of networks and skills that students can tap into across the Province. The specific services the students working with your chapter’s staff, board, action groups, and networks can access include: INSERT LIST

The OPIRG Provincial Network helps students by ensuring that OPIRG chapters can access support for carrying out their goals and responsibilities on their various campuses. We actualized this support by offering these services to the staff and board members at each chapter to help the ways they show up for their teams, members, campuses, and communities. 

To understand how OPIRG Provincial helps students, it is important to understand how it helps chapters. The majority of OPIRG chapters’ and their memberships are made up of students, and so it is important for all folks involved with the chapters to understand what services are available to them and their membership in order to make the most of the range of services and supports available to students.

There are two types of support students involved in your OPIRG chapter can access through Provincial:

Supports, services, and resources that are always available through your chapter’s affiliation with the Ontario PIRG Network:

  • Free Cross PIRG Publications that can be used for outreach, training, and institutional memory. Examples include the OPIRG Provincial Comicbook, Annual Supermarket Tour Resource
  • Free Training Opportunities & Materials – In addition to connecting chapters to collaborate on training and hosting the annual Board Training School conference, OPIRG Provincial houses past recorded training and hosts online training depending on the demand from the chapters. Additionally, for training events, OPIRG Provincial works with its network of facilitators to provide relevant videos, handouts, and notes from the different sessions that are available and circulated to students in the various chapters. Additionally, students at the different chapters can reach out to the OPIRG Provincial staff for help with setting up training on topics relevant to their local chapters.
  • Free Provincial-wide Conferences & Meetings – Each year, OPIRG Provincial hosts a range of opportunities for students across the Provincial to gather and connect on the work they are doing through network-wide events. The Provincial Board and related commitments take on all of the planning and coordination for these events to ensure they are as accessible and relevant to as many students as possible coming from 8-11 campuses.  Food, travel, childcare/caregiving subsidies, and accessibility subsidies are always available for people participating in the network-wide Board Training School Conference, School for the Public Interest, annual staff retreat, Annual General Meeting, Provincial Board meetings, and any other trainings or meetings that get planned 
  • Free Monthly OPIRG Collaboration Lunches – A new pilot program – the OPIRG Provincial Coordinator with support from the Chapter Support Collective is currently coordinator and hosting a monthly online meeting open to all PIRG staff, board members, and action group members to talk about strategies and building solidarity (including PIRGs outside Ontario!)
  • Financial support services for lower revenue chapters – Currently OPIRG Provincial has 3 structures in place to create a system of financial solidarity, equity, and accessibility for chapters across the network (all of which have different amounts of secured annual budget). OPIRG chapters with the lowest annual budget, receive the Equalization Fund and Health Plan Supplement each year, and can apply for additional funding through the OPIRG Provincial Chapter Support Fund!
  • Access to the OPIRG Provincial Charitable Status – The OPIRG Provincial Network is a registered charity, and so has access to a Charitable Tax Status. If the students at your OPIRG chapter or in your action groups are applying for grants and issuing charitable tax receipts for donations made to your PIRG chapter. This service also helps students working on fundraising and sustainership campaigns. 
  • Administration of health plan benefits – As part of the CUPE 1281-OPIRG Collective Agreement, a requirement for all staff is to have health insurance provided to them. The OPIRG Provincial Bookkeeper, along with the Finance & Admin Collective takes on the work of administering the Greenshield Insurance & Longterm Disability Benefits, and working with each chapter to ensure staff are accessing their benefits and the Boards are maintaining this responsibility. 
  • CUPE 1281 & Collective bargaining supports – To support the Collective Bargaining process, OPIRG Provincial provides a budget to both the employers’ bargaining team, and employees’ bargaining team to have access to training and food for meetings related to the collective bargaining process every three years. Additionally, the OPIRG Provincial Network has taken on the costs of ensuring a French translation of the collective agreement following the ratification every three years.
  • Resource sharing and institutional memory – The OPIRG Provincial network houses various platforms for folks involved in the OPIRG chapters to share resources and house their institutional members. The OPIRG Provincial Resource Hub and the OPIRG Provincial website are two spaces that chapters can access to not only promote what is going on, but also find templates and examples to work off of. Additionally, as a keeper of institutional members, OPIRG Provincial currently maintains the WPIRG Archive. 
  • Maintaining communication, outreach, and web platforms across the network – To keep all of the different parts of OPIRG Provincial moving and updated, the OPIRG Provincial staff and Board maintain the Provincial Website, Provincial Network Slack, and Provincial Listservs. All of the students involved in their OPIRG chapters and the Provincial Network are able to utilize these platforms to connect with other chapters, share updates, request resources and feedback, and so much more!
  • Help from the OPIRG Provincial Coordinator – Planning & strategic visioning, website supports, training for Boards, planning Provincial meetings and conferences, maintaining archive and internal communications systems, participating in the work of the various collectives and committees.
  • Working with the Provincial Bookkeeper – In addition to working with FAC on the day-to-day finances of OPIRG Provincial an managing the Greenshield & LTD payments, the Provincial Bookkeeper can provide training for your chapter’s team on OPIRG financial literacy. 
  • Chapter-specific supports and consulting – If your chapter is navigating specific issues or working on campaigns or looking for resources – students at your chapter can reach out to the OPIRG Provincial Coordinator and network members to talk through issues, getting templates, building out policies, getting contacts, and helping build out campaigns and action plans.
  • Information on creating a new OPIRG chapter – If there are students connected with communities who want to create a new PIRG chapter, or they are moving to cities without a PIRG chapter and want to start one, the OPIRG Provincial Network can meet with interested students and community members to talk about the initial and sustainability steps needed for starting an OPIRG chapter!

Anything missing? Anything you’d like to see?
Please get in touch with our Provincial Coordinator at: opirgprovcoordinator@gmail.com