The Canadian Transverse Myelitis Association

My name is Kimberley Kotar and in June of 2008 I had written an article in the TMA newsletter about starting a support group in Montreal, Quebec. Well, a lot has happened since that article was published. I managed to complete a half marathon and three marathons in the last eleven months; the last one being the Boston Marathon. While this is great in the fight against TM by raising awareness, my biggest news is that I was asked by Sandy Siegel to spearhead the establishment of the Canadian Transverse Myelitis Association; an affiliate support group of The Transverse Myelitis Association.  Our organization will serve Canadian members of the TMA who have transverse myelitis, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, neuromyelitis optica, and optic neuritis, their family members, as well as the medical professionals who perform research on these disorders and provide clinical care to the people from our community. 

When you sign up for membership in The Transverse Myelitis Association through the TMA web site, you will automatically become a member of the TMA and the Canadian TMA.  The international TMA will continue to maintain the database of members.

I am in the process of submitting the application for our not-for-profit status.  Through this application, the Canadian Transverse Myelitis Association will become a self supporting entity within The Transverse Myelitis Association.  We will take over the responsibility for printing and mailing new member packets, the journals, newsletters and membership directories. While many of these documents can be distributed via email, there are some people who request hard copies sent via the postal service. Also, the membership directories are sent via the postal service to limit the ability to create an electronic document from these lists, thus helping to protect the privacy of our members.  This means that the Canadian TMA will have significant printing and mailing costs.  Sandy, and the other officers and board of the TMA, are requesting that contributions made by our members from Canada be made directly to the Canadian Transverse Myelitis Association to cover these costs.  The Canadian TMA will be establishing programs in the future, such as a fellowship fund, to provide direct services and benefit to Canadian members.

I would also like to ask for assistance from all of our support group leaders to organize fundraising in their city or province to benefit the Canadian Transverse Myelitis Association.  If support group leaders need help in the form of ideas or getting started, please feel free to contact me. We also need for more people to get involved in serving as support group leaders.  We would like to have at least one support group leader from each province and it would be great if we had more than one support group leader in each province.  I ENCOURAGE anyone interested to contact me about getting involved. 

The current support group leaders are:

Marieke Dufresne
82 Somerville Ave,
Westmount, Qc, H3Z 1J5
Canada
(514)489-0471
marieke@myelitis.org
 
It might seem like a challenge to become a support group leader.  We are confident you can do this and it is very rewarding to help other sufferers who have these rare neuroimmunologic disorders of the central nervous system.  I want to see the Canadian TMers coming together to support their association and to help make it a success to benefit us all!  This is your association, Canadians, so feel free to get involved in anyway you can.  Please send me your ideas and suggestions, and please let me know how we can better serve you in the future.

I can be contacted via email at kkotar@myelitis.org.

Donations may be sent to: the Canadian Transverse Myelitis Association, 263 Malcolm Circle, Dorval, Qc. H9S 1T6.  We appreciate your support!