Roughly 80 people showed up Sunday to voice their support for the work of Many Rivers Counselling and Support Services, with about 50 signing on to membership applications for Friends of Many Rivers.

That’s according to a Facebook post by Kirsty Wells, a tattoo artist and co-owner of Molotov and Bricks, which hosted an event in support of the organization that began to lay off some of its unionized staff Friday.

Friends of Many Rivers is not a formally-established group and does not act on behalf of Many Rivers. It did not take any donations last week at another event last week - but its aim this weekend was to gather names of those who would be interested in becoming members of the society.

The event, running from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, saw supporters take photos for a solidarity poster-campaign for the organization and mental health services in the territory.

The aftermath of the disruption of services is something Wells has been feeling for far too long, she said.

“I’m missing work,” she told the Star this morning, noting she’s been ill enough since the strike, which began last November, that she’s missed about four days of work.

“It makes my job harder as well,” she said, because as an artist she can sometimes be “working intimately with clients for hours on end.”

A number of sensitive or touchy subjects can sometimes come up, and she needs time to process what she hears, respecting that the artist is not a therapist by any means.

“If I’m not at my fittest mentally, it’s hard for me to process that information.

“I care deeply for my clients and I want to be there for them,” she said, adding she has been noticeably more quiet at work as well. “I’m trying mostly, just to honestly get through the day.”

The best-case scenario would be to bring services back by the spring under new leadership, she said: “People who care about reorganizing itself so it works better for the board and the employees, for its clients that it’s serving, that would be ideal.”

Staff and the management/board have been at odds for months: the layoff notices came just after workers returned to work earlier this month after having been on strike for 80 days since November 2018. That was thanks to a ratified agreement in mid-January.

The board of directors of the organization, headed by then-president Marina Bailey, was unreachable during the strike, but released a statement last Tuesday (published in the Star).

In it, Many Rivers acknowledged that there was “anticipated temporary stoppage of funding” from YG, so it had begun to lay off its staff. That release was also posted to the doors of the Whitehorse office.

That stoppage of funding came because the group has been listed in non-compliance with the Societies Act since last summer.

The Department of Community Services received a number of complaints about the society, and, following an independent investigation, made a report from that available to the Star last week.

“The Registrar of Societies is reviewing the report, and is providing copies to Many Rivers and to the complainants, along with an invitation for them to make any submissions they wish him to consider,” department spokesperson Bonnie Venton Ross said last week.

The deadline for those submissions has been set for March 4, but until the registrar completes his review of the findings, the organization will be listed as non-compliant under the legislation.

Meanwhile, according to Many Rivers’ release, that report explained that the investigation found that “the society acted reasonably and in good faith in rejecting the applications at issue.”

That was in reference to the investigation that looked into complaints that Many Rivers refused to approve some membership applications last summer and last fall.

The organization said they were “rejected on the basis that they were incomplete and due to concerns that the applicants were likely not eligible for membership.”

The statement wraps by noting that the complainants can withdraw their complaints, which “would put an end to the investigation and avoid the possibility of layoffs and reduced services pending the outcome of the Registrar’s investigation.”

The report itself, shared by Venton Ross, noted the department had received nine complaints dated October 2018.

The complaints allege, among other things, a failure of the society to process or accept membership applications; cancelling an annual general meeting on June 21 and not notifying of a new date for one; not responding to 22 membership applications made in September 2018 and denying some members access to an AGM held on Nov. 23.

“The primary issue raised by the complaints is with respect to membership in the society,” the report read. “Were all those who applied for membership entitled to be members and therefore to receive notice of any Special or Annual General Meeting held by the Society, as well as a copy of Society bylaws and its list of members?”

It continues by laying out some of the facts: last June, the society received seven one-page member application forms from people, three of whom were the complainants.

A June 21 AGM was cancelled with a sign on the door “because the financial statements needed for the meeting were incomplete,” the report added.

As for the conclusion, the report notes that facts show “serious differences” between those wanting to join the society as members and the society’s board of directors and management over about eight months.

“There is also evidence of a fundamental difference of opinion between the Society and Corporate Affairs regarding the rights of the Society to screen members and the role of the Registrar in supervising how the Society operates,” it added, noting that much of had to do with who is entitled to become a member of the society.

That’s because the bylaws show that members “must subscribe to the purpose of the Society,” which allows the society “with a reasonable basis to screen prospective applicants for membership to ensure that they do in fact so subscribe.”

The report continued that for those prospective applicants for membership, “there is no provision requiring notice: to them or any other public notice is required.”

“It seems probable that the directors of the society did act in good faith,” the report reads, based on the information they received at the time, regardless of if some of the complaints were acting in good faith to pursue their membership applications.

Meanwhile, the report also includes a number of documents, including a Nov. 22 letter from Many Rivers notifying an applicant that their application has been rejected because it was incomplete by submitting only one page of a two-page form.

It also notes that the fee and applications were returned.

“In normal circumstances, we would invite you to re-apply,” that letter read.

But it was likely that the application would be rejected because it “is not bona fide, in that it has been submitted for an improper purpose,” it said.

In addition, it alleged that the member did not “subscribe in good faith to the purpose of Many Rivers, but rather the evidence suggests that it is your intention to act in concert with other YEU (Yukon Employees’ Union) members as part of a conspiracy to disrupt the legitimate business activities of Many Rivers.”

It adds that was against the backdrop of ongoing negotiations of a collective agreement between the union and Many Rivers.

For her part, Wells said replacing the board could be a good call.

“Lots of dialogue took place between everybody about how the lack of services has affected someone they know or them,” Wells said, adding Sunday’s event was a “steady stream of people the whole time.”

While she is a client of Many Rivers, she explained that signing up for membership, if accepted, would grant people more say in pressuring off the existing board.

“The current board of directors is disappointing and irresponsible to me,” she said, “because they’re getting paid to do a job that entails looking after vulnerable members of this community and they have not been doing it.”

That makes events like this Sunday’s all the more important, she added. “It went really well, it was impromptu; we didn’t do a whole lot of advertising.”

She estimated that around 100 people in total showed up to yesterday’s event, which included some of the counsellors.