Over the past six years, Vibrant Surrey has positioned itself as a model for cross-sectoral collaboration to reduce poverty and to address issues connected to poverty. The Society incorporated in 2007 and hired staff. This enabled the organization to further build the Vibrant Surrey ‘brand’ and credibility in the community but progress on initiatives on the ground did not progress as smoothly. 
Since October 2009, Vibrant Surrey’s leadership has been discussing how to best meet the interests of the organization, its investors and stakeholders, and the community. The core funding accessed by the organization for the past three years is coming to an end and the Board has taken this opportunity to restructure the organization to focus on core function and priorities.
Vibrant Surrey is restructuring in order to focus on our main purpose: collaboration to reduce poverty in Surrey.  We have contracted with two part-time staff: an Administrative Assistant and a Project and Partnership Manager. While our governance and staff structure have changed, our goals have not. We remain committed to building social capital, incubating initiatives and encouraging community learning. 
We have completed the Surrey Forum, the Voices of Experience initiative, and Moving Towards Solutions 2. We will continue to incubate projects and to develop future initiatives, focusing on food security, asset building and micro-finance.
The members of Vibrant Surrey are as committed to poverty reduction and to this community as ever. The form has been changing ever since Vibrant Surrey began. It will continue to change as the realities of our community change. To us, this is the mark of a successful, learning organization: one that constantly tests and checks the environment and adapts to change as it occurs.
We look forward to working with you as we continue to engage in the complex task of reducing poverty in Surrey.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Susan Keeping, Co-Chair
   For the Board of Vibrant Surrey