Gary Warner
Former Director Arts and Science Program, McMaster,
Order of Canada recipient.
"OPIRG plays a very valuable role on the McMaster campus by providing opportunities for students to commit themselves as engaged citizens and to develop their leadership, team-building, planning and program implementation skills around issues of human rights, social justice and environmental responsibility. OPIRG not only mobilizes energies in this way but also serves to heighten awareness on campus about a wide range of issues of global and local concern. I have great admiration for the contribution that OPIRG makes to developing active citizens through its many projects."
Rabea Murtaza
"Serving on the OPIRG Board is a significant opportunity to work with others in the community who are committed to social justice and interested in transforming themselves and the environment around them through a whole range of working groups and practical projects. It is also an invaluable way to practice using consensus tools to make group decisions with a group of very different, opinionated and passionate people working together over a sustained period of time. It is hard to overstate how much difference it makes in the way you organize with people to actually have this experience under your belt, so that you know it is possible. The Board is a critical place to come together and start campaigns that creatively and effectively make use of our capacities to make change. This is a good place for people who are interested in making connections between anti-racism, gender, sexuality and queer politics, labour, anti-capitalism, environmentalism and anti-militarism, and who care about how these issues intersect on the ground, to make best use of the role OPIRG can play locally."
Scott Neigh
"I first met OPIRG when OPIRG first returned to McMaster, and we got along famously from day one. My very first "activist" meeting of any kind was filled with tired, happy people overjoyed at just having won funding to bring OPIRG to campus and strategizing about what to do next. It was the end of my second year of a biochemistry co-op degree, and I had been doing some reading and thinking and decided I wanted to see what this whole social change thing was about. Somehow, a few meetings later, I was on the committee charged with hiring OPIRG McMaster's first staff over the coming summer. At the beginning of the next school year, still very new and unsure of how I wanted to be involved, I signed my name to a list for the Waste Reduction Working Group. A few weeks went by. I dropped by the OPIRG office to see if maybe my name had somehow dropped off the list and I wasn't getting the emails that had surely been circulating about the meetings that had surely been held. It turned out that nothing at all had happened yet. By the time I left the office -- completely unsure about how introverted, neophyte me had been convinced that this was a good idea -- I had a list of contact information in my hand and had committed to doing what I could to make sure things got rolling. I was heavily involved in Waste Reduction for the next three years."
Brian McHattie
"As the Ward One City Councillor responsible for west Hamilton, including the area around McMaster University I have had the great pleasure of working with OPIRG on a number of fronts. OPIRG's Transportation for Liveable Communities working group has been instrumental in encouraging more sustainable transportation options for Ward 1 and throughout Hamilton. In particular, we have made headway in making the pedestrian environment around the campus and surrounding neighbourhoods safer, and are working together on a new city-wide Pedestrian Committee. Perhaps of most import is OPIRG's ability to act as a beacon for keen students, interested in using their considerable talents to make a difference in the world. I look forward to continuing to work closely with OPIRG in my time time here as Ward 1 City Councillor."
Jahan Zeb
"OPIRG provides strong leadership opportunities to the students and members from the community to work many issues poverty, volunteerism, leadership development, environment, social justice, art, culture, advocacy and the overall community building. OPIRG is a vibrant organization that will further grow with the passage of time.Being past OPIRG board members, I feel proud that I was part of a strong, energetic transparent and caring board.
The staff and members at OPIRG and its working groups are doing excellent job. They are fully accountable to the board and the community all the times. I wish all the best to OPIRG board and staff."