Directors' Corner: Stan Meissner



I have had the privilege of being on the SOCAN board of directors for the last 10 years, serving as treasurer since 2003. As a songwriter, this has given me a great opportunity to look under the hood and really understand how and where we, as members, earn our money through SOCAN.

As treasurer, my role, along with that of my fellow board members, is to help oversee and provide direction to the financial operations at SOCAN. Our duty as board members is to act as your representatives, your eyes and ears within SOCAN, making sure our management team understands our needs as music creators and publishers and, in this case, as it pertains to SOCAN’s financial activities, including the collection and distribution of our royalties. As a board, we see to it that SOCAN employs rigorous risk-management standards, and, along with our financial team and our auditors, we ensure the operations are conducted cleanly and in the best interest of our members.

Due in no small part to our retiring CEO, André LeBel, as well as our legal, licensing and finance teams, we have seen a period of great financial growth for SOCAN and its members over the last several years, with our distributable royalties increasing from $121,754,000 in 2001 to $212,591,000 in 2009.

Every year at the SOCAN annual general meeting, the treasurer provides an overview of the previous year’s financial activities as well as the presentation of the audited financial statements. As I write this, we are gearing up for the AGM looking back at 2009, set for
June 21 in Vancouver.

In the days following the AGM, at socan.ca, you will find the 2009 Financial Report, which contains the full financial statements, informative charts and graphs, and a commentary from SOCAN’s chief financial officer. While all of this can sometimes seem a bit dry, this financial report portrays what’s at the heart of what we do at SOCAN and how we all earn
our living as music creators and publishers. So take a look.


Uploaded Summer 2010

Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Send them to Rick MacMillan, Words & Music Corporate Editor, at wordsandmusic@socan.ca.

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