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Welcome to the Ontario Spondylitis Association Website. Our mission is to educate and raise awareness about spondyloarthritis. We welcome feedback, questions and comments at info@on.spondylitis.ca.

OSA REORGANISES AS A CHAPTER OF THE ARTHRITIS SOCIETY.

The Ontario Spondylitis Association has, since its inception, operated under Terms of Reference as a specific disease association of The Arthritis Society, Ontario Division. Under a recommendation of the Ontario Board of The Arthritis Society, the OSA has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with The Arthritis Society whereby, effective June 10, 2008, the OSA ceased to become a specific disease association of The Arthritis Society and instead became a Disease Specific Provincial Chapter of The Arthritis Society.

What does this mean to you, and indeed to the OSA? In many ways, things will not change: you will still receive our quarterly Newsletter and we will still be organizing public forums across the Province. We will still have our website and we will continue to encourage membership so that we can keep you informed of events and news that affect the SpA community. We will also continue to solicit donations to fund research.

There are some things that will change particularly around membership fees, fundraising and the allocation of funds raised for research. First, as of your September Membership renewal, membership fees are optional. Any membership fee or donation you care to give will be fully tax-deductible. Second, the OSA is mandated, as a Chapter of The Arthritis Society, to continue raising funds for research, so your donations are always welcome. Third, because the OSA is now a Chapter of the Arthritis Society rather than a Specific Disease Association, we will not have the ability to specify that any funds we raise will go to SpA research. Rather, all funds raised will go into the general account of The Arthritis Society for it to designate how they will be spent on research projects.

We are fortunate that The Arthritis Society has committed its First National Initiative grant to the Spondyloarthritis Research Consortium of Canada, for a period of five years. Consequently, the priority funding of The Arthritis Society for the next two years continues to be SPARCC.

Being a Chapter of The Arthritis Society brings other benefits to the OSA. We will now participate in the Chapter Council meetings. Additionally, anyone who joined The Arthritis Registry and expressed an interest in Spondyloarthritis, but who may not have become a member of the OSA, will now be treated as a member and received our Newsletter.

If you have any questions about this transition in your association, please contact us.

This page was last reviewed/updated on : 03/22/2010