The Administration Materials series contains documentation pertaining to the management and chronology of the Renaissance Singers of Montreal.

Administrative records consist of general and committee minutes, 1902-1972, annual reports, 1902-1964, personnel files, 1937-1947, files of correspondence and memoranda on individual sites as well as themes, e.g. water pollution, 1906-1972; and various surveys and studies, 1912-1967.

With surviving records dating from 1936, Administrative Records reveals much of the practical functioning of the MCSA at the executive level as to day-to-day business and to some extent also in matters of longer term policy. In files typically spanning anything from a year to a decade or more, it documents executive supervision of the four Sections -- Case Work; Group Work and Recreation; Health; and Older Persons -- and the standing and special committees appointed by the Board of Directors (formerly Governors) and their Executive Committee. The heaviest of any series in correspondence, Administrative Records contain a high percentage of the communications of the President (who also served as the Chairman of the Board), the Executive and Assistant Executive Director, the Secretary and the Board of Directors variously with other officials, committees, and member organizations and their delegates to the Council.

It also holds reports, briefs, and minutes generated by external welfare agencies or internally by MCSA members and submitted to the executive (i.e., the Directors). But the Board of Directors also produced their own minutes, memoranda and reports, some of which survive in this series. The correspondence, policy statements and working papers in Administrative Records reveal the MCSA's over-all direction, perhaps never more so than in the late 1960s and early 1970s wherein along with the Committees Series they detail connections and merger negotiations with the Conseil des Oeuvres and then the Conseil de Developpement Social. In thus chronicling the transformation of an established, autonomous English-speaking institution into, first, an increasingly bilingual and then a French-as-official-language one (albeit with a provision for other language service to anglophone or allophone agencies and clientele), they reflect QueQec nationalist pressures in the wider society about them.

The series provides a main link with universities (most signally the long-standing affiliation with the McGill School of Social Work); Montreal, Canadian and Quebec governments; and such varied bodies as the Canadian Welfare Council, Association Cooperative d'Economie Familiale, Conseil de Bien-Etre du Quebec, Canadian Mental Health Association, and United Community Funds and Councils of America. Administrative Records likewise act as the medium of liaison with Welfare Federation and United Red Feather Services in regard to pensions, benefits and conditions of employment for paid personnel.

The C.O.T.C.’s administrative history is detailed in a series of Minutes and Reports which range from 1941-1959 (20.72 cm). In this series, information is preserved regarding regimental committee meetings, annual general meetings, and C.O.T.C. Association meetings, as well as mess reports. There is also a series of “Commissions for Lieutenants” signed by the Governor General/Surgeon General/Deputy Minister of Militias and Defence (1915-1916, 0.07 cm). The series Directories and Roll Calls details the names of C.O.T.C. members (1917-1946, 26.6 cm) and includes journal entries, orders and newspaper clippings. “Orders” records are comprised of three bound books and includes notices, marching routes, camp orders and newspaper clippings (1914-1929, 14 cm). Further to these more densely populated series regarding the administrative history of the C.O.T.C. are photographs (n.d., 0.01 cm) kept in an envelope and incorporated into directories, as well as a soldier’s handbook (1916, 0.5 cm), a letter to Lieutenant Colonel J.M. Morris from T.S. Morrisey addressing pay (1940, 0.01 cm), mess meetings, staff, publicity and the University of Toronto contingent of the C.O.T.C.’s records.

This series consists of all materials pertaining to Endre Farkas’ and other artists’ play company.

Anna Dawson Harrington's papers consist chiefly of incoming correspondence, including: 1.5 cm of letters from J. W. Dawson, 1868-1896; 3 cm from Margaret Mercer Dawson, 1870-1902; 10 cm from George Mercer Dawson, 1865-1901; 7 items from William Bell Dawson, 1868-1876; 5 items from Rankine Dawson, 1871-1899; 15 items from Eva Dawson Atkin, 1880-1896; 13 cm from her husband B. J. Harrington, 1876-1906; 2 cm from her children, 1892-1913; 1 cm of congratulatory letters at the time of her marriage, 1875-1876; 13 letters from friends and associates, 1867-1911; 4 cm of letters of sympathy on the death of her husband, 1907; 2 cm of letters concerning subscriptions for his portrait, a girlhood diary, 1866-1871 and some notes for biographies of J. W. Dawson and George Mercer Dawson. Earlier years contain substantial correspondence from her brother George during his education in London and early travels with the International Border Survey and then the Geological Survey of Canada. Substantial family correspondence with her children during their youth and her husband Bernard relates to domestic matters, such as the household, new house, the children's health and activities, with frequent passing mention of finances.

files 1230-1233, 1289, 1496

Series contains correspondence, programs, planning and financial documents, reports, and photographs related to the society's annual meetings.

In general documenting the annual conference and public accounting of activities held after the close of the fiscal year, this series consists of MCSA records only, i.e., those generated by or for the institution's central bureaucracy; and, in a single instance (file 1094), an address delivered at the annual meeting of a member agency, the John Howard Society. Where the MCSA was itself closely affiliated with, or a member of, an external organization but the latter was not a member of the MCSA -- for example, the Canadian Mental Health Association or the Canadian Welfare Council -- the foregoing's annual meetings are in the Conferences, Seminars, Workshops and Institute Proceedings Series. The annual reports of functionally farther removed external organizations -- for instance, the Arctic Institute of North America or the Canadian Research Centre for Anthropology -- are in the Subject Files Series.

In the early years a few gaps exist in the MCSA records of annual meetings and annual reports. However, extant holdings represent 1924-1925 and 1931-1972. Though sparse compared to later standards, annual reports from the first usually included statements to the public and the Council membership made at annual meetings by the President, Executive Director, Executive Secretary, and heads of the four major Divisions (later Sections); but sometimes not all of these features are present and if there was an annual meeting, it does not seem to have been recorded. Of particular interest to students of the Depression may be the 1931- 1933 Annual Report of the Special Committee on Unemployment (file 997).

By the early 1960s, however, reflecting an increase in the amount, complexity, and professionalization of MCSA activities, files in this series have substantially expanded. They contain: invitations to member delegates and non-member political figures and welfare officials; agendas; logistics; dinner menus; minutes of the last annual meeting; and reports by the President, Chairman, Executive Director and/or Associate Executive Director, and Honorary Treasurer. Also included are amendments to the Constitution and by-laws, the report of the Nominating Committee and the election of Directors, the appointment of auditors for the next fiscal year, and addresses by guest dignitaries or visiting officials of other welfare organizations. In later years these files invariably contain the minutes of the last general meeting, and often of the current year, too. As of 1969 the fall meeting and annual meeting become virtually the same thing, being held the same day and place, the annual meeting taking perhaps an hour in
the morning for the presentation of executive and administrative reports with the afternoon devoted to the fall conference's addresses, papers, panel discussions and workshops. Most of this series is understandably serious in style as well as subject, but a lighter note was hit by Constance Lethbridge at the 1956 annual meeting with her production of Progress Through Planning and Leadership: An Illustrative Musical Playlet (file 803).

Series consists of annual reports and annual meeting documents for the Parks and Playgrounds Association from 1902-1964 and the Community Garden League from 1933-1959.