| Canadian Progress Club Progression On-line |
May 2004 |
National |
| From the President's Desk By
Wolfgang Juchem
Well my friends, I can personally attest to the fact that spring has finally arrived in all parts of Canada. Over the past three weeks, I have had the pleasure of visiting both the west and east coasts. Timing is everything. I visited our Vancouver Club and attended their annual Mayne Island Murder Mystery. The weather was idyllic. The grass was green. The flowers and the trees were all in bloom. In the meantime, St John’s was getting a foot of snow. Last week, I did a three-province tour of the Maritimes. On my first full day there, I attended a luncheon meeting at the Halifax men’s club and the same day C.J. and I drove six hours to Moncton and back to attend an evening meeting with the Moncton boys. Jamie McGloin ran one heck of a meeting. With all of the stuff that the club had going on, it seemed to me like it was almost one event per member. And, they have 35 members. Ask them to tell you about the “Homeless Hotel”. The next day, we were off to Pictou Country, for their club’s “Chair Affair and Fashion Show”. This was their 2nd annual event and Michelle Russell and the ladies did an incredible job. The highlight for me personally was bidding on the Adirondack Chairs. I still want to see how they are going to ship my new chair home to me. The event was absolutely first class. The next day I flew to snowless St John’s for their 17th Annual Canadian Progress Club Benefit Auction. The event is in support of the Vera Perlin Society and Special Olympics Newfoundland and Labrador. I didn’t believe Nelson Stokes for a minute when he told me that they chose the German theme this year with me in mind. All that yodeling just brings tears to my eyes. My traveling days are not over. This weekend is the Western Region Convention in Drumheller; next Wednesday I am in Saskatoon for the Great Plains Regional Meeting; and in mid June, I am in Toronto for the Central Region Convention. In between all of that we have the National Board Meeting in Edmonton, the host city of this year’s National Convention. The Board Meeting will be a little different this time around. In addition to our regular meeting topics, we are committing almost two full days toward strategic and operational planning. We have long suggested that clubs have strategic plans and we feel it vitally important that we have some specific strategies in place to administer with membership growth, under-strength clubs, and other operational issues. Tony Mancini from the Halifax men’s club has graciously offered to facilitate these sessions. We would like to get as much input into these sessions as possible. We will be communicating more details on the scope of our discussions and we sincerely welcome your feedback and comments. I t is my hope that we can present you with some specific goals and action plans in time for the September Edmonton Convention. After a very long and happy stay at the Bob Rumball Centre for the Deaf, the National Office of the Canadian Progress Club will be moving on June 15th. Arrangements are being made to transition this move so that we do not adversely affect service to our members. More details will be forthcoming. Please take note of the new mailing address:
The phone numbers 1-800-246- 9908 and 416-446-1830 will remain the same. I am very pleased to see the advancement we have made in getting our database management system populated. The MCS will be critical in future years to streamline getting information out to members. If you haven’t entered your club members’ personal information, we need it now! If has been very gratifying to see all of the good things that we are doing across the country. We are seeing some good membership growth in some areas, creative and strategic realigning in others, and great successful events everywhere. Even though my term isn’t over yet, I want to thank you for making my year as National President so challenging and rewarding.
|
