From the President's Desk

By Wolfgang Juchem
National President
  

As most of our clubs have started winding down for the summer, I would personally like to congratulate each and every one of you on another successful year.  Based on the reports provided by our Regional Vice Presidents at the last National Board Meeting, fundraising and community service efforts exceeded what was achieved in the previous year and membership in our regions is either stable or rising.  Well done!!!!!

Since my last report, I attended the Great Plains Region Annual General Meeting in Saskatoon, the Western Region Annual Convention in Drumheller, and the Central Region Annual General Meeting in Pickering.  These were great opportunities to meet many of our Club Presidents and members in a business setting.  I learned a lot about how you manage and administer your clubs and we were able to share many great ideas.  Your support of your regions and of our national organization is very much appreciated.

The things and ideas that your Regional Vice Presidents and I have learned over the year were a great building block for the strategic planning session that we had in Edmonton in June.  With the help of Tony Mancini, who made the sacrifice of his personal time to be with us, we were able to formulate some directions that we need to go as a national organization.  The Canadian Progress Club is only as strong as the clubs that make up this organization.  Therefore, in order for Progress to be stronger, we need to do a better job of promoting and fostering strength in our clubs at the local level.

We were able to identify the drivers that constitute a strong and effective club.  We then took those drivers and formulated them into an assessment model—a model that is outlined on the front page.  We will be asking our club presidents and our members to self assess their clubs and identify their strengths and areas of opportunity and we will be asking you to share this information back with your Regional VPs and Zone Governors.  It is our intent to use this information to develop strategies on a club-by-club basis and provide you with the support and tools that you need to become stronger clubs.

As we have geographic and cultural diversity across this country, clubs have diverse issues and needs that need to be addressed.  What works in one part of the country may not work in another part of the country.  We believe that if we focus on individual club issues, with the help of your VPs and Zone Governors, we can achieve positive change at the club level, to make the Canadian Progress Club stronger on a national level.  We will be sharing a lot of the gathered information with you all the convention in Edmonton.

Speaking of the Edmonton Convention, the committee were our gracious hosts at the June Board Meeting.  They provided us with very strong and encouraging information for our upcoming convention.  The registrations indicate that this will be one of the best-attended conventions, and they have all of the venues lined up and ready to go. Based on the rain that Edmonton had over the weekend, we are assuming that they will have West Edmonton Mall dried out by then.

This week being the start of the Calgary Stampede, the clubs here are in high gear.  I wish them all of the best in their efforts to raise the revenues and public awareness of what great work our clubs do.  I had the good fortune to be at the Dogie Do Rodeo this weekend.  Our Calgary Downtown Club presented the Big Sisters and Big Brothers of Calgary and Area with a cheque for $170,000.  If that wasn’t enough, during the presentation, one of the event sponsors was so impressed, he provided the charity with a personal cheque for $25,000.  This would not have happened without the event hosted by our club.

Have a great summer everyone.  See you in Edmonton.