From the Editor's Desk

By Sharon Ward
Director of Communications
  

What a year this has been.

Your National Board has been working hard on your behalf all year, and it’s my pleasure to let you know what has been accomplished.

The brochures developed by Director of Public Affairs Karen Cooke have been distributed to club presidents and the table top displays were made available by request.

Director of Education Brenda Mahoney revamped the New Officers Seminar into The Business of Progress, a session for all attending convention.  This new seminar will answer a lot of questions for new and seasoned members alike.

Director of Member Services Glenn Montgomery has been working to resolve our Supply House issues and improve our Awards processes.

Your editor (and Director of Communications) has endeavoured to email copies of each Progression issue to all club presidents for distribution, in addition to having the newsletter posted to our website.  This practice has been well received.

President Elect Juanita Soutar has taken on the daunting task of updating and streamlining The Blue Book, CPC’s manual of everything Progress.  She plans to have it 90% complete by Convention.  A round of applause for taking on a very big project.

In Brampton in January, your Board took a hard look at where Progress is going.  A visit from executives from Kin Canada (Kinsmen, Kinettes) revealed that they, too, as a group were losing ground with membership and suggested we share some ideas, as there are a lot of similarities between the organizations.  The visit and presentation from Kin Canada caused the board to focus inwardly.  CPC has been losing ground and measures were needed to reverse the direction and bring this club back to strength.  The Board made the decision to set up a strategic planning session for the Spring meeting in Edmonton, and bring in a facilitator to keep us on track.  Halifax club member and facilitator Tony Mancini was approached to work with us in Edmonton.  Thank you Tony, for donating your weekend to Progress.

What came out of this strategic session is an action plan to get Progress moving in the right direction again.  National President Wolfgang Juchem and Past National President CJ MacMullin spearheaded this initiative and with invaluable information from your regional Vice Presidents, Bob Lockhart, Lyle Rogne, Gary Kisil (handily represented by John Holman in his absence) and Rosalie Courage, the Board undertook a spirited and intense session to come up with a plan that is equitable, user friendly, proactive and results-oriented.  As members of the Canadian Progress Club, I urge every one of you to give this plan the serious consideration it deserves.

Finally, I cannot say enough about the efforts of Terry Clarke and Adrian Lomas (on behalf of the Board) in bringing CPC into the 21st Century with MCS.  This system is only as good, however, as the carbon units who use it.  We’re getting there, slowly, but I urge you all to not only comply but to embrace it and use it for Progress.  These guys deserve nothing less than our full cooperation.  Take a bow.